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Operation   Listen
noun
Operation  n.  
1.
The act or process of operating; agency; the exertion of power, physical, mechanical, or moral. "The pain and sickness caused by manna are the effects of its operation on the stomach." "Speculative painting, without the assistance of manual operation, can never attain to perfection."
2.
The method of working; mode of action.
3.
That which is operated or accomplished; an effect brought about in accordance with a definite plan; as, military or naval operations.
4.
Effect produced; influence. (Obs.) "The bards... had great operation on the vulgar."
5.
(Math.) Something to be done; some transformation to be made upon quantities or mathematical objects, the transformation being indicated either by rules or symbols.
6.
(Surg.) Any methodical action of the hand, or of the hand with instruments, on the human body, to produce a curative or remedial effect, as in amputation, etc.
Calculus of operations. See under Calculus.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Operation" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the faith. But he sent to her to ask enlightenment from her prayers, when any difficulty was in his way. He went to see her when he was in trouble; especially once on his way to Rieti to have an operation performed on his eyes. Once the two friends ate together at a sacramental meal, the pledge and almost the conclusion on earth of that tenderest, most disinterested, and unworldly love which existed between them. That he was sure of her sympathy ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... said, detaching himself from the strap as the train drew into King's Cross; "not if the operation's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various

... in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that, if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something as an effect which I can produce in a certain ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant

... terms the unity of the social group may be compared to that of the plant communities. In these communities, the relation between the individual species which compose it seems at first wholly fortuitous and external. Co-operation and community, so far as it exists, consists merely in the fact that within a given geographical area, certain species come together merely because each happens to provide by its presence an environment in which the life of the other is easier, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... enemy is presumed, where the shipment is to one of the enemy ports, or to a neutral port, if it is unquestionably proved by the facts that the neutral port was only a state (etape) towards the enemy as the final destination of a single commercial operation." ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... grows up. The modern industrial development and the organisation of labour have, too, emphasised the fact that the value of the individual depends largely upon his being a part of society. His work must be in co-operation with the work of others to produce the best effect; for in such co-operation it produces effects which reach far beyond his own individual capacity. Hence his life appears to receive value from the social relations, and the social ideal is conceived. ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... window. Dunning picked up what had fallen, and saw that the key was in his hands in the form of one of Cook's ticket-cases, with tickets in it. These cases have a pocket in the cover, and within very few seconds the paper of which we have heard was in the pocket of this one. To make the operation more secure, Harrington stood in the doorway of the compartment and fiddled with the blind. It was done, and done at the right time, for the train was now slowing down ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James

... The operation was soon concluded; and Lecoq swept the dust off the paper into the palm of his hand. He divided it into two parts, enclosing one portion in a scrap of paper, and slipping it into his own pocket. With the remainder he formed a package which he handed to the governor, saying: "I beg you, sir, to ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... cutting pain in the right Testicle, which after two Hours became insensible. In process of time a Tumour rose by degrees, which was joined to the Testicle, and was as big as a Turkey'Egg. The 8th of December last, this Gentleman came hither incognito; but put off the Operation 'till this time, by reason of the cold Season. In the mean time the Swelling increas'd so much, that the Scrotum being uncapable of a greater Extension; it reach'd all over the Groin, and I had a great deal of trouble in tying the Spermatick ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob

... servants, or persons in a low rank of life, I do not see upon what ground of politeness or decency you are called upon to yield your seat. Etiquette, and the deference due to ladies have, of course, no operation in the case of such persons. Chivalry—(and the gentleman is the legitimate descendant of the knight of old)—was ever a devotion to rank rather than to sex. Don Quixotte, or Sir Piercy Shafestone would not willingly have given place ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... the key, when a low growling noise gave her quite a little fright, until she remembered that it was the old clock in the hall preparing to strike—"clearing his throat," as Ida called the operation. The next moment the ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery

... of the substitution of [Greek: anapeson] in St. John xiii. 25 for the less obvious [Greek: epipeson] is certain. Origen, who was probably the author of all the mischief, twice sets the two places side by side and elaborately compares them; in the course of which operation, by the way, he betrays the viciousness of the text which he himself employed. But what further helps to explain how easily [Greek: anapeson] might usurp the place of [Greek: epipeson][197], is the discovery just noticed, that the ancients from the earliest period were in the ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... corridor, he mentally reviewed the operation of communications. There was Fixed Communications, responsible for communicator service to all the offices and quarters in the district, as well as to the various commercial organizations. There were also Mobile Comm, Warning, Long ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole

... like its other agents, sold little until the first of July, and when it saw that the effort to monopolize cotton could not succeed, fearing to continue this gigantic operation, it declared that it employed too much capital. In the midst of all this, some new bills of exchange reached Paris without consignment of corresponding value; and the ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... before his visitors, yet himself and his whole family (myself included) feed entirely on vegetables. We have a theory, that animal food is neither wholesome nor natural to man; and even vegetables we refuse to eat until they have undergone the operation of fire, in consideration of those numberless little living creatures which the glass helps us to detect in every fibre of the plant or root before it be dressed. On the same theory we boil our ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... and the maximum of 5/- a week has been done away with. The maximum payment in the future will be 10/- a week. This Act (which is called the Affiliation Orders Increase of Maximum Payment Act, 1918) came into operation on ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... very slightly affected her strong, peasant-born nerves; not half so much indeed, as the noise Mrs. Jones made in double-locking all the doors, and barring, as well as a peg and a rusty inch of chain would allow, all the windows—which operation occupied at least an hour and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... age, in leading an army across its summit, has been obtained more by the military combinations of which it formed the principal feature, the boldness of the conception, and the secrecy and promptitude with which so extensive an operation was effected, than by the physical difficulties that were overcome. In the latter particular, the passage of St. Bernard, as this celebrated coup-de-main is usually called, has frequently been outdone in our own wilds; for armies have often traversed regions of broad streams, broken ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... of the way of the dews, so that it formed a great wind-bag all round her, and carrying her satin shoes under her arm. Joshua would not let her wait till she got indoors before changing them, as she proposed, but insisted on her performing that operation under a tree, so that they might enter as if they had not walked. He was nervously formal about such trifles, while Rosa took the whole proceeding—walk, dressing, dinner, and all—as a pastime. To Joshua it was a serious step ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... equally impossible, for there was none. There was no alternative but to proceed slowly and persistently, saving as many as possible of the horses, mules, and oxen. Fifteen days were required for this difficult operation. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... of concentrating responsibility in a supreme centre. She has a small navy, but very effective for its purpose, built, trained, and manned on methodical principles, for defined ends, and backed by an inexhaustible reserve of men from her maritime conscription. She studies and practises co-operation between her army and navy. Her hands are free for offence in home waters, since she has no distant network of coveted colonies and dependencies on which to dissipate her defensive energies. Finally, she is, compared with ourselves, economically independent, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... Mr. Murray and his friends were all removed from the upper apartment to the lower in less than seven minutes. It will be remembered that the south wing of the Astoria has lately been faced with dark grey granite, that it was a moonless night, and that the daring operation could only have been visible, if visible at all, from the distant Embankment. No hitch occurred whatever; Severac Bablon's Arabs exhibited all the agility and quickness of monkeys. It is illustrative ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... on the market as you may agree, slowly, thus preventing any material fluctuation in value," he went on. "How to hold this tremendous reserve secretly and still permit the operation of the other diamond mines of the world is the great problem you will ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle

... listened. A heavy noise, like that of some huge flouring-mill in full operation, could be plainly heard above the swash of the waves and the drive and ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... when performing the operation which, in her, answered to thought, Fanny shuffled with her hands on her waist. At a distance from Beatrice she stood still, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... people had built their own mechanical bodies, and by operation upon one another had removed their brains to the metal heads from which they directed the functions and movements of their inorganic anatomies. There had been no deaths due to worn-out bodies. When one part of the mechanical ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones

... the companions of Gurth bound him with a halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... because he is rich, and you are poor: because he dines with great men who don't invite you: because he wears a silk gown, and yours is still stuff: because he has been called in to perform the operation though you lived close by: because his pictures have been bought and yours returned home unsold: because he fills his church, and you are preaching to empty pews? If your rival prospers have you ever felt a twinge of anger? If his wife's carriage passes you and Mrs. Tomkins, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... slaves. These holidays serve as conductors, or safety-valves, to carry off the rebellious spirit of enslaved humanity. But for these, the slave would be forced up to the wildest desperation; and woe betide the slaveholder, the day he ventures to remove or hinder the operation of those conductors! I warn him that, in such an event, a spirit will go forth in their midst, more to be dreaded than the most ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... small Leghorn Bird with an assurance that had an undoubted resemblance to that of his masculine parent. For a moment he blinked and balanced; then he stretched his small wings and shook himself, an operation that seemed to fluff about fifty per cent. of the moist aspect from his plump little body, and then he deliberately turned and looked into my wide-opened eyes. I promptly gasped and sat down on the barn floor, with my head weakly cuddled ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess

... along at the rate of eight knots an hour; but it was only fifty yards wide, and beyond it rose a high bank, and dry park-lands which extended as far as Simbo. We had no other option than to swim it; but it was a slow operation, the current was so swift and strong. Activity and zeal, high rewards, presents of money, backed by the lively feeling that we were nearing home, worked wonders, and in a couple of hours we ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... breakfast table, I heard Carl telling his mother that as soon as he woke up he sprang out of bed and went to see how his canary was. During the night, poor, foolish Dick had picked off the splints from his leg, and now it was as bad as ever. "I shall have to perform a surgical operation." he said. ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... five hundred American business men on a trip through Europe after the war at a cost to each one of only four dollars and a half, the balance of the expenses of each to be paid for in local business co-operation. ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... to beautifully gilded diagrams which were sculptured upon one side of the pedestal. There were beams, and ropes, and pulleys without number, with the obelisk among them; but Rollo could not understand the operation of the machinery very well. The obelisk itself was covered on all sides with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, deeply cut into the stone; but the children could not understand the hieroglyphics any better ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott

... commentary on the nature of his satire or the charm of his execution. When he began to appear in Harper he was already an old friend, and for myself I confess I have to go through rather a complicated mental operation to put into words what I think of him. What does a man think of the language he has learned to speak? He judges it only while he is learning. Mr. Du Maurier's work, in regard to the life it embodies, is not so much a ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... circumstances, the plague, reappearing again and again, and attacks of his kidney-trouble, there came the state of war, which depressed and alarmed Erasmus. In the spring of 1513 the English raid on France, long prepared, took place. In co-operation with Maximilian's army the English had beaten the French near Guinegate and compelled Therouanne to surrender, and afterwards Tournay. Meanwhile the Scotch invaded England, to be decisively beaten near Flodden. Their king, James IV, perished together with his natural son, Erasmus's ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... in operation in the state of New York. If a poor, starving, homeless, hopeless human being, maddened by the bitter woes of life, seeks surcease of pain by throwing off his own individual life, by committing suicide, the ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... major part of the precipitation occurs during the summer the same law is undoubtedly in operation; but, since evaporation is most active in the summer, it is probable that a smaller proportion reaches the greater soil depths. In the Great Plains district, therefore, greater care will have to be exercised during the summer in securing proper water storage than in the Great Basin, for instance. ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... and dressed,—a simple operation which took very little time. He crept down two flights of stairs, feeling his way in the dusk, his red hair standing up in peaks, like a cock's comb. He went through the kitchen into the adjoining washroom, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... "choke" collar, drawn against the bars, he was first of all manicured. Each one of his great claws was cut off flush with his flesh. The men outside did this. Then Mulcachy, on the inside, punched his nose. Not lightly as it sounds was this operation. The punch was a perforation. Thrusting the instrument into the huge bear's nostril, Mulcachy cut a clean round chunk of living meat out of one side of it. Mulcachy knew the bear business. At all times, to make an untrained bear obey, one must be fast to some sensitive portion of the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... for it modifies the Noun, distinguishing that knife from others. Rinn mis an scian geur, I made the knife sharp: here the Adjective does not agree with the Noun, for it modifies not the Noun but the Verb. It does not characterize the object on which the operation is performed, hut it combines with the Verb in specifying the nature of the operation performed. The expression is equivalent to gheuraich mi an scian, I sharpened the knife. So also, mhothaich mi a' ghaoth fhuar, I felt the cold wind; but mhothaich mi a' ghaoth ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... paralyzes them. Then our surgeons get busy. They know how to remove the memory and reasoning areas of the brain and leave just machines, automata, to do our bidding. Clever, aren't they? When Earth is captured, I intend subjecting all your damned breed to the operation. They make very willing slaves, I've found. Two blasts on this toy"—he raised the whistle to his lips—"and an Earth-Doora ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner

... Pella to conduct Moffat to his village, led the missionary to a ford opposite to that place. The waggon and its contents were swam over on a fragile raft of dry willow logs—a laborious and tedious operation, the raft having to be taken to pieces after each journey, and the separate logs conveyed back again by swimmers. All the goods being over, Robert was asked to place himself upon the raft. Not altogether liking its ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane

... the operation of taking in our cargo, which kept us hard at work, from the gray of the morning till starlight, for six weeks, with the exception of Sundays, and of just time to swallow our meals. To carry the work on quicker, a division of labor ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... as you peasants have to yours. Communicate this to your fellows in the villages. In my solicitude for the country I do not forget the peasants, whose needs are dear to me, and I will look after them continually as did my late father. The National Assembly will soon assemble and in co-operation with me discuss the best measures for your relief. Have confidence in me, I will assist you. But I repeat, remember always that right of property is ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... recollection of some narrowly escaped danger. "I reckon, tho', when I see them slope up like a covey of red-legged pattridges, my heart was in my mouth, for I looked for nothin' else but that same operation: but I wur just as well pleased, when, after talkin' their gibberish, and makin' all sorts of signs among themselves, they made tracks towards the ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... spinning spiders at work to spin for the meridian lines. I have just succeeded in catching the right sort by descending to the infernal regions, and setting kitchenmaid and housemaid at work. I was glad Mr. and Mrs. Hall did not arrive just at the crisis of the operation—all completed now. ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... to obtain a definitive result we require a final operation. After passing through the ordeal of criticism, statements present themselves as probable or improbable. But even the most probable of them, taken by themselves, remain mere probabilities: to pass from them to categorical propositions in scientific form is a step we have no right to take; ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... could resign quite voluntarily, fully convinced, and without any extraneous considerations? Without, for instance, the danger of losing his life through the custom of this calling—a custom, just or unjust, but which at any rate was in operation and perfectly well ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... has to do with the study of the law. Tri. Did you never hear of Demosthenes, sir, the Athenian orator? He had half his head shaved, and locked himself up in a coal-cellar. Old F. Ah! he was perfectly right to lock himself up after having undergone such an operation as that. He certainly would have made rather an odd figure abroad. Tri. I think I see him now, awaking the dormant patriotism of his countrymen,—lightning in his eye, and thunder in his voice: he pours forth a torrent of eloquence, resistless in its force—the throne of Philip ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... to perturb the tenor of my being. Therefore, having locked the door deliberately and carefully, I felt about along the underside of the gravestone until I found the ledge where the key had lain. I then made what haste I could to mount and follow Mr Coningham, but Lilith delayed the operation by her eagerness. I gave her the rein, and it was well no one happened to be coming in the opposite direction through that narrow and tortuous passage, for she flew round the corners—'turning close ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... question of compulsory education is settled so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience—incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... diarrhoea is a common complaint amongst the lower orders, caused by eating bad and unripe fruits, and drinking the washings of the wine-press, a beverage made by throwing water on the husks of the grapes, after the operation of pressing out the wine has been performed, and then submitting them to ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... should do it, as the first passer-by. The man did not wait to be told twice, but turned out their pockets. It seemed that he was far from disappointed, for his face looked smiling when he had finished the operation, and he drove on his oxen at their quickest pace, in order to reach his ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... doing pretty well. You must not think it is all gloom, far from it, there is much to cheer and comfort us. The hearty co-operation of these excellent fellow-workers is such a support, and is ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... force her way, while beyond the water appeared perfectly open. The sails were furled; the ice-saws got out, and the crew commenced sawing out large blocks, so as to form a passage towards the open water. The work was very laborious; for, in addition to the operation of sawing, each block had to be towed out into the wider channel. At length a canal was formed, and the ship glided through it. Once more the sails were set and she steered to the northward. Again, however, she had to encounter ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston

... consulted by the public, being piled up in close bales, and in a place not publicly accessible. But there can be no doubt that, sooner or later, their mouldering condition would be made an argument for selling them. And such, when we trace the operation of this law to its final stage, is the ultimate result of an infringement upon private rights almost unexampled in any other part of our civil economy. That sole beneficial result, for the sake of which some legislators were willing to sanction a wrong otherwise admitted to be indefensible, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... they had ever been in before. With regard to federation, a gentleman high in the service here, speaking to him, had said that if that was carried out exploration should not be forgotten, but that fresh lines should be taken with the co-operation of all the colonies. The splendid success which had attended Mr. Forrest would, he had no doubt, tend greatly to promote the ultimate prosperity ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... went on, "that a certain operation now will bring him around all right. But to-morrow ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... been saved if he had not exerted himself in such a crazy manner—that cursed inflammation! It had to be cut off away up here. Oh, but he's a brave lad. I can assure you! He never shed a tear, nor uttered a cry! He was proud of being an Italian boy, while I was performing the operation, upon my word of honor. He comes of a good race, by Heavens!" And away he ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... cutting it into strips and drying it for future use; the bushes were covered with festoons of flesh of gazelles and hippopotami, and the skins of the former were prepared for making girbas, or water-sacks. The flaying process for this purpose is a delicate operation, as the knife must be so dexterously used that no false cut should injure the hide. The animal is hung up by the hind legs; an incision is then made along the inside of both thighs to the tail, and with some trouble the skin is drawn off the body towards ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... hospital the doctors found that the blow on my head had caused but a comparatively unimportant scalp wound, but, in dressing it, they found that at some earlier time my skull had been crushed. They performed the delicate operation of trepanning the skull, and when I came out from the effects of the ether, my mind was in the same state as it had been twenty-three ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin

... to lie idle. In 1807 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, in another effort to get its wares before the public, granted to Rowland and Butland, a private firm, free right to operate one of its veins of coal; but this operation also resulted in failure. In 1813 the company made a third attempt and granted to a private concern a lease of the entire property on the condition that ten thousand bushels of coal should be taken to market annually. ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... England again, in 1684, leaving the government of his province in charge of several deputies under the nominal governorship of his infant son. There he found his rights in great peril; but before the matter could be brought to a direct issue by the operation of a writ of quo warranto, King James was driven from the throne, and Protestant William and Mary ascended it. Lord Baltimore immediately acquiesced in the political change. On account of his instructions to his deputies to proclaim the new monarchs being delayed in their transmission, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... be better, or the establishment in more excellent hands. But my object was, not so much to view the prison and witness the economy of it, as to examine the prisoners themselves, and hear what their opinions were. The surgeon may explain the operation, but the patient who has undergone it is the proper person to apply to, if you wish to know the degree and nature of the pain inflicted. I requested, therefore, and obtained permission, to visit a portion of the prisoners without a third party being present to prevent their being ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... with greater reason that the attractive virtue of the earth extends as far as the moon and much farther; and, in short, nothing which consists of earthly substance anyhow constituted although thrown up to any height, can ever escape the powerful operation of this attractive virtue. Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant

... friends, whose names form a sort of tabulated index. People 'in society' know this index by heart, they are gifted in such matters with an erudition from which they have extracted a sort of taste, of tact, so automatic in its operation that Swann, for example, without needing to draw upon his knowledge of the world, if he read in a newspaper the names of the people who had been guests at a dinner, could tell at once how fashionable the dinner had been, just ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... as the claimant had resided at Albany, and as the Albanian tactics had not then been introduced into Washington, he might have tried his hand at some of those ingenious devices, of the successful operation of which he had been the silent witness in the pure and incorruptible capital of the ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone

... was different. One day, for instance, after breakfast, the king went into his counting-house, and counted out his money. The operation gave him no pleasure. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... tact, had disarmed them,—they being our near neighbors at the service,—and, profiting by this love of sweet sounds, had brought them within her influence; nor ceased her missionary efforts on their behalf until, with the aid of brother Edward, and the consent and co-operation of our parents, she had established them both as servants in the family, where they had opportunity and encouragement to fit themselves for decent and ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... took his station near the door, studying his rival from a distance, and determined to take advantage of his present position, to secure the seat next to his charmer. He was meditating on the best mode of operation for securing this important post with due regard to bien- seance, when he was twitched by the button by Mr. Mac Quedy, who said to him: "Lady Clarinda tells me, sir, that you are anxious to talk with me on the ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... dove-tailed aperture into the heel of the coulter, which formed the principal part of the plough, and was in shape similar to the letter L, the shank of which went through the wooden beam, and the foot formed the point which was sharpened for operation. One handle and a plank split from the side of a winding block of timber, which did duty for the mould-board, completed the implement. Besides provisions for a year, I think each family had issued to them a plough-share and coulter, a set of dragg-teeth, a log chain, an axe, ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James

... has undertaken significant economic reforms that are expected to help the country qualify for more than $4 billion in debt relief under HIPC in early 2004. Donors have made aid conditional on the openness of government financial operation, poverty alleviation, and human rights. A three-year poverty reduction and growth plan, agreed to with the IMF in ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... and imperious as his own. He clearly saw that force, threatening, sternness would not answer in this case, and that if he carried his points it must be through skill and cunning. By some means he must ever gain her consent and co-operation. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... herself, "The time is propitious, and now, of my own free will, and under the operation of my individual judgment, I will lay a nestful of eggs and batch a brood of children." But it is unconscious that it is moved by a physical necessity, which has constrained all its ancestors ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... constitution went into operation at once, with Caswell as the first Governor, and the great work of supplying the State with judges, sheriffs, magistrates and other officers began. For several years there had been no courts to administer ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... countenance, yet be assured they are nevertheless preying upon her inward person, sapping the very foundation of that heart which alone was made for the weal and not the woe of man. The deep recesses of the soul are fields for their operation. But they are not destined simply to take the regions of the heart for their dominion, they are not satisfied merely with interrupting her better feelings; but after a while you may see the blooming cheek beginning to droop and fade, her intelligent eye no longer sparkles with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... both females. One was an oldish woman, ugly and waspish. She counted her beads and spoke to me in French of the consolations of the Catholic religion. She had been to America for an operation, but despaired of ever being well, and so was melancholy and devout. I talked to her about Tahiti, that island which the young Darwin wrote, "must forever remain classical to the voyager in the South Seas," and which, since I had read "Rarahu" as a boy, had fascinated ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... (though not bodily in the elements thereof), and are signs and seals of His Gospel not to be separated therefrom. They confirm the promises and gifts of salvation, and, when rightly used by believers with faith and prayer, are, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various

... calculated on the co-operation of all the Lords excepting three, of a considerable number of the lower house, and of the most able among the advisers of the king at Oxford; and that they might ascertain the real opinion of the city, they agreed to portion it into districts, to make lists of the inhabitants, and ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... the high tariff objectionable to the South, failed, however, to reach the real seat of the trouble, namely, the counterexpanding movements of the two systems, with their mutual inclinations during the operation, to encroach the one upon the other, and a natural tendency on the part of the stronger to destroy the weaker in an incessant conflict for survivorship, which would persist with the certainty and constancy of a law of nature, compromise acts by Congress to the ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke

... say, true holiness, in its being and operation, respects Jesus Christ as its principle; "I live," said that shining saint, "yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." As that which gives religion its first being, is the religation of the soul to God; so that which gives it motion, and draws forth that life into action, is the same ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain or feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... thirty-three years old (in 1818) he placed a ligature around the bracheo-cephalic trunk or arteria innominata, within two inches of the heart, for aneurism of the right subclavian artery. This was the first time this wonderful operation had ever been performed, and the skill and success with which he accomplished it stamped him as one of the brightest lights of his profession. "The patient survived the operation twenty-eight days, and thus demonstrated the feasibility of this hazardous and thus far unparalleled undertaking. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... emphasis. God, it seems to say, rests on his Sabbath from his creative labors, in order that by his Sabbath day's work he may save and elevate you. Rest ye also on your Sabbaths, that through your co-operation with him in this great work ye may be elevated and saved. Made originally in the image of God, let God be your pattern and example. Engaged in your material and temporal employments, labor in the proportions in which he labored; but, in ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... Yet, however that may be, repealed it was. Since then, or, more exactly, a few weeks ago, the enactments regarding the manner in which marriage must be solemnised were held to be not mandatory but directory, the result being that the law originally prevailing has now come again into operation, common-law marriages are as valid ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... object of pride and credit to him; but if you dare to treat me to any more of this bombast about 'explaining your rights,' you will force me to exercise one of mine—the right to inflict corporal punishment, sir—which you have just seen in operation upon another." ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... topsails, jib, and spanker. She was now upon the larboard tack. Having stood on a sufficient distance, Captain Blyth went in stays, and the ship was again headed for the barque. Now came the only delicate part of the operation. But the skipper was an accomplished seaman, and he managed his part of the work to perfection, bringing the Flying Cloud up alongside the barque so close to leeward that there was only bare room for the boat between the two hulls; and at the proper ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... moment to lose. With a swift blow of his rifle butt, the British soldier smashed in the door, and into this opening the troops poured. A second squad had dashed around to the rear of the house and performed a similar operation. In less time than it takes to tell it injured and uninjured alike were in the house. The ground outside, however, was strewn ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... by iron chains, where the stock markets were principally carried on. We were also shown the interior of the Stock Exchange itself, though we were warned that it was scarcely worth a visit at that time of depression. We heard the "call of the shares," which operation only took twenty minutes, against nearly two hours during the time of the recent boom. Instead of the listless, bored-looking individuals below us, who only assumed a little excitement when the revolving, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... of detesting the bourgeois; I am celebrated for that; but I should much prefer to die in a worsted nightcap, flannel underwear, and cotton night-shirt, than to have Bergenheim assist me, too brusquely, in this little operation. He is such an out-and-out Goliath! ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... miracles, Lahiri Mahasaya often said, "The operation of subtle laws which are unknown to people in general should not be publicly discussed or published without due discrimination." If in these pages I have appeared to flout his cautionary words, it is ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... crop as soon as the plants are clearly out of the ground, and have put forth one or two branches. Any practical farmer who knows how to plow and weed young corn, will not be likely to err very far in working a crop of peanuts. The operation is simple enough, the two points being to clear away the grass and make the soil fine and loose around the plants. Any plan of working that will secure these ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones

... knowing self demands in turn a knowable world. It must have something outside of itself to which it yet stands related, the object of knowledge. Knowledge is somehow the combination of those two, the result of their co-operation. How have we to think of this co-operation? Both Hume and Berkeley had ended in scepticism as to the reality of knowledge. Hume was in doubt as to the reality of the subject, Berkeley as to that of the object. Kant dissented from both. He vindicated ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... appear to me extraordinary in a voluptuary philosopher, from whatever point of view that word may be considered. A fine secret that, to declaim against a virtue which destroys sentiment in a sage, and establishes one that admits of no operation. ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.

... be stronger, indeed, but these ties being much more selfish, are also, in most instances, much less harmonious. Song-writing is the highest attribute of poetic genius. The epic poet has to do with the exercise of energies, which produce deeds that are decided, together with the operation of passions and feelings which are borne into excess. These are more easily depicted than the gentler sentiments and feelings, together with the lights and shades of national character which constitute the materials of song. Nor will strains which set forth the actions ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... In practical operation this machine is at once simple and complete. It is also refined, elevating, symmetrical, and chaste. By properly adjusting it, a railroad conductor can easily lift a recalcitrant passenger, and project him through one of the windows of the car, (provided said window is large ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various

... more seriously of his injured arm. In a few days, however, the wound began to indicate that gangrene had set in, and it was determined that only by an amputation was it possible for him to live beyond a few days. Every one of the older men of the caravan positively declined to attempt the operation, as there were no instruments of any kind. At this juncture Kit, realizing the extreme necessity of prompt action, stepped forward and offered to do the job. He told the unfortunate sufferer that he had had no experience in such matters, but that as no one else would do it, he would take ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... Grange was not a man who, either by birth, education, or position in society, could entertain any pretensions to rank with the gentry of the surrounding country. It is true he was a magistrate, but then he was a middleman, and as such found himself an interested agent in the operation of one of the worst and most cruel systems that ever cursed either the country or the people. We of course mean that which suffered a third party to stand between the head landlord, and those who in general occupied the soil. Of this system, it may be with truth said, that ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... floated on the solution (I speak of Turner's) it has a great tendency to curl, and takes some time before the expansion of both surfaces becoming equal allows it to lie quite flat on the liquid. May this operation be performed by the glass ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... in certain works earlier than the experiments of Hertz attempts at transmission in which, unconsciously no doubt, phenomena were already set in operation which would, at this day, be classed as electric oscillations. It is allowable no doubt, not to speak of an American quack, Mahlon Loomis, who, according to Mr Story, patented in 1870 a project of communication in which he utilised the Rocky Mountains on one side and Mont Blanc on the other, ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare

... touching as his life. Of all the composers he met death with least heroism. Mozart, it is true, shrieked hysterically; but death to his diseased mind was merely an indescribable horror; and the fact of his hysteria proves his revolt against fate. Beethoven, during a surgical operation shortly before the end, saw the stream of water and blood flowing from him, and found courage to say, "Better from the belly than the pen;" and as he lay dying and a thunderstorm broke above the house, he threatened it ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman

... them he might think was something else and she never even rendered down the fat I told her and now shes going such as she was on account of her paralysed husband getting worse theres always something wrong with them disease or they have to go under an operation or if its not that its drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every day I get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose 111 have some peace I want ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... picturesqueness. Mr. Boldrewood accomplishes the very difficult feat of enabling his readers not only to understand the bewildering complexities of mining law, but to be interested in the situations which arise out of their operation, while his fund of incident seems to be large enough to meet all the demands made upon it. Indeed, the book is lively and ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... acquaintance to the effect that "the man must be mad who brings a horse to Galicia, and doubly so he who brings an entero," Borrow, determined to have the animal bled, sent for a farrier, meanwhile rubbing down his steed with a quart of anis brandy. The farrier demanded an ounce of gold for the operation, which decided Borrow to perform it himself. With a large fleam that he possessed, he twice bled the Andalusian, to the astonishment of the discomfited farrier, and saved its valuable life, also an ounce ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... upon a Solution of Bay-salt: whence was abstracted a liquor, that by the smell and Taste appeared to be a spirit of salt. In which operation, the mixture, by working a great change of Texture, did so alter the nature of the compounding Bodies, that the sea-salt, though a considerably fixt Body, was distill'd over in a moderate Fire of sand, whilst the Oyl of Vitriol, though ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... e.g., the use of setons, or, in suitable cases, extirpation of the goiter with the knife. If, however, the tumor is very vascular, he prefers to leave the case to nature rather than expose the patient to the dangers of a bloody operation. The whole discussion of goiter is manifestly a paraphrase of the similar chapter of Roger, who also introduced into surgical practice the use of ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson

... Vaccination, it is said, wears out in seven years, but matrimony, we see, in this instance, at least, takes a stronger hold of the parties inoculated as time rolls on; and although in this case they are willing to go through the operation again, it is not for the sake of making assurance doubly sure, but in order to enjoy marriage as a luxury. With this happy specimen of a wooden wedding before them our young unmarried friends will see that they can go into ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger



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