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Mean   Listen
adjective
Mean  adj.  (compar. meaner; superl. meanest)  
1.
Destitute of distinction or eminence; common; low; vulgar; humble. "Of mean parentage." "The mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself."
2.
Wanting dignity of mind; low-minded; base; destitute of honor; spiritless; as, a mean motive. "Can you imagine I so mean could prove, To save my life by changing of my love?"
3.
Of little value or account; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable. "The Roman legions and great Caesar found Our fathers no mean foes."
4.
Of poor quality; as, mean fare.
5.
Penurious; stingy; close-fisted; illiberal; as, mean hospitality. Note: Mean is sometimes used in the formation of compounds, the sense of which is obvious without explanation; as, meanborn, mean-looking, etc.
Synonyms: Base; ignoble; abject; beggarly; wretched; degraded; degenerate; vulgar; vile; servile; menial; spiritless; groveling; slavish; dishonorable; disgraceful; shameful; despicable; contemptible; paltry; sordid. See Base.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mean" Quotes from Famous Books



... "You mean to say that you have finished your book, and have got tired of lying in bed," was the reply. "Well, if you promise to be a good boy and keep in the shade, you may dress and go on deck, but I cannot undertake to scratch you off ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... manner, was the dreadful woe that had befallen me and mine most wonderfully made a mean, through the conscience of ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... lesson, here for you is an example, a precious example, of the condescension of Love. Yes. to love those who seem to be against you, to love those in whom there always appears to you to be some difference of spirit or incompatibility of temperament, will mean, if you are made conformable unto your Master's death, that you will be able to receive at their hands services, kindnesses, pity, advice, which your own poor, fallen nature would, without divine grace, have ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... biddings of honor, may give himself up as a slave to the imperious domination of the House of Austria, and kiss the hand which oppressed his Father: I pardon it to his youth and his ineptitude. But is that the example for me to follow? No, dear Sister, you think too nobly to give me such mean (LACHE) advice. Is Liberty, that precious prerogative, to be less dear to a Sovereign in the eighteenth century than it was to Roman Patricians of old? And where is it said, that Brutus and Cato should carry magnanimity farther than Princes and Kings? Firmness consists in resisting misfortune: ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... relief was primarily a matter of this power of design, but it was conditioned also upon two other qualities: knowledge of drawing and extreme sensitiveness to delicate modulation of surface. And by drawing I mean not merely knowledge of form and proportion and the exact rendering of these, in which sense a statue may be said to be well drawn if its measurements are correct—I mean that much more subtle and difficult art, the rendering in two dimensions ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... little, perhaps," said Lilias, thoughtfully. "But that's not what I mean. Are you not ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson

... mean that," explained Drew. "But you tried to persuade me not to enter the cave in the first place, and if I'd only had sense enough to listen to you; we'd both of us be out in the sunlight at this minute. Headstrong fool that I was!" he ended in an ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... to Britain with the Roman army, he did not mean to fight on their side against his own countrymen, but intended to join the army of Britain, and fight in the cause of his king ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... with more intemperance than this; yet on a fair investigation of it, no part can appear more completely invulnerable. Without the SUBSTANCE of this power, the whole Constitution would be a dead letter. Those who object to the article, therefore, as a part of the Constitution, can only mean that the FORM of the provision is improper. But have they considered whether a better form could have been substituted? There are four other possible methods which the Constitution might have taken on this subject. They ...
— The Federalist Papers

... imbued with the righteousness of murdering Napoleon, they convey the impression that when any attempt failed, the perpetrators, instead of being punished, should have had the decoration of the Legion of Honour placed upon them by himself. They are also quite unconscious that they are backing a mean revenge and an awful mockery of freedom when ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... very amusing,' cried Daisy, suppressing a yawn. 'And the name of the river, dear Mr Dean? Does Beorflete mean the church ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... "Oh, I mean Turk as a generic term." Sylvia, circling warily about the contestants, looking for a chance to make her presence felt, without impairing the masculine gusto with which they were monopolizing the center of the stage, tossed in a suggestion, "Was it Hawthorne's—it's a queer fancy ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... an opinion from Professor Heldenberg of Berlin, who of course represents a neutral Power, and he says distinctly that we are entitled to declare anything we please contraband, and to seize English ships—I mean, ships of neutrals—anywhere, even in the English Channel itself, and sink them if it is inconvenient to bring them into a ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward

... during the entire month of February without changing the relative positions of the belligerents. In the mean time, the relations between Austria-Hungary and Russia were daily becoming more strained. This was due to the determination of Austria-Hungary to prevent Servia from securing a seaboard upon the Adriatic. In the slogan of the allies, "the Balkan peninsula ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... "It's mean to call me plump!" returned Camilla reproachfully. "Anyway, anybody would yawn with the Captain keeping the entire household awake all night. I vow, I haven't slept one wink since that wretched news from Charleston. He thinks he's a battery of horse ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... real superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in publick life.' He expressed himself to the same purpose concerning another law-Lord, who, it seems, once took a fancy to associate with the wits of London; but with so little success, that Foote said, 'What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.' Trying him by the test of his colloquial powers, Johnson had found him very defective. He once said to Sir ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... the kiss and the message, Sophy. And you take my advice, and keep yourself clear of that young Braelands. I am particular about my own good name, and I mean to ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr

... mean to stay here and hold the country," Edgar said. "I don't know what good it would do to them; still I suppose they think it would, or they would not take the trouble to come over. But if they should take the country, it ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... "Recommence, you mean, my dear young lady," replied Paganel; "for there was an insurrection so far back as 1845. The present war began toward the close of 1863; but long before that date the Maories were occupied in making preparations to shake off the English yoke. The national party among the natives carried ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... on the bench and got into that cheer in great shape. He was feeling better. Mills had half promised to put him in, and while that might mean much or nothing it was ground for hope. He trotted on to the field and over ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... touch on the religiousness of the other's reign, I mean the body of her sister's {38} Council of State, which she retained entirely, neither removing nor discontenting any, although she knew them averse to her religion, and, in her sister's time, perverse to her person, and privy to all her troubles ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... have seen, was unrelenting in every practice of humiliation; dressed in mean attire, did the servants' work, nursed sick beggars, and, in her meditations, taxed her brain with metaphysical processes of self-annihilation. And yet, when one reads her "Spiritual Letters," the conviction of an enormous spiritual pride in the writer can hardly be repressed. ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... will admit," he questioned loftily, "that there are decencies to be observed even by the free and independent? It is not decent for you to travel alone. If you mean a single word of what you say, why are n't ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... necessary instead of voluntary; servile instead of free? I omit mention of Licinius and Sextius, whose years of perpetuated power ye number, as that of the kings in the Capitol; who is there this day in the state so mean, to whom the road to the consulate is not rendered easier through the advantages of that law, than to us and to our children? inasmuch as you will sometimes not be able to elect us even though you may wish it; those persons you must elect, even though you were unwilling. Of the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... himself the Son of God and King of the Jews; and that the people had unanimously demanded that their decree should be carried out. Notwithstanding his oft repeated conviction of the innocence of Jesus, this mean and worthless judge was not ashamed of saying that he likewise considered their decision a just one, and that he should therefore pronounce sentence—which he did in these words: 'I condemn Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... mean nothing to you, but to me it means a good deal," said Woloda, shrugging his shoulders (a habit he had caught from Papa). "First of all you go and break my things, and then you laugh. What a nuisance a ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... has certainly taken a most alarming turn; and, if some considerable alteration does not take place for the better in a very little time, it will be all over with me: I mean as to the present life. I have lost all appetite, and suffer grievously from an almost continual pain in my stomach, which leaves me no enjoyment of myself, but such as I can collect from my own reflections, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... At last we thought we had it; yes, were sure we knew it all. "You may each one recite it." Hark! it was our teacher's call. Just imagine how we did it? You will guess it nearly right. And then to say it backward! Were you e'er in such a plight? Then we studied till (I mean it) e'en the paper on the wall, Each door, and sash, and picture frame, and objects one and all, In strokes and angles fairly danced before our very eyes, And in our dreams they haunted us in every form ...
— Silver Links • Various

... mean?" cried Foedor. "Do you mean that if your father will bestow your hand upon me, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... nothin' 'gainst Mis' Googe as a woman, but she played me a mean trick when she sold that first quarry. It killed my trade as dead as a door nail. You can't hire them highflyers to put themselves into a town their money's bankin' on to ruin in what you might call a summer-social way. I found that ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... of the depression is obvious. But that is not all that you and I mean by the new order of things. Our pledge was not merely to do a patchwork job with secondhand materials. By using the new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... you don't mean to say that you give such a wide berth to beer? Tell that to the marines, for ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... employments should not be valued at higher rates than those at which they were assessed towards the land-tax of the thirty-first year of the present reign; that the word perquisite should be understood to mean such profits of offices and employments as arise from fees established by custom or authority, and payable either by the crown or the subjects, in consideration of business done in the course of executing such offices and employments; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... "If you mean, sir," said Egan, "that I have given any such instructions, I deny, in the most unqualified terms, the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... large an amount as 10s. imposed on a tenant who had allowed a tree to obstruct the flow of the water. The importance of keeping the level fields of the Vale properly drained is obvious, for a permanent obstruction might easily mean the ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... mean," continued the writer, impetuously crowding his words—"you know what I mean, Marsh. My stuff in this morning's Messenger is plainly sub-headed 'A Ghost Story.' That is ample notice to all. Every honorable reader will understand it as prescribing by implication the conditions under which ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... didn't mean that; but having such a jolly time with nobody saying it isn't proper," Miss Shrimpton replied with ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... 'I mean to say that Krant did not die, that Jentham was Krant, and that when he called on my father he appeared as one from the dead. He is dead now, but he was alive when my mother ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... enough letting here—I mean long enough getting here," said a voice, as Harry Rattleton hurried forward. "Browning is nearly starved. He's entertaining the girls. Hodge and I have been watching for you the last hour, and we—— Great Halifax! is this Stick Darbright and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... going to set up in business for yourself, are you? I have a great regard for your father, and a great wish to see you succeed. Have you started yet? No? Just on the point of beginning, eh? Very good. You will have your difficulties, my friend, and I mean to smooth one of them away for you at the outset. A word of advice for ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... mean any offence," he said; "for I can quite understand what your feelings on the subject must be. I, no more than yourself, would tolerate any unwarrantable interference such as you describe. It is just as well that you should have mentioned the matter to me, however, for you will know so much ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... You all love me, but the one of you who loves me best, shall fare the best." Each of them said she loved him best. "Can you not express to me," said the King, "how much you do love me, and thus I shall see what you mean?" The eldest spoke. "I love my father as dearly as the sweetest sugar." The second, "I love my father as dearly as my prettiest dress." But the youngest was silent. Then the father said, "And thou, my dearest child, how much dost thou love me?" "I do not know, and can compare my ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... acting is true to nature. There is no ranting, no straining for effect here. The members of the company talk and act like men and women of the world, and faithfully "hold the mirror up to nature." It is a common saying in New York that even a mean play will be a success at Wallack's. It will be so well put on the stage, and so perfectly performed by the company, that the most critical audience ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... pudding-basin, however, only appeared every second morning. On duff days (duff being served in the same tin as the meat and vegetables, though in a separate compartment) we had no pudding. By pudding I mean milk pudding—rice or sago or tapioca. Now a milk pudding, such as those my patients received, though perhaps it was looked askance at in the nursery, is food which, as an adult, I am far from despising. ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... 'I mean to be like grandmother,' said Martha's clear, sharp voice, close beside him, and he saw his sister looking eagerly round her. 'I shall fence the green in, and have lambs and sheep to turn out on the hillside, and I'll rear young goslings and ducks for ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... him and kissed her tenderly. "I do, dear child. But now I must know what you mean by saying that you have too ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley

... civilization? In this untainted mountain air, her nature will retain its freshness and purity; her life will be a well spring of happiness and goodness to all with whom she comes in contact; I shall never marry, and mean to keep her by me until in the order of nature I am called away. That is the only boon that ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... mean either to say, as some do, that the French mind has very little of the religious element. The very sweetest and softest, as well as the most austere and rigid type of piety has been given by the French mind; witness Fenelon and John Calvin—Fenelon standing as the type of the mystic, and Calvin ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... kept in jail till the summer assizes; and in the mean time it fortunately happened that the poor blind Demdike died in confinement, and was never brought ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... coat a little uneasily. (I will admit that I was taking a mean advantage of him. The professorial lecture in private life, especially when followed by a strict examination, is quite undeniably a most intolerable nuisance.) 'Well,' he said, in a crusty voice, after a moment's hesitation, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... Declare that I am a Servant to the Captain of the Sloop Amsterdam and has been about Twenty Months, and in the Mean time has been four Voyages betwixt Canaries and Amsterdam, and the last Voyage We went to Cork and from thence I always thought We was going to Teneriffe, hearing all our Men Say the was Shipped for that Place, and am willing to give my oath if ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... Eby," she giggled, "you're just like Aunt Maria says still you are—always cuttin' up and talkin' so abody don't know if you mean it or what. Goin' in to ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... n^th power, that he can be made to see the other facts. The main attribute of the education of the future, in so far as it obtains to-day, is that it strikes both ways. It strikes in and makes a man mean something, and having made the man—the main fact—mean something, it strikes out through the man and makes all other facts mean something. It makes new facts, and old facts as good as new. It makes new worlds. ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... Lily," he had told her, "I wouldn't let nobody hurt Lily! If any one—even Pa, so much as spoke mean to ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster

... shall I call it—an all-pervading calmness, that communicates itself to me, and soothes my ruffled feelings. I don't seem to feel in a hurry when you're here. And when you smile, as you're smiling now, I don't know why, but I feel just happy, and contented with myself. Do you understand what I mean?" The girl had a far-away expression in her eyes, as if she were day-dreaming. The old man regarded ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... "You mean, the story that he speculated in horses—bought wretched crocks cheap and sold them to the army for the cavalry, with the connivance of the vets ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... "simply on the impulse of humanity, and hold it mean and cowardly for a number of men to ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... have married that most detestable of all monsters, a miser? No, she could hardly believe that. It was not in a Wendover to be mean. And all that she had observed hitherto of Brian's way of acting and thinking rather indicated a recklessness about money than an undue care of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... ladyship has not seen what an amount of clothes we've brought," she replied. "We mean, of course, to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the quicker the better. Cohen is waiting at the hotel for me now—at the foot of the front stairway, and he may suspect any minute that I was mean enough to slink down the back stairs and out through an alley. In fact, I'm rather excited at the prospect of seeing that ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... only smiled. "John Rebstock is there with his following. But the boss, I think, is big George Seagrue. He is mean, you know. George has got two or three men to ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... see," returned Ben Gunn, "I didn't mean giving me a gate to keep, and a shuit of livery-clothes, and such; that's not my mark, Jim. What I mean is, would he be likely to come down to the toon of, say one thousand pounds out of money that's as good as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... mean?" asked my mother, while I paced to and fro in the dim room, scarcely able to control my impatience, yet afraid to question ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... breakfast was over, Clara brought her books, and began to learn her lessons, and nurse asked Charles if he would do the same. But Charles said, "No, indeed! I do not mean to learn any lessons while mother is away, for I mean to please ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... "You mean she is tricky, don't you?" asked Elfreda promptly. "I could see that before I talked with her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... chain-armour and the encounter mentioned by Piero between her husband and the prisoner, which had happened on the morning of the day when the armour was adopted. That look of terror which the painter had given Tito, had he seen it? What could it all mean? ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... finally inquired with a careful politeness he had not shown before, "that it would mean considerable to you in the way of commissions on the sale of stock ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... mean the French Minister of the Interior, the President of the Board of National Defences, Miss Lorne—that enthusiastic old patriot, that rabid old spitfire, whose one dream is the wresting back of Alsace-Lorraine, the driving of the hated ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... me are going on living—for the sake of the breed. I tell you, I'm grim set on living. And if I'm not mistaken, you'll show what insides you've got, too, before long. We aren't going to be exterminated. And I don't mean to be caught either, and tamed and fattened and bred like a thundering ox. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... lying, or rather stretching, right across our course; but as they were thicker to the S.W. than at the point towards which we were riding, I sent Flood to examine the plain in that direction. In the mean time Mr. Browne and I rode quietly on; and on arriving at the trees, found that they were growing in the broad bed of a creek, and were overhanging a beautiful sheet of water, such as we had not seen for many a day. It was ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... line of numbers, and the line of lines, is placed upon scales and sectors, and named from its inventor, Edmund Gunter. It is a logarithmic scale of proportionals, wherein the distance between each division is equal to the number of mean proportionals contained between the two terms, in such parts as the distance between 1 and 10 ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... King Philip could have acted in such an Extremity, than to retire either towards Portugal or Catalonia. In either of which Cases he must have left all the middle Part of Spain open to the Pleasure of the Enemy; who in the mean time would have had it in their Power to prevent any Communication of those Bodies at such opposite Extreams of the Country, as were the Frontiers of Portugal and Barcelona, where only, as I said before, were any ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... character I thought I could represent, I replied Cinderella. This piece had been performed in Odense by the royal company, and the principal character had so taken my fancy, that I could play the part perfectly from memory. In the mean time I asked her permission to take off my boots, otherwise I was not light enough for this character; and then, taking up my broad hat for a tambourine, I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... that mean? Was the Arab magician, recluse in his wretched hut below the castle, prepared to serve her? Was it through him and Foresto that she might hope to escape or at least to manage some revenge? Thereafter she often watched ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... doing so, may or may not happen occasionally to reach a higher station, at which the amusement passes into an impassioned interest. Some papers are merely playful; but others have a mixed character. These present Autobiographic Sketches illustrate what I mean. Generally, they pretend to little beyond that sort of amusement which attaches to any real story, thoughtfully and faithfully related, moving through a succession of scenes sufficiently varied, that are not ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... can't, indeed," he said, moving past Oak as a Christian edges past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute. "If you follow on the road till you come to Warren's Malthouse, where they are all gone to have their snap of victuals, I daresay some of 'em will tell you of a ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... "And they mean to make it warm for us. Listen to those guns! It's hard shooting aiming at men on heights, but it shows what they could do ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... can I tell you what I mean?" She glanced at him and then looked away quickly, for she was blushing, and ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... colored race, each consecutive session. He desired that the condition of the colored people should be considered by this convention; that they should decide on what course to take. The circular alluded to emigration to Liberia, or elsewhere, which he explained to mean that they should examine all the places and see if emigration would be beneficial. It was necessary for them to know the geographical position and resources of the different countries—of their rivers, mountains, harbors, climate, &c; and if the convention ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... answered the man. "He said I could hear better—I mean, see better," he corrected himself, ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... should chance to make comical blunders; and it was well that she did so, for some of his blunders were laughable in the extreme; but "forewarned is forearmed." After a time I learned that he really possessed an intellect of no mean order. He soon made rapid progress in study. He seemed fully to appreciate the pains I took in teaching him, and endeavored, by many little acts of kindness, to ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... nice for me," the trollop added, "for I can assure you that I mean him to reward me for anything I may ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... for the given occasion."[48] Suppose, for example, you are arguing against a certain improvement in a college dormitory, on the ground that it makes for luxury: clearly "luxury" is a word that may mean one thing to you, and another to half of your audience. By itself it is an indefinite word, except in its emotional implication; and its meaning varies with the people concerning whom it is used, since what ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... been before, but—yet not strong enough to give us relief in proportion to our necessities, especially if it were not, at least in the beginning, supported by a powerful force; and that, consequently, a treaty was necessary to be entered into and concluded with the Archduke, but not upon any mean conditions; that his envoys had brought carte blanche, but that we ought to consider how to fill it up; that he promised us everything, but though in treaties the strongest may safely promise to the weaker what he thinks fit, it is certain he cannot perform ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz

... rose by candlelight, at five o'clock, with the prospect of a long ride, having to reach the Trojes of Angangueo, a mining district (trojes literally mean granaries), fourteen leagues from El Pilar. The morning was cold and raw, with a dense fog covering the plains, so that we could scarcely see each other's faces, and found our mangas particularly agreeable. We were riding quickly across these ugly marshy wastes, when a curious ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... Mean while, without you half our Season's wasted. Before 'tis Lent sufficiently we've fasted. No matter how our Op'ra Folks did fare, Too full a Stomach do's the Voice impair. Nay, you your selves lost by't; for saunt'ring hither You're safe from ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... best to write a letter, while Major B. and my brother officers O. and F., together with Captain de G., of the third squadron, took their seats at a rickety table and began a game of bridge. Here, by the way, is a thing passing the understanding of the profane, I mean the non-bridge player. This is the extraordinary, I might almost say the immoderate, attraction which the initiated find in this game, even at the height of a campaign. What inexhaustible joys it must offer to make ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... of a garden. The possessor of an acre, or a smaller portion, may receive a real pleasure from observing the progress of vegetation, even in the plantation of culinary plants. A very limited tract properly attended to, will furnish ample employment for an individual, nor let it be thought a mean care; for the same hand that raised the cedar, formed the hyssop on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various

... death with a quiet conscience, rather than life to be gained by a lie. I am not a witch. I know not hardly what you mean when you say I am. I have done many, many things very wrong in my life; but I think God will forgive me ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... do not mean to make a hermit of myself because you are too old to enjoy the brightness of youth," she flashed out, defiantly; "and you ought not to expect it—it is mean ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... hand against a white man if there is to be any law or order in either India, Africa, or any part of the Empire where the white man rules over a large concourse of coloured people. In South Africa it will mean that the Natives will secure pictures of whites being chased by coloured men, and who knows what harm such pictures may do? That France is employing coloured troops is no excuse. Two blacks in any sense do not make a white. The employment of native troops against Germany ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... city merchant, born and bred within its limits. Yet you had but to notice his walk, and you saw at once that he was a mountaineer, for he threaded his way through the crowd as noiselessly as he did among his native forests, where the crack of a dead twig might mean his death ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... * I mean no offence whatsoever to this distinguished and multitudinous writer; but the commencement of this novel really resembled that of so many of his that I was anxious to avoid the charge of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... would not have it otherwise. In our more thoughtless or more agonised minutes we are likely to cry out for a life in which the conditions ensuring our happiness could not so easily miscarry; but that would mean a static life, and a static life, above all things, we will not endure. As already seen, we ask for difficulties to conquer, successes to achieve. To contend is our instinct, not to ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... "I always mean everything I say, Arty. Can't you see the uselessness of telling her now? She has gone all these years with the belief that I am a thief. A thief, Arty, I, who never stole anything save a farmer's apples. They would have called you a defaulter; ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... many straits, and as I may say, the stress of weather, I mean) the cold blasts of hell, with which the poor soul is assaulted, betwixt its receiving of grace, and its sensible closing with Jesus Christ? None, I dare say, but it and its fellows. "The heart knows its own bitterness; ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... Years mean nothing in the computation of the prehistoric past. Who can conceive a thousand centuries, to say nothing of a million years? Yet either is inconsiderable against the total lapse of time even from the Archean's close ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... to my house—Butterfly Gardens. He doesn't know it! On second thoughts, he says he supposes I mean "the place that used to be called Grub ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various

... to express formally and in set terms, and which he merely suggests and leaves the reader to make out for himself. If you have the book I am writing about, turn up "David Swan," "The Great Carbuncle," "The Fancy Show-box," and after you have read these, you will understand what I mean. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... he thanked them for their deed and went with them forth of the thicket; and, when they were in the open country, they said to him, "O uncle, do our father's bidding." He replied, "Allah forbid that I should draw near to you with hurt! But know ye that I mean to take your clothes and clothe you with mine; then will I fill two vials with the lion's blood and go back to the King and tell him I have out vou to death. But as for you two, fare ye forth into the lands, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... great advantages might result to the general who could rapidly move up ten thousand men on horseback to a decisive point and bring them into action as infantry. It thus appears that the methods of concentration and of distribution have their respective advantages and disadvantages. A judicious mean between the extremes would be to attach a strong regiment to each wing of the army and to the advanced guard, (or the rear-guard in a retreat,) and then to unite the remaining troops of this arm in divisions ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... which was still called the "nursery," and that he felt very tired and weak. He pulled aside the curtain with a feeble little hand, and saw Roger sitting there quite quietly, with his head bent over a book. How strange everything was! What did it all mean? Then ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton

... and in the third, those who penetrate to the qualities of things, draw out their hidden beauties, and separate what is really and truly fair from that which has only its exterior semblance. Among the second of these, Darwin might claim for himself no mean station. It was, indeed, a notion he had taken up, that as the ideas derived from visible objects (to use his own words) are more distinct than those derived from any other source, the words expressive of those ideas belonging to ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... ponies upstairs under his arms,—how also the genial giant, quite the Arac of Tennyson's Princess, was the gentlest and kindest and least dangerous of knights-errant (unless, indeed, his just wrath was aroused by anything mean or insolent, when doubtless he could be terrible), and how he was the idolised of men, especially his own brother giants of the Royal Regiment of Blues, and naturally was also the adored of women wherever he showed himself. This Admirable ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... have used this term SPECIES, and shall probably use it a good deal, I had better perhaps devote a word or two to explaining what I mean by it. ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley

... told our people I would wait until sun-set, by which time, perhaps, something might happen in our favour: that if we attempted to go at present, we must fight our way through, which we could do more advantageously at night; and that in the mean time we would endeavour to get off to the boat what we had bought. The beach was now lined with the natives, and we heard nothing but the knocking of stones together, which they had in each hand. I knew very well ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... himself in the red tablecloth and said Noel was only advising us to be naughty, and again peace waved in the balance. But Alice said, 'Oh, H. O., DON'T—he didn't mean that; but really and truly, I wish wrong things weren't so interesting. You begin to do a noble act, and then it gets so exciting, and before you know where you are you are doing something wrong as hard as you ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... can manage a day off now and then. To-morrow's Thursday, isn't it? I must be up in town then, and I'm afraid I shall be late home. There's a dinner I rather wanted to attend, but it would mean a long evening ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... looked into my own,—a smile rested on the firm, handsome mouth—the whole picture spoke to me and seemed to ask 'Wherefore didst thou doubt?' I stood gazing at it for several minutes, enrapt,—realising how much even the 'counterfeit presentment' of a beloved face may mean. And then I began to think how strange it is that we never seem ready to admit the strong insistence of Nature on individuality and personality. Up at a vast height above the Earth, and looking down upon a crowd ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... as I have said above, the divan is to be preferred in many cases. It is often well to provide a cooling room of what may be called the "picturesque" order, or the reverse of stiff formality. By this I mean such an arrangement as 2, d. The bather can then choose between reclining in semi-privacy or in the open, or, again, resting in an easy chair. With a handsome plunge bath and a pretty little fountain, such rooms may ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop

... shoot him," the captain said. "You were right, it is evident that he has been thinking over that money, and that as likely as not he has determined to possess the whole of it. However, we shall see how he behaves. I may as well tell him as soon as he arrives; when he sees that we mean fair by him he may possibly be content, at any rate for a time, especially as he must know as well as we do how small is the chance of a ship coming along. We are altogether out of the line of traffic. Ships ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... light: and they shall reign for ever and ever." [Footnote: Rev. xxii. 3-5] How wonderful that God should promise us an abundant entrance into His Everlasting Kingdom. [Footnote: 2 Pet. i. 11] What does an abundant entrance mean? It means that we shall not, as it were, just creep into heaven by a side door, but that we shall have a grand welcome from the glorified ones there and from the Lord Himself, all the doors, as it were, being thrown wide open to receive us. Are we preparing for it? A mother who was dying called her ...
— The One Great Reality • Louisa Clayton

... resolved to live no longer. After which, they went back to the house to see if their master intended to keep his word, and curious to know, if he did intend to die, how, where, and when it was to be. And they were not disappointed: I do not mean that the wished their lord to die, as he was a good master to them but still there was an excitement ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... their pledge to her of succour. "Speak boldly, God will help you—fear nothing"; there would be aid for her before three months, and great victory. They went on saying so, though the stake was already being raised. What did they mean? what did they mean? Could she still trust ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... and what would father and mother think when they came home to-morrow? Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding? Would I add to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again? Would I faint away and never 'come to'? When I wrote 'adventure' upstairs by the master's fire I did not mean a dreadful thing like this! Staying alone all night was nothing compared to this. I had never been through anything compared to this. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... pride look disdainful on thee, Scorning scenes so mean as thine, Although fortune frown upon thee, Lovely blossom, ne'er repine: Health unbought is ever with thee, Which their wealth can never gain; Innocence doth garments give thee, Such ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... can with the physical world in the midst of which he exists. It is within such a world that he has to cultivate the spiritual potencies of his own being. It is true that the spiritual potencies of his own being are higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind machine; it has produced all—including man and his potencies—that is to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless, and ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones

... 1856, I graduated. Shortly after commencement, the Dean of the College (Dr. Delamater) called upon me at the house of a friend with whom I was staying on a visit. A call from this venerable gentleman was a thing so unusual, that numberless conjectures as to what this visit might mean flitted through my brain on my way to the parlor. He received me, as usual, paternally; wished me a thousand blessings; and handed back to me the note for one hundred and twenty dollars, payable in two years, which I had given for the lecture-fees; ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... late, and only lose. And this recalls to my mind a story, which may serve as a warning to the timid and an encouragement to the bold. An Englishman, who had lived on bad terms with a very quarrelsome and annoying wife, (according to his own account, of course,) had finally the luck, I mean the misfortune, to lose her. He had lived long enough in Italy, however, to say "Pazienza" and buried his sorrows and his wife in the same grave. But, after the lapse of some time, his wife appeared to him in a dream, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... England, the memory of France's aid to us in our hour of need, the doctrine of "the rights of man," then so much in vogue, the known sympathies of Jefferson and Madison, who were already popular, and, alas, a mean wish to hamper the administration, all helped to swell the ranks of those who swung their hats for France. A far deeper motive with the more thoughtful was the belief that neutrality violated our treaty of 1778 with France, a conclusion at present beyond question. Politically our policy may ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews



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