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Ocular   Listen
adjective
Ocular  adj.  
1.
Depending on, or perceived by, the eye; received by actual sight; personally seeing or having seen; as, ocular proof. "Thomas was an ocular witness of Christ's death."
2.
(Anat.) Of or pertaining to the eye; optic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ocular" Quotes from Famous Books



... been safely packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and next, that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the brown-paper parcel had become untied. At length when he had received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each and every one of these suspicions, he consented to climb up to the roof of the coach, observing that now he had taken everything off his mind he felt quite comfortable ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... 1: A written description can never convey so true an idea of anything, as an ocular inspection. I will therefore say that it will afford me much pleasure to show any member of the profession the apparatus I am about to ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... in fitting out a second expedition, which should have the elucidation of this point for its principal object. This expedition was also entrusted to my direction. I had scarcely a doubt of ultimate success, and set out with a confidence which nothing short of ocular demonstration could destroy. The result of our voyage down the Macquarie River, and the conjectures which naturally arose in my mind founded upon observations of its apparent termination, together with ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... next neighbor, whom personally I knew, living at the moment, during the absence of her husband, with a few servants in a very solitary house, never rested until she had placed eighteen doors (so she told me, and, indeed, satisfied me by ocular proof), each secured by ponderous bolts, and bars, and chains, between her own bedroom and any intruder of human build. To reach her, even in her drawing-room, was like going, as a flag of truce, into a beleaguered fortress; at every ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... the judgment of pictures which goes by the pleasure of the eyes, and tastes a picture with the eyes as wine and good cooking are tasted by the tongue. I believe this ocular appreciation is nearer to the essential nature of art than the literary or intellectual appreciation of it. Vide Titian's pictures, which never have anything to say to the intellect, but are a ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... in practically no time and out of almost anything has been abundantly claimed at home by numerous enterprising firms by ocular demonstration at the Building Trades and Ideal Home Exhibitions. Cement guns and climbing scaffolding, we are assured, will raise crops of mansions at a prodigious pace, and the housing problem is all but solved. If we have not noticed many new ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell

... most kindly undertaken for me this investigation with the aid of the many ingenious mechanisms of modern science, and has published the results.[15] He shows that during violent expiration the external, the intra-ocular, and the retro-ocular vessels of the eye are all affected in two ways, namely by the increased pressure of the blood in the arteries, and by the return of the blood in the veins being impeded. It is, therefore, certain that both the arteries and the veins of ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... decorum; and beer was drunk with reverence, as it ought to be. Into the principal parlour of this place entered two strangers, who found themselves, as is always the case in such hostels, the object, not of fluttered curiosity or pert inquiry, but of steady, ceaseless, devouring ocular study. They had long coats down to their heels, and carried under each coat something that looked like a stick. One was tall and dark, the other short and red-haired. They ordered a pot of ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... boat on her last journey. I happen to know that for a fact, but the Lord only knows the reason for it! Now, this boat was found, half-burnt, lying on a lonely bit of coast a few weeks after the Rosana foundered. This is a thing which I may remark is not generally known; but I happen to have had ocular demonstration of it. The boat was a smart built one, with her name in gold leaf on the bows. Tranter was the captain of the Rosana, and he liked to have things nice. Now, why should this boat have been found half-burnt on the coast, but with a piece of her ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... state. First of all, a man not otherwise interested in the several advantages of the colleges has, however, in all probability, some choice between a small society and a large one; and thus far a mere ocular inspection of the list will serve to fix his preference. For my part, supposing other things equal, I greatly preferred the most populous college, as being that in which any single member, who might have reasons for standing aloof from the general habits of expense, of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... appeared, a sharp featured, well-dressed matron with a challenging eye. Perhaps no stranger, or person out of the exclusive circle that she assumed to represent ever approached her without being met with the ocular demand, "Who ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis

... that Scotsmen and Chinamen understand each other better than any other nationalities on the globe do, but this was the first time he had had a first-hand ocular demonstration that the Chinaman appreciated the Doric of Robbie Burns, when delivered with the true ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... I have asked myself a hundred times; but, Charles Holland, the judgment, the feelings, and all the prejudices, natural and acquired, must succumb to actual ocular demonstration. Listen to me, and do not interrupt me. You shall know all, and you ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... shutter, which was raised up during the day, to let in the light, and air: and as for the window itself, with the exception of a few panes of glass in the centre, here and there patched with brown paper, it was almost wholly made up with squares of wood—giving ocular proof that glass was of a very ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown

... to make it, but the difference was owing to the variation of the compass. From this it became evident that the river emptied itself into the Polar Sea. Not satisfied, however, with the apparent certainty of this, our pioneer resolved to have ocular demonstration—to push on to the mouth of the river, even although, by so doing, he should risk not being able to return to Fort ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne

... music, to bear upon which leg he chose to dictate, and in fact to do more than I shall venture to state, as were I to give an accurate description it must appear an exaggeration, having met with several Englishmen who with myself have declared they never could have believed, had they not had ocular demonstration, that a horse could have been taught to do that which the animal in question has nightly exhibited at Franconi's. When the owner did return, he claimed the half of the value the horse had fetched, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... asked Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but am I not in honor bound to apprise them of their fare? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned, I will. It is needless to premise, that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential; and this shall be the purport ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... There was ocular evidence of this last, for they had followed in a road well rutted from loaded wagons. But Bill invested in no real estate, notwithstanding the positive assurance that Hazleton was on the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... born, not made." So persons of feeble frame, stimulated by disease or frenzied by passion, have put forth preternatural and prodigious muscular strength. By what we call "clairvoyant" power life calls up in intelligent perception things going on far beyond ocular vision. By what we call "telepathic" power life communicates intelligence with life separated by miles of space. Such are some of the powers that have been discovered, and fully attested, but not explained, as belonging to the world's master magician, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... well and in its proper place. This was a little contrary to my own experience, it is true, but as I had no means of seeing the interior clock-work of my own frame, like the somnambule, had I ventured to raise a doubt, it would have been overturned by the evidence of one who had ocular proofs of what she said, and should, beyond question, have incurred the ridicule of being ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... which would have stood for Zuleika as well as for Annie Donaldson. Yet instead of one hour, Annie generously allowed Mr. Arlington nearly to triple the time. How he was occupied during all this time, I cannot tell, though that he did not spend all of it in drawing I had ocular demonstration. ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... and mortified at the result of his ocular proof of Juno's incapability of biting, still more mortified at having so far forgotten himself as to utter an oath, and altogether discomfited by the laughter, turned ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride's hair. In women who wear it plainly such a feature may be overlooked by men not given to ocular intentness. But hers was always in the way. You saw her hair as far as you could see her sex, and knew that it was the palest brown. She knew instantly that Knight, being perfectly aware of this, had an independent standard of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... at the battle of Waterloo, whether it was Grouchy or Bluecher who was seen coming up by the Saint-Lambert road; but this uncertainty need not exist where the armies are not so much mixed. I had ocular proof of the advantage to be derived from such observations when I was stationed in the spire of Gautsch, at the battle of Leipsic; and Prince Schwarzenberg's aid-de-camp, whom I had conducted to the same point, could not deny that it was ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... and cheering to me, namely, the ocular proof which I possessed that the books which I had disposed of were read, and with attention, by those to whom I sold them; and that many others participated in their benefit. In the streets of Aranjuez, and beneath the mighty cedars and gigantic elms and plantains which compose its ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... merchant vessel in the harbour, to the exclusion of the Lantaro frigate, then at the anchorage. This money was sent to Ancon, on the pretence of placing it in safety from any attack by the Spanish forces, but possibly to secure it for the further purposes of the Protector. The squadron having thus ocular demonstration that its arrears could be paid, but were not, both officers and men refused longer to continue in a service which had brought ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... say that capital sets toward the most profitable trades, and that it rapidly leaves the less profitable and non-paying trades. But in ordinary countries this is a slow process, and some persons, who want to have ocular demonstrations of abstract truths, have been inclined to doubt it because they could not see it. The process would be visible enough if you could only see the books of the bill-brokers and the bankers. If the iron-trade ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... topographer, and accordingly has an opportunity to name the regions according to real peculiarities rather than chance suggestions. The future map will be significant of the past history as well as of the ocular features of the landscape. Mr. Powell gives careful sections of the strata in the Plateau Province, where they are about 46,000 feet thick. Few persons imagine the vast amount of work, exploration, and comparison which such drawings embody. The beds form a series of groups unlike those of ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... their fingers, feathered with ganders, so orbicularly as they were wont in other things to do. And we do manifestly see that everyone acknowledgeth himself to be in the error wherewith another hath been charged, reserving only those cases whereby we are obliged to take an ocular inspection in a perspective glass of these things towards the place in the chimney where hangeth the sign of the wine of forty girths, which have been always accounted very necessary for the number of twenty pannels and pack-saddles of the bankrupt protectionaries of five years' respite. Howsoever, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... f'nent. Have ye ne'er a drap among the whole o' yees?" Receiving an answer in the negative, he turned about with a Kilkenny, "It don't signify," and toddled for the door, which he left open, to await Tommy's return. Redman knew Daley's propensity too well, and having ocular proof that he had wet t'other eye until it required more than ordinary effort to make either one stay open, he declined recognising his ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... can make Your Honourable Worships no report worth any serious consideration, since his statements and annotations are so misleading that it is evident {Page 100} at first sight that he can never have had any first-hand knowledge or ocular view of the matters referred to by him, seeing that he has hardly ever been nearer to the land than 3 miles off it, at which distance, however, he pretends to have seen a river with a small island before its mouth, together with natives, cabins, etc.; ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... his intention; but he works on, with the luxurious abandonment of genius to its spell, be it what it may. He does not care what it ends in. One of Fred's theories is, that the imagination, by constant and intense exercise, may so project the image it conceives, as to make it the subject of ocular contemplation and imitation. Why not? All objects of sight are painted on a flat surface, and it is by experience, comparison, nay, in some measure by the will, that we get our ideas of their shape ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... Turkish soldiers. This is the last station southwards held by the sultan's forces, the next, El Areesh, being an Egyptian outpost. I was desirous of visiting that place had time allowed, not only for the satisfaction of curiosity on the above account, but in order to get some idea from ocular inspection whether the little winter stream or Wadi there could ever have been the divinely-appointed boundary of the land promised to Abraham and his seed for ever. My prepossession is certainly ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... immediate effect of the laryngoscope was to throw the whole subject into almost hopeless confusion by the introduction of all sorts of errors of observation, each claiming to be founded on ocular proof, and believed ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger

... planet Astraea; it has done more—it has given us the probable prospect of another. We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. Its movements have been felt trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis with a certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstration." ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... place she called heaven, and had a vague notion that it was like a sort of religious transformation-scene, millions of miles away, up somewhere in the sky. He, on the contrary, knew that the spirit-world was all around him, because he had had ocular as well as ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... quite needless," Juno returned. "And of the gambling I have ocular proof, since I found him, cards, counters, and money, with my sick nephew. He had actually brought cards in ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... anchor, and we thought we could distinguish the cabins and barracoons of King Dingo Bingo, peeping out from among the green trees. The barque looked no larger than a little boat, and although she appeared very near the river's mouth, that was also an ocular deception, for we knew that she was more ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... an impromptu speech, composed for them by their father, and so stuffed with erudition that even the writer hardly understood it, they announced their wish to prove, by ocular demonstration, the truth of a science upon which their short-sighted rivals of Jayasthal had cast cold water, but which, they remarked in the eloquent peroration of their discourse, the sages of Gaur ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... to express the superlative degree of the impossible, we said "I can no more do it than I can fly." But the irrepressible spirit of man was not to be daunted by a priori demonstrations of impossibility. One day there came the rumour that the thing had been achieved, followed soon by ocular demonstration; and now we rub shoulders every day with men who have outsoared the eagle, and—alas!—carried death and destruction into the ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... his time-tables and his new note-book, and for the rest of the trip Jimmy devoted himself to his wheel, with occasional ocular excursions in the direction of Mr. ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... with a very friendly reception, and had the good fortune to prevail upon the Indians to deliver me their furs upon the spot, which formed a very heavy load for both myself and men. We met our opponents in returning; but though they had ocular proof of my success, they nevertheless went on to ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... centuries preceding the days of Porta, were "by craft or by nygromancye, I wot nere." But that they were not unknown to Chaucer, appears in his "Frankelein's Tale," where, minutely describing them, he communicates the same pleasure he must himself have received from the ocular illusions of "the Tregetoure," or "Jogelour." Chaucer ascribes the miracle to a "naturall magique!" in which, however, it was as unsettled whether the "Prince of Darkness" was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Other kinds of ocular spectra, as the coloured ones, are also more liable to remain in the eyes of people debilitated by fevers, and to produce various hallucinations of sight. For after the contraction of a muscle, the fibres of it continue in the last situation, till some antagonist muscles ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... mark upon my left arm." (Really I had one over my left knee.) That settled it, for there was no such mark to be found upon the poor corpse. It was just at this moment that the news came to me in my country retreat that I had been found dead, and I flew up to London to give ocular proof to my poor distracted parents that I was alive. Mother, who had been the only one not to identify the drowned girl, confessed to me that she was so like me that just for a second she, too, was deceived. You see, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... written of it to her mother, such, as Amy told him, deserved to be published in a book of good advice to young ladies, to show what they might come to if they behaved well. However, she was glad to have ocular demonstration of the success of the cookery, which she had feared might turn out uneatable; and her gentle feelings towards Philip were touched, by seeing one wont to be full of independence and self-assertion, now meek and helpless, requiring to be lifted, and propped up ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "cranks" as soon as the useful word shall have penetrated the intellectual demesne of the Marshall Advance. The evidence that the house is haunted is of two kinds; the testimony of disinterested witnesses who have had ocular proof, and that of the house itself. The former may be disregarded and ruled out on any of the various grounds of objection which may be urged against it by the ingenious; but facts within the observation of all are ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... narrow canal, so congested with boats that there are innumerable delays. Even when the boats reach the waters of the bay, the remaining channel is shallow for lack of dredging, and launch-progress is very slow. We had ocular proof of this latter evil; but we at last reached ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... certain branches of science we can ascertain our personal equation, the measure of difference between our own judgments and an average standard: may there not be some corresponding correction of our personal partialities in moral theorising? If a squint or other ocular defect disturbs my vision, I can get instructed in the fact, be made aware that my condition is abnormal, and either through spectacles or diligent imagination I can learn the average appearance of things: is there no remedy or corrective for that inward squint which ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... they are hidden from sight. I answer, that we might determine the fact theoretically from certain known conditions respecting the conformation of the glacier; to which I shall allude presently; but we need not resort to this kind of evidence, since we have ocular demonstration of the truth. Here and there on the sides of the glacier it is possible to penetrate between the walls and the ice to a great depth, and even to follow such a gap to the very bottom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... announcement of this "permanent life of tissues" that caused such a furor in Paris last summer, and several eminent scientists to demand ocular demonstration, because "the discovery, if true, constituted the greatest ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... play of the voice and eye, and by the billowy flushes of the countenance. Mental energy culminates in its modulations, while the finest physical features combine to make them a consummate work of art. But all the musical, ocular, and facial beauties are absent from writing. The savage knows, or could quickly guess, the use of the brush or chisel, the shuttle or locomotive, but not of the pen. Writing is the only dead art, the only institute of either gods or men so artificial that the natural ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... sufficient and competent authority that these things are so. We know that we live in a material universe, but our knowledge does not extend to the manner in which the universe came into being. That is a matter of belief. "Through faith"—not by ocular or logical proof, but on testimony—"we understand that the worlds were framed by ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... by those who only know a little; but by those who are well informed, you probably would be. The fact is, from a too ready credulity, we have now turned to almost a total skepticism, unless we have ocular demonstration. In the times of Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and others,—say in the fifteenth century, when there were but few travelers and but little education, a traveler might assert almost any thing, and gain credence; latterly a traveler hardly ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... have thought this himself, for he seemed amazed at what he had done. He backed without a word; he was going away with a husky chuckle of self-satisfaction; then he bethought himself to stop and turn, to ascertain by ocular testimony that he really had presented a bouquet. Yes, there were the six red cabbages on the purple satin lap, a very white hand, with some gold rings on the fingers, slightly holding them together, and streaming ringlets, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... itself in the dreams of childhood, which exceed in the distinctness of their images those which come in later life. It shows itself, too, in the frequency with which, even when awake, the active organs perceive unreal sounds, or in the dark, at night, conjure up ocular spectra; and then not merely colours, but distinct shapes, which pass in long procession before the eyes. This power fades away with advancing life; except under some conditions of disease, the occasional appearance of luminous objects in the dark is the only relic with most of ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... speak for themselves, in the posthumus memorabilia of his travels published by Lord L., had seen an array of objects in the desert, which facts immediately succeeding demonstrated to have been a mere ocular lusus, or (according to Arab notions) phantoms. During the absence from home of an Arab sheikh, who had been hired as conductor of Lord Lindsay's party, a hostile tribe (bearing the name of Tellaheens) had assaulted and pillaged his tents. Report of this had reached ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... How! Give me but proof of it, ocular proof, that I may justify my dealing with him to the world, and share ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... hope. The bare possibility that his friend is deliberately deceiving him—though such a deception would be a thing so monstrously wicked that he can hardly conceive it credible—is a kind of hope. He furiously demands proof, ocular proof. And when he is compelled to see that he is demanding an impossibility he still demands evidence. He forces it from the unwilling witness, and hears the maddening tale of Cassio's dream. It is enough. And if it were not enough, has he not sometimes seen a handkerchief spotted with strawberries ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... M. Foucault the suggestion that the motions of a pendulum so suspended as to be free to swing in any vertical plane might be made to give ocular demonstration of the earth's rotation. The principle of proof may be easily exhibited, though, like nearly all of the evidences of the earth's rotation, the complete theory of the matter can only be mastered by the aid of mathematical researches of considerable complexity. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... remember, of course, always to get the weather-gage of your patient. I mean, to place him so that the light falls on his face and not on yours. It is a kind of, ocular duel that is about to take place between you; you are going to look through his features into his pulmonary and hepatic and other internal machinery, and he is going to look into yours quite as sharply to see what you think about his probabilities for time ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... to be lost, especially as it bears upon the fate of a poor old friend of mine in past days who was fatally a victim to total abstinence. The story goes that a teetotal lecturer, in order to give his audience ocular proof of the poisonous character of alcohol, first magnifies the horrible denizens of stagnant water by his microscope, and then triumphantly kills them all by a drop or two of brandy! As if this did not prove the wholesomeness ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... trumpeting the sights of the big city to his passengers. Wide-mouthed and open-eared, they heard the sights of the metropolis thundered forth to their eyes. Confused, delirious with excitement and provincial longings, they tried to make ocular responses to the megaphonic ritual. In the solemn spires of spreading cathedrals they saw the home of the Vanderbilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand Central depot they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell Sage. Bidden to observe ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... the observer A and his assistant B. A is in a dark room, lies on a chair having the eye at the ocular and can easily look over 2 deg. in declination. The assistant sits in the room below, separated by a board floor, at ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier

... espial[obs3], glance, ken, coup d'oeil[Fr]; glimpse, glint, peep; gaze, stare, leer; perlustration[obs3], contemplation; conspection|, conspectuity|; regard, survey; introspection; reconnaissance, speculation, watch, espionage, espionnage[Fr], autopsy; ocular inspection, ocular demonstration; sight-seeing. point of view; gazebo, loophole, belvedere, watchtower. field of view; theater, amphitheater, arena, vista, horizon; commanding view, bird's eye view; periscope. visual organ, organ of vision; eye; naked eye, unassisted eye; retina, pupil, iris, cornea, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... exact information of the trades, characters, families, and circumstances of the unhappy sufferers, he immediately assumed the person and name of one of them; and burning some part of his coat and hat, as an ocular demonstration of his narrow escape, he made the best of his way to places at some distance, and there passed for one who had been burnt out; and to gain credit, showed a paper signed with the names of several gentlemen in the neighbourhood of the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. (He wags his head with cackling raillery) Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. (He sneezes) Amen! ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... and felicitations of which our travellers were the recipients may be imagined. The Frenchmen, and they alone, having had ocular proof of the accomplishment of the daring project, naturally became Dr. Ferguson's witnesses. Hence the doctor at once asked them to give their official testimony of his arrival at ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... tyranny over scheme and costume and invention. It is often truly diverting in its very insouciance. But its priceless value to us—and here the same remark applies to all styles of pictorial art before the fifteenth century—is the ocular record of dress, architecture, implements of peace and war, incidents of daily life, etc., for which no Encyclopdia Britannica of verbal explanation could ever be more than the poorest makeshift. As we say, ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley

... the tube length distance from the end of the nosepiece to the eyeglass of the ocular. This is the measurement referred to in speaking of ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... of harmony, in behoof of an intrinsic harmony resident in the organ itself, which exerts proportionately modifying influences on all things that enter within it; and of the nervous harmony, and the beautifully apportioned stimuli of alternating ocular spectra. 3rd. There is a resolution of discord effected by the instrument itself, inasmuch as its effects are homogeneous. All these harmonizing influences are equally true of the painting; and though we have no longer the homogeneous effect of the ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... human nature that Natt should resist the temptation to show his cronies by ocular demonstration what a knowing young dog he could be if he liked. Natt ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... proportion of prisoners to (British) casualties increases: his casualties are growing, his resistance becoming less effective: the wearing-out process tells. Mark the concluding phases of the Somme battle. The PRISONERS line is nearer to that of casualties. The Tank has been introduced, and here is ocular evidence of its effectiveness. More tanks is one of ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Bruiser. I tell thee this, because I intend to tear up the next oak or holm tree we meet; with the trunk whereof I hope to perform such wondrous deeds that thou wilt esteem thyself particularly happy in having had the honor to behold them, and been the ocular witness of achievements which posterity will scarce be able to believe."—"Heaven grant you may," cried Sancho; "I believe it all, because your worship says it. But, an't please you, sit a little more upright in your saddle; you ride sideling methinks; but that, I suppose, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... cedar jugular scholar calendar secular dollar grammar tabular poplar pillar sugar jocular globular mortar lunar vulgar popular insular Templar ocular muscular nectar similar tubular altar (for ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... had partaken of a sufficient quantity of nerve tonic, Mr. Gibney suddenly recollected that he had to go over to Market Street and redeem the sextant which he had pawned several days before. And since McGuffey knew, from ocular evidence, that Mr. Gibney was "flush," he decided to accompany the mate and preserve him from temptation. There was safety in numbers, he reasoned. Captain Scraggs said he thought he'd go back to the Maggie. He had forgotten to lock the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... could be judged from clinical symptoms, indirect fractures of the base such as we are accustomed to meet in civil practice in connection with fractures of the vault were decidedly rare, and, as has already been mentioned, ocular evidence of extensive fissures extending from perforating wounds of the vertex was wanting, except in the extreme cases classed under heading I. For these reasons I am inclined to ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... pinching her tender flesh, by way of proving the truth of his assertions, till the poor creature shrieked out with agony. He then tore down her eye-lids, to exhibit the healthiness of her eye-balls; and wrenched open her mouth, to prove, by ocular demonstration, that he practised no deception in speaking of her age. The old woman herself examined her all the time, and haggled, as to the price, like a butcher when purchasing an ox in the cattle market. As I witnessed ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... such things as the sign of the cross, the use of sacramentals, the avoidance of notoriously injurious follies such as beginning work on Friday, the observance of such matters as wearing Principium Evangelii secundum Joannem on the person, and the paying of ocular deference to Saint Christopher on rising—these precautions and others like them are usually a sufficient safeguard. [I am afraid it is impossible to clear Sir John wholly of the charge of superstition. The "Beginning of the Gospel according to John" was the fourteen verses read as the last ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson

... discovery of another. We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. Its movements have been felt, trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis, with a certainty hardly inferior to that of ocular demonstration.'—These expressions are not reported in any of the papers which profess to give an account of the proceedings, but I appeal to all present whether they ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else may do it better, if ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... man who told it to me. Had you seen, as I did, the fire of truth in those gray eyes; had you felt the ring of sincerity in that quiet voice; had you realized the pathos of it all—you, too, would believe. You would not have needed the final ocular proof that I had—the weird rhamphorhynchus-like creature which he had brought back with him from the ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... tone of upper parts grayish tawny; ocular stripe pale; skull, rostrum, nasals, and upper incisors shorter ...
— The Baculum in the Chipmunks of Western North America • John A. White

... account. We must remember that the particles of gold in the stone may be enveloped with a film of auriferous sulphide, by which they are protected from the solvent actions of the mercury. The sulphurisation of the gold gives no ocular manifestation by change of colour or perceptible increase of weight, as in the case of the formation of sulphides of silver, lead and other metals, on account of the extremely superficial action of the sulphur, and hence probably the existence ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... not leave Norway without making some inquiries after the monsters said to have been seen in the northern sea; but though I conversed with several captains, I could not meet with one who had ever heard any traditional description of them, much less had any ocular demonstration of their existence. Till the fact is better ascertained, I should think the account of them ought to be torn ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... professed a strong desire to know the facts of the case; and the Emperor, declaring that it was clearly impossible to get at the truth in any other way, invited Mrs. M—— to settle the controversy by letting down her hair, and giving ocular demonstration of its being her own. The lady, whereupon, drew out the comb and the hairpins that held up her hair, and shook its heavy and shining masses all over her shoulders, thus giving conclusive ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... able to analyse or separate the glow into visible elementary intermitting discharges (1427. 1433.), nor to obtain the other evidence of intermitting action, namely an audible sound (1431.). The want of success, as respects trials made by ocular means, may depend upon the large size of the glow preventing the separation of the visible images: and, indeed, if it does intermit, it is not likely that all parts intermit at ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... professes to have at first been of opinion "that the story was purely contrived on purpose to render the republicans more odious than they deserv'd." Whether he was convinced to the contrary by ocular demonstration he does not tell us, but gives us information ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... additional factor that served to add force to the class of omens we are considering. The monsters guarding the approaches to temples and palaces[658] were but one form which this popular belief assumed, and when a colt was observed to have a lion's or a dog's claw, an ocular demonstration was afforded which at once strengthened and served to maintain a belief that at bottom is naught but a crude and primitive form of a theory of evolution. In a dim way man always felt ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... medical gentlemen were of opinion that he had received into his stomach as much at the time as was consistent with his safety, the transgressor was sent back to prison, and the business resumed the two following days. After three very hearty but unpleasant meals, I am convinced by ocular proof that every leaf of the book was actually swallowed." ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks

... given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the rest) that their own ocular observations would have discovered more perfections, at least others, than have been delivered to them: though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my lady's worth, nor a due ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... declared in high terms, that if this affair concerned you, he would not listen to it. I attempted to remonstrate upon this injustice, when he passionately broke forth into new and horrible charges against you, affirming that he had them from authority as indisputable as ocular demonstration. I was then certain of some ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... difficult matter for any one to balance the good things that he reads and believes about any animal against the bad things that he actually sees. The man who witnesses the theft of his cherries by robin or catbird, or the killing of a quail by a marsh hawk, feels that here he has ocular proof of harm done by the birds, while as to the insects or the field mice destroyed, and the crops saved, he has only the testimony of some unknown and distant witness. It is only natural that the observer should trust the evidence of his senses, and yet his eyes tell ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... afford to wear one dress: her father's worth millions, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows she can have a dozen new dresses for every day of the year. But we poor folks have got to give ocular demonstration of our ability to have new dresses, or nobody will ever believe that we can. Everybody knows that I wear that white muslin because I can't afford any other, I do wish I could have a new dress for Mrs. Alderson's: it will be a dreadfully select party. I've rung all the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... Proclamation of the Governor of the State of New York, to prevent sending provisions to the enemy. The accounts I have recently received on that subject from the States of Jersey and Connecticut, give me more pain than I can express. They are positive, and from people who had ocular demonstration; they prove, that the enemy's fleet could not have quitted New York for some time, if they had not received immense quantities of provisions, living and dead. This commerce is carried on regularly and openly, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... the next, from the needle to the twig, from the twig to the branch, from the branch to the bough and from the bough, by a no less angular path, to go back home. It is useless to rely upon sight as a guide on this long and erratic journey. The Processionary, it is true, has five ocular specks on either side of his head, but they are so infinitesimal, so difficult to make out through the magnifying-glass, that we cannot attribute to them any great power of vision. Besides, what good would those short-sighted lenses ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... of habit, or to prevent the possibility of a false pronunciation, these ocular contractions are still sometimes carefully made in printing poetry; but they are not very important, and some modern authors, or their printers, disregard them altogether. In correcting short poetical examples, I shall ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... himself, unauthorized and alone; to the Duke at Bruges. Here he had an interview very similar in character to that in which John Rogers had been indulged, declared to Farnese that the Queen was most anxious for peace, and invited him to send a secret envoy to England, who would instantly have ocular demonstration of the fact. Croft returned as triumphantly as the excellent Doctor had done; averring that there was no doubt as to the immediate conclusion of a treaty. His grounds of belief were very similar to those upon which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... other hand, in solid coloured statues,—Dresden china figures, for example,—we have pretty sculpture accented by painting; the mental purpose in both kinds of art being to obtain the utmost degree of realization possible, and the ocular impression being the same, whether the delineation is obtained by engraving or painting. For, as I pointed out to you in my fifth lecture, everything is seen by the eye as patches of colour, and of colour only; a fact ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... reason, and freedom of one of her majesty's subjects? He would probably find that functionary inditing a private letter to the English Secretary of State, giving the minister a graphic account of the rare doings of yesterday, and assuring the minister, from his own personal and ocular experience, that a member of one of the highest orders of the British peerage carried in the procession a lighted taper after two angels with amaranthine ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli



Words linked to "Ocular" :   eye, sight, lens system, optical telescope, lens, optic, optical, light microscope, opera glasses, eyepiece, reticle, reticule, seeable, field glasses, visual, ocular muscle, graticule, binoculars, visible, sights, lense



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