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Ordinary   Listen
adjective
Ordinary  adj.  
1.
According to established order; methodical; settled; regular. "The ordinary forms of law."
2.
Common; customary; usual. "Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation that in writing."
3.
Of common rank, quality, or ability; not distinguished by superior excellence or beauty; hence, not distinguished in any way; commonplace; inferior; of little merit; as, men of ordinary judgment; an ordinary book. "An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way."
Ordinary seaman (Naut.), one not expert or fully skilled, and hence ranking below an able seaman.
Synonyms: Normal; common; usual; customary. See Normal. Ordinary, Common. A thing is common in which many persons share or partake; as, a common practice. A thing is ordinary when it is apt to come round in the regular common order or succession of events.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ordinary" Quotes from Famous Books



... Good Shepherd." When my matchless child had thus spoken, Dom. Consul rose, pulled off the black skull-cap which he ever wore, because the top of his head was already bald, bowed to the court, and said, "We hereby make known to the worshipful court, that the question ordinary and extraordinary of the stubborn and blaspheming witch, Mary Schweidler, is about to begin, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... that this barrenness of household resource had its effect upon women, and that every one complained of the meagre results of ordinary social intercourse. Now-a-days, when tables are crowded with bric-a-brac, cabinets laden with porcelain and faience, and richly-hung walls brightened with plaques and good pictures, the female mind has received a fresh impulse, almost ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... wretched Squercum had set afloat the rumours as to the purchase of Pickering, was able to hold his head much higher than on the unfortunate night of the great banquet. He had replied to the letter from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, by a note written in the ordinary way in the office, and only signed by himself. In this he merely said that he would lose no time in settling matters as to the purchase of Pickering. Slow and Bideawhile were of course anxious ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... smith told how his horse had broken down time and again, how he had pressed on, running and resting, stripped almost naked that he might keep up with his son, because that no ordinary charger could long carry ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Little learning had I in my youth, and things refuse to fix themselves in my brain when I try to learn them anew. No, I am not skilled in letter-writing, Barbara, and, without being told so, or any one laughing at me for it, I know that, whenever I try to describe anything with more than ordinary distinctness, I fall into the mistake of talking sheer rubbish. . . . I saw you at your window today—yes, I saw you as you were drawing down the blind! Good-bye, goodbye, little Barbara, and may God keep you! Good-bye, my own Barbara ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... his bow, was conscious of an expression of something more than ordinary curiosity in the face of the girl who had ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Austrians, I found you in their ranks. Austria is become my ally, and you have entered into the Russian service. You have been one of the warmest instigators of the present war. Nevertheless you are a native of the states of the Confederation of the Rhine; you are my subject. You are not an ordinary enemy, you are a rebel; I have a right to bring you to trial! Gendarmes d'elite, seize this man!" The gendarmes remained motionless, like men accustomed to see these violent scenes terminate without effect, and sure of ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... was gradually resuming some of its ordinary aspect. The French were seldom seen promenading in the Streets, but Prussian soldiers swarmed. Besides, the officers of the Blue Hussars, who arrogantly rattled their big instruments of death on the pavements, did not seem to have ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... just ordinary business men, like O'Neil, looking for investment. They heard of a great big copper-field hidden away back yonder in the mountains, and they bought what they considered to be the best group of claims. They knew the region was difficult of access, but they ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... story opens, Iris was ten years old, Apollo nine, Diana six, and little Orion five. They were like ordinary children in appearance, being neither particularly handsome nor particularly the reverse; but in their minds and ways, in their habits and tastes, they seemed to have inherited a savor of those far-off beings after whom their mother had called them. They were, in short, very unworldly children—that ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade

... at length out into the darkness of the barrack-square stalks the trumpeter on duty, and the shrill notes of the reveille echo through the stillness of the yet dark night. On an ordinary morning the reveille is practically negatived, and nobody thinks of stirring from between the blankets till the "warning" sounds quarter of an hour before the morning stable-time. But on this morning there is no slothful skulking in the arms of Morpheus. Every one ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... 1, AAA represents in plan an ordinary Fresnel's dioptric fixed light apparatus, and BB' a hemispherical mirror (either metallic or dioptric on my father's principle) which is made to revolve with uniform speed about the burner. This mirror, it is obvious, intercepts the rays of one hemisphere, and, returning ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in many directions, and fallen pillars and columns of granite and of coarse grey and whitish marble; but beyond these ordinary vestiges there was nothing of peculiar interest. As there is no authority equal to General di Cesnola upon the antiquities of Cyprus, I trust he will excuse me for inserting the following interesting extract from his work, upon ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... peace, not to displease any person, and live wisely with all. I conclude, madame la comtesse, this long and stupid epistle, which is, in fact, less a letter than a real case for consideration, by begging you to believe me, etc., "VOLTAIRE ", April 28, 1769. Gentleman in ordinary to the king. "P. S. My enemies say everywhere that I am not a Christian. I have just given them the lie direct, by performing my Easter devotions () publicly; thus proving to all my lively desire to terminate my long career ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... swear to that," Captain Ripon said, examining the portions of fowl, "though the plumpness of the breasts, and the size, show that they are not ordinary fowls." ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... by an inherent fallacy of ethics or imagination; a story that shapes itself naturally, if the author has the wit to see it. The author of Raoul de Cambrai, unhappily, has "no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man," and leaves his work encumbered with his dulness of perception; an evidence of the fertility of the heroic age in good subjects, and of the incompetence of some of the artists. Garin, on the other hand, shows how the common subject-matter ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... downstairs. They called it dining-rooms, but it was only one room, and them wasn't half enough room in it to work your elbows when the seven little tables and forty-nine chairs were occupied. There was not room for an ordinary-sized steward to pass up and down between the tables; but our waiter was not an ordinary-sized man—he was a living skeleton in miniature. We handed the soup, and the "roast beef one," and "roast lamb one," "corn beef and ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... Morgan had walked over with me to the fort every morning, and there gentlemen toiled beside the ordinary labourers and the slaves; but no fresh alarm came, and at last we were back at the house regularly, and time was devoted to making up for the past neglect, Morgan bemoaning the state of the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... it shall do you no good, kinsman. Your knighthood itself shall come on its knees, and it shall be rejected; it shall be sued for its fees to execution, and not be redeem'd; it shall cheat at the twelvepenny ordinary, it knighthood, for its diet, all the term- time, and tell tales for it in the vacation to the hostess; or it knighthood shall do worse, take sanctuary in Cole-harbour, and fast. It shall fright all its friends with borrowing letters; and when one of the fourscore hath ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... possible that even in the work of translation, to save time, Milton and Meadows may have been partners. All in all, however, as the proofs are all but certain that Milton's hand was to some extent employed in the document, it may mark his return to ordinary official work in Oct.-Nov. 1655, after three months of renewed exemption from such work, following his batch of state-letters on the subject of the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... light step and a soft voice, however, attracted his attention, and he saw approaching him two girls, who evidently belonged to a different class from those whose simple ways we have hitherto followed. One was a lady of very ordinary appearance, but the other he recognised as Miss Vaughan of Nantmyny, a young lady whose beauty and pleasant manners were the frequent theme of the countryside gossip, "and no wonder," ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... irritated with her; he was the most important person in the world and was engaged in proving it to Marjorie Jones and the whole city, and yet Miss Spence seemed to feel she still had the right to order him about as she did in the old days when he was an ordinary schoolboy. He was furious; he was sure she wanted him to do something disagreeable. It seemed to him that she had screamed "Penrod Schofield!" ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... the losses she incurred, though they seemed heavy to her anxious German friends, were as nothing when compared with those of the king's brothers. Even when it became known that she was involved in debt, that again was regarded as an ordinary occurrence, apparently even by the king himself, who paid the amount (about L20,000) without a word of remonstrance, merely remarking that he did not wonder at her funds being exhausted since she had such a passion for diamonds. ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... they ("the State," of course) would step in to rob a man of his earnings. These two writers only represent a great deal of crude thinking and declaiming which is in fashion. I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the practice of accumulation. A good father believes that he does wisely to encourage enterprise, productive skill, prudent self-denial, and judicious expenditure on the ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... manner would have been. He had no desire to be a lover, having forbidden himself that hope; but he found it so easy and pleasant to be a friend that he reproached himself for not trying it before; and explained his neglect by the fact that Christie was not an ordinary woman, since none of all the many he had known and helped, had ever been any thing to him but objects of pity ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... of tallow were very numerous, and gave a smoothness to the transactions of the day, which had a visible effect on business. Every species of fats were in high demand, but the glut of mutton gave a temporary check to the general facility of the ordinary operations. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... scholastic fashion. Being unable to settle it between themselves, they resolve to seek out Love himself, and to refer the matter to his judgment. One girl mounts a mule, the other a horse; and these are no ordinary animals, for Neptune reared one beast as a present to Venus, Vulcan forged the metal-work of bit and saddle, Minerva embroidered the trappings, and so forth. After a short journey they reach the Garden of Love, which is described with a truly ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... several bounds; especially to Ministers upon the coasts, or where there is Harbourie and Ports, to try and search for all books tending to Separation: And finding the same most necessar, do therefore ordain that recommendation to have the strength of an ordinary Act of Assembly: And that every Minister be careful to try and search if any such books be brought to this Countrey from beyond seas, and if any shall be found, to present the samine to Presbyteries, that some course may be taken to hinder the dispersing thereof: And ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... writing to suit the whims, fancies and caprices of a single individual, but must confine himself to the pure and unadulterated truth. To discuss this question from a lawyer's point of view, that is to say, by detailed cases, would be unintelligible to an ordinary layman's mind. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... of my readers to his able volumes. Whosoever wishes to know what this country really was in times past, and to learn, with a precision beyond what is supplied by the narratives of history, the details of the ordinary current of our social, civil, and national life, must carefully study the Domestic Annals of Scotland. Never before were a nation's domestic features so thoroughly portrayed. Of those features the specimens of quaint Scottish humour still remembered ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... Thomas Borrow, and what a revelation of heredity that impressive death-bed scene may be counted. Borrow on one occasion in later life declared that his favourite hooks were the Bible and the Newgate Calendar. We know that he specialised on the Bible and Prize-Fighting in no ordinary fashion—and here we see his father on his death-bed struggling between the religious sentiments of his maturity and the one great worldly escapade of ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... problems with our own Indians, not in relation to the Government, but in connection with ancient or modern feuds or ordinary quarrels between tribes. The Police generally got things early under control. Here is a case. On May 25, 1877, Little Child, a Salteaux Treaty Chief, came to Fort Walsh and reported that his people and a large ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... a very ordinary young man, of the heavy, stupid type too often met with to require either introduction or description. He had arrived in Queenstown about a fortnight before, with nothing much to guide his conduct in a strange country beyond the belief ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... readers—the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks, Greshams, and Daubeneys—had been more or less portraits, not of living men, but of living political characters. The strong-minded, thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, either of the Government or of the Opposition, had been very easy to describe, and had required no imagination to conceive. The character reproduces itself from generation to generation; and as it does so, becomes ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... spring day two men strolled into the public square of a well-known Chinese city. They were plainly dressed and looked like ordinary countrymen who had come in to see the sights. Judging by their faces, they were father and son. The elder, a wrinkled man of perhaps fifty, wore a scant grey beard. The younger had a ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... on ordinary occasions, but did not feel so on this occasion. He felt that Eben was not a deserving object, even had he felt able to make so large a loan. Besides, he could not forget that the young man who now asked a favor had brought a false charge of ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... to be required being properly placed, and every napkin being differently folded, so as to enable the ambitious neophyte to suit the taste of all mistresses. Beyond this is a small closet, with a window resembling those of an ordinary-sized house; and this the men and women are both taught to clean, while the closet itself serves as a cover for the simple operation of polishing boots and shoes. To this succeeds a table, upon which are placed the utensils for cleaning plate, and on another table the instruments ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... the imaginative arts a certain emancipation from the bounds of reality: we are willing to give a scope to fancy, and recreate ourselves with the possible. The man who expects it the least will nevertheless forget his ordinary pursuits, his everyday existence and individuality, and experience delight from uncommon incidents:—if he be of a serious turn of mind he will acknowledge on the stage that moral government of the world which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... weakness, with the persistent force of an idea that cannot die, was bent on subjugating Europe. The Papacy needed Italy as the basis of its operations, and could not brook a rival that might reduce the See of S. Peter to the level of an ordinary bishopric. Rome therefore, generation after generation, upheld the so-called liberties of Italy against all comers; and when she summoned the Franks, it was to break the growing power of the Lombard monarchs. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... students have occasionally, after the gates were locked, taken the liberty of passing, without an exeat, in rather a novel style. A certain Cantab was in the act of drawing himself through the bars, and being more than an ordinary mortal's bulk, he stuck fast. One of the fellows of the college passing, stepped up to the student and asked him ironically, "If he should assist him?"—"Thank you," was the reply, "I can get through!" at the same instant he drew himself back on ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... be my wife; my wife in reality, as you are his in name and nothing else. It is idle to talk as if we were in some ordinary situation. There are plenty of countries that would disown such a marriage as yours, a mere ceremony obtained by fraud, and canceled by a stroke with a dagger and instant separation. Oh, my darling, don't sacrifice both our lives ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... had not succeeded in producing a great effect with the masculine costumes, because of insufficient material. But the boys had determined not to wear their ordinary clothes, no matter what happened; so Jack had donned one of Hop Yet's blue blouses for his Sylvius dress, and had ready a plaid shawl to throw gracefully over one shoulder whenever he changed to the ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Waring's intellect. The more he thought over it, the more likely did this seem, for Guy talked on with the greatest composure about his plans for the future "when this difficulty was cleared up," as though a trial for murder were a most ordinary occurrence—an accident that might happen to any gentleman any day. And, if so, was it possible that Guy had gone wrong in his head BEFORE the affray with Montague Nevitt? That seemed likely enough; for when Granville remembered Guy's invariable gentleness and kindness to himself, his devotion ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... "On an ordinary sheet of paper?" Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly, again interested in the financial ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... temper, and Kitty's manner was most exasperating. Under ordinary circumstances the ladylike Nora would have hated climbing trees, but now all was forgotten in her fierce desire to lay hold of the daring, exasperating little Kitty and to force her secret out of her. How dared Annie Forest ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade

... in Australia, it was inconveniently remote from that country; and, worst of all, its cliffy and rocky shores presented serious dangers to mariners attempting a landing. Its general unsuitableness, however, for ordinary colonization, was considered to adapt it as a penal settlement, subordinate to New South Wales, and to which convicts could be sent who merited fresh punishment while in course of servitude. Thus, one of the lovliest ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... in the mud and preparing to fling her sons by thousands into the depths of the foul and filthy dungeons already marked out for their reception. It is reported that this, the first victim of their malignant spleen and hatred, is to be subjected to the gross indignity of receiving the ordinary treatment of a common criminal, and be subjected to the usual regulations of gaol discipline. Now, Sir, in the name of all that is enlightened and progressive, I ask, if, at the close of the nineteenth century, such outrage is to be committed? Surely in answer to my appeal the generous people ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... utterance is a perpetual marrying of thought with things, as in poetry,—a lifting up of the actual and a bringing down of the ideal,—giving a soul to the one and a body to the other. This takes place more or less in all speech, but only with genius is it natural and complete. Ordinary minds inherit their language and form of expression; but with the poet, or natural sayer, a new step is taken, and new analogies, new likenesses must be disclosed. He is distinguished from the second-hand man by the fulness ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... jocose mood, amused myself with analyzing this odor. I have resolved it into the following elements: lobsters, gunpowder, trampled-grass, wheel-grease, and cigars. It is mainly to these ingredients, grafted upon the other ordinary city smells, that I attribute the Fourth ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... Particular stress was laid upon the promotion of the production of munitions . . . as well as the development of gas as a means of warfare." Referring to protective methods of trench warfare, he continues, "Where one party had gained time . . . the ordinary methods of attack often failed completely. A weapon had, therefore, to be found which was superior to them but which would not excessively tax the limited capacity of German war industry in its production. Such a ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... "For a person of ordinary sense you are extraordinarily dull at times." She looked at him long and searchingly, then she leaned forward. "Tell me," she said, "are you honestly in earnest when you say you don't know what ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... virtue of its ionisation. Under certain conditions it may acquire chemical activity and new combinations may be formed or existing ones broken up. When its initial velocity is expended the helium atom gives up its properties as an alpha ray and thenceforth remains possessed of the ordinary varying velocity of thermal agitation. Bragg and Kleeman and others have investigated the career of the alpha ray when its path or range lies in a gas at ordinary or obtainable conditions of pressure and temperature. We will review some of the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... contrary, my dear Aramis," repeated Porthos, inhaling vigorously the salt breeze with which he charged his massive chest, "It is of no use, Aramis. The disappearance of all the fishing-boats that went out two days ago is not an ordinary circumstance. There has been no storm at sea; the weather has been constantly calm, not even the lightest gale; and even if we had had a tempest, all our boats would not have foundered. I repeat, it is strange. This complete disappearance astonishes ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Ruthven turned on me—and on her; and I borrowed more from Neergard and went to her bank and deposited it to the credit of her account—but she doesn't know it was from me—she supposes Jack Ruthven did it out of ordinary decency, for she said so to me. And that is how matters stand; Neergard is ugly, and grows more threatening about those loans—and I haven't any money, and Mrs. Ruthven will require ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... with the scar. He is a handsome beggar," Hillard admitted. "I wonder what sort of blackleg he is? He's no ordinary one, I'm certain. I begin to recognize the face of the man with him. He's a distinguished diplomat, and he would not associate with a man who was thoroughly bad, according to law, leaving out the moral side of ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... Besides the ordinary ancestor-worship (as distinct from the State worship) the people took to Buddhism and Taoism, which became the popular religions, and the literati also honoured the gods of these two sects. Buddhist deities gradually became installed ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... the man who had now sunk panting upon the ground, exhausted by his own violence. Evidently he had once possessed more than an ordinary share of physical beauty, but vice and evil passions had set their stamp upon his features, and famine had done its ghastly work; he was but a wreck of his ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... Yet, in ordinary weeks he did not go there; it seemed to him too great and too cold, and it was so ugly. He preferred warmer and smaller sanctuaries, in which there were still traces ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... plan has been devised to meet requirements of people who do not care to affiliate with the War Savings Associations. Any post office will issue a stamp book in which ordinary sixpenny postage stamps can be pasted. When thirty-one have been affixed they may be exchanged at the post office for a pound Savings Certificate. These books have this striking inscription on their cover: "Save your Silver and it will turn into Gold! 15/6 now means ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... that persons, in grammar, are not words, but mere forms, relations, or modifications of words; that they are things, thus named by a figure; things of the neuter gender, and not living souls. But persons, in common parlance, or in ordinary life, are intelligent beings, of one or the other sex. These objects, different as they are in their nature, are continually confounded by the makers of English grammars: as, "The first person is the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... ordinary Brooklynite or New Yorker, leading a life replete with too much luxury, or tired and careworn about his personal affairs, crosses the ferry or goes up Broadway, his fancy does not thus 'soar away into the colors of the sunset' as did Whitman's, nor does he inwardly realize ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... to remind the reader, that Margaret spoke in Gaelic, and that my translation into ordinary English does not in the least represent the extreme simplicity of the forms of her speculations, any more than of the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... yellow or greenish-yellow coloured solution would result. I told you, however, that jute is not chemically identical with cotton and linen. The substance of its fibre has been termed "bastose" by Cross and Bevan, who have investigated it. It is not identical with ordinary cellulose, for if we take a little of the jute, soak it in dilute acid, then in chloride of lime or hypochlorite of soda, and finally pass it through a bath of sulphite of soda, a beautiful crimson colour develops upon it, not developed in the case of cellulose (cotton, linen, etc.). It is certain ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith

... the country was surrounded by whites, and in possession of Indians, that it was unproductive, not being liable to taxes, nor to make roads nor improvements, it was time to change. As for the taxing of Indians, this is extra-ordinary; and was never heard of, since the settlement of America. The land is ours, by the gift of the Great Spirit. How can you tax it? We can make such roads as we want, and did so when the land was all ours. We are improving our condition. See these large stocks of cattle, and those fences. ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... his misfortunes which might insnare her heart. It was best for Laura that she should receive her explanations of life in very plain prose, and the picture that her aunt presented of Haldane and his prospects was prosaic indeed. He was shown to be but an ordinary young man, with more than ordinarily bad tendencies. While she commended his effort in itself, she plainly stated how wanting it was in the true elements of success, and how great were her fears that it would meet with utter failure. Thus ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... the roads were at at all better than they have been generally described in those days, we are to explain the fact, that both in the royal camp, in Lord Manchester's, and afterwards in General Fairfax's and Cromwell's, coaches were an ordinary part of the camp equipage. The roads, meantime, were as they have been described, viz., ditches, morasses, and sometimes channels for the course of small brooks. Nor did they improve, except for short ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... constant heat and hot water, so that the heavy work is reduced to a minimum; but the exigencies of family life are illustrated in the fact of the almost universal demand of the tenants for continuous heat and hot water night as well as day. The ordinary childless apartment house banks its fires at night. A supplementary apparatus would mean work by the tenants, however. This is a good example of the balance which must be struck in all new plans ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... conclusion, they would have wondered what joyful information could have so entranced and delighted the girl who entered the carriage, although with a serene and peaceful countenance, yet with a certain plaintive wistfulness in the shadows of her blue eyes, which betokened no exemption from the ordinary fate of mankind. But now! what unspeakable joy, what ecstatic delight seemed to infuse fresh life and vigour to the fragile, graceful form! For a few moments she crossed her hands on her bosom, and with closed eyes remained silent; then, starting up and ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... endeavour to feed cleanly at your ordinary, sit melancholy, and pick your teeth when you cannot speak: and when you come to plays, be humorous, look with a good starch'd face, and ruffle your brow like a new boot, laugh at nothing but your own jests, or else as the noblemen laugh. ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... take a share in the rebellion, Don Ignacio Guerra occupied a prominent place. Being well known to the Spanish Government as a devoted adherent of Christina, it would have been in vain for him to have attempted entering Spain by one of the ordinary roads. Repairing to Oleron, therefore, he procured himself a guide, and one of the small but sure-footed horses of the Pyrenees, and, after a wearisome march among the mountains, arrived about dusk at a cottage, or rather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... contribution of Catholicism was the separation which it set up between the temporal and the spiritual powers;—the progress of the race consists in the increasing preponderance of the distinctively human elements over the animal elements;—the absolute tendency of ordinary social theories will be replaced by an unfailing adherence to the relative point of view, and from this it follows that the social state, regarded as a whole, has been as perfect in each period as the co-existing condition of humanity and its ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley

... followed Ulysses to the court one of the common sort of beggars, Irus by name, one that had received alms beforetime of the suitors, and was their ordinary sport, when they were inclined (as that day) to give way to mirth, to see him eat and drink; for he had the appetite of six men; and was of huge stature and proportions of body; yet had in him no spirit ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... felicitous for themselves than agreeable to all who belonged to their society. Soon after his marriage, Ellis, who had never been vicious or profligate, but who was free from anything like severity or austerity, began to show symptoms of a devout propensity, and not contented with an ordinary discharge of religious duties, he read tracts and sermons, frequented churches and preachings, gave up driving on Sundays, and appeared in considerable danger of falling into the gulf of methodism; but this turn did not last long, and whatever induced him to take it ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... sculpture, which is nothing more, is always third-rate work, even when produced by men of genius;—nor does it in the least require men of genius to produce it. To paint a portrait, indeed, implies the very highest gifts of painting; but any man, of ordinary patience and artistic feeling, can ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... friendless child. He took it under his roof in London, invited the statesmen and the philosophers of Britain to see it, and urged forward with kindly words and generous attentions those who had the infant in charge. It is with no ordinary feelings, therefore, that, after the lapse of twenty years, I have the singular honor this morning of greeting with hearty welcome, in such presence, before such an assemblage, and in the cradle of the Telegraph, this ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... The ordinary late infection in the East begins with a little spot on the husk around the 1st of July, and that merely spreads until just about the time they fall off the tree. When the blight infection strikes it it stains the nut badly. The point I ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... paid a visit to Strangeways in his remote, undisturbed, and beautiful rooms. They were in a wing of the house untouched by any ordinary passing to and fro, and the deep windows looked out upon gardens which spring and summer would crowd with loveliness from which clouds of perfume would float up to him on days when the sun warmed and the soft airs stirred the flowers, shaking the ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... a sign, a prodigy, opposed to Mu'ujizah, a miracle wrought by a prophet. The Sufis explain this thaumaturgy by Allah changing something of Nature's ordinary course in favour of an especial worshipper, and, after a fashion, this is Catholic doctrine (See Dabistan, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... subordination and dependence in which kings ought to live with regard to the gods, and the benefit derived from consulting them in all things, is this: How clear-sighted soever mankind may be in the ordinary course of affairs, their views are always very narrow and bounded with regard to futurity; whereas the Deity, at a single glance, takes in all ages and events. "As the gods," says Cambyses to his son, "are eternal, they know equally all things, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... Carlyle, 'works from the skin inwards, never getting near the heart of men.' The books are addressed entirely to the everyday mind. They have nothing to do with emotions or principles, beyond those of the ordinary country gentleman; and, we may add, of the country gentleman with his digestion in good order, and his hereditary gout still in the distant future. The more inspiring thoughts, the deeper passions, are seldom roused. If in his width of sympathy, and his vivid perception of character within certain ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... for very soon the slave returned with the stranger. He was a youth of studious appearance and an engaging openness of manner. Hung about his neck by means of a cord were a variety of poems suitable to most of the contingencies of an ordinary person's existence. The name he bore was Sun and he was of the house ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah

... delusion!—to believe it. He writes as if he imagined that he possessed the inventive power: never was a greater mistake. These qualities and these mistakes make his prose writings unreadable and intolerable, at least all the later ones. But when to the charms of his ordinary style are added the attractions of verse, then the sense aches with the combined and heightened beauties. The present volume exaggerates all his literary vices. The plan of these poems is very well; if executed with taste and power, the volume would have been interesting. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... occurred during the passage, but the crew were daily exercised at all the arms carried by the ship—with the cannon, the muskets, and the single-sticks. The latter are for training in the use of the broadsword or cutlass, the play with which would be too dangerous for ordinary drills. Porter had a strong disposition to resort to boarding and hand-to-hand fighting, believing that the very surprise of an attack by the weaker party would go far to compensate for the inequality ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... hand tenderly down the side of the smooth cheek before her, and her eyes grew somewhat misty. But that was a rare occurrence, and the exhibition of it immediately dismissed. She kissed Eleanor and returned to her ordinary manner. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... as the wedding was over. He had not come to the point of thinking yet that marriage with Robin Drummond was not the way the Finger of God had pointed out to him. It was impossible not to notice Nelly's listless step and heavy eyes. The Dowager put down these things to ordinary delicacy, ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... end of that time, able to act as infantry, with as much regularity as the ordinary Sepoys. When so engaged, four horses were held by one man, so that a hundred and fifty men were available for ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... an equal division of the money and goods; whereupon the whole party proceeded in procession to the church. I think no one else in the village could so easily have persuaded the favoured individual to forgo the legal claim; but Bell was no ordinary man, and his simple sincerity of purpose was so apparent, that his influence was not to be resisted. Later in the evening a plain, but very useful, old oak chest was sent to me, when the division of the furniture was ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... situation well. His sudden and entirely unexpected attack had got from the man a story that a month of ordinary cross-examinations might not have elicited; for although the fellow had volunteered to tell all he knew, his manner convinced me that under other circumstances he would have told no more than he had to. Also he had admitted being ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... Capacity, Arch. Int. Med., March, 1916, p. 363.] has experimented both with normal persons and with patients who were suffering some cardiac insufficiency. He used both the bicycle ergometer and dumb-bells, and finds that there is a rise of systolic pressure after ordinary work, but a delayed rise after very heavy work, in normal persons. In patients with cardiac insufficiency he finds there is a delayed rise in the systolic pressure after even slight exercise, and those with marked cardiac insufficiency have even a lowering of blood ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... than the life of contemplation. By this principle of morals Bacon marked out the way for the English ethics of later times.[1] He notes the lack of a science of character, for which more material is given in ordinary discourse, in the poets and the historians, than in the works of the philosophers; he explains the power of the affections over the reason by the fact that the idea of present good fills the imagination more forcibly than the idea ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... a general expulsion of the workers in useless trades. Indeed, without this, most of them must have left the country when the ordinary currency came to an end, as they would not be able to sell their wares: for the iron money was not current among other Greeks, and had no value, being regarded as ridiculous; so that it could not be used for the purchase of foreign trumpery, and no cargo was shipped for ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... was yet in a condition to return to ordinary life, and it was determined that as soon as they were disinfected, they should leave the house to undergo the same process, and spend a few weeks at some health resort. Only Mary shuddered at the notion of hearing the sound of the ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge

... replied Mr Swinton, "a missionary, even of the most humble class, is a person of no ordinary mind; he does not rely upon himself or upon his own exertions,—he relies not upon others, or upon the assistance of this world; if he did, he would, as you say, soon abandon his task in despair. No; he is supported, he is encouraged, he is pressed on by faith—faith in Him ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... which they lived, and which was their own, was a somewhat remarkable one—I do not mean because it retained almost all the old-fashionedness of a hundred and fifty years, but for other reasons. Beside the ordinary accommodation of a good-sized London house with three drawing-rooms on the first floor it had a quite unusual provision for the receiving of guests. At the top of the first landing, rather more than half-way up the stair, that is, there was a door through ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... Lawrence, Lord Oliphant, his bailie for life of the lands of the monastery within twenty days after he should be admitted to the spirituality by the ordinary and by the King to the temporality of the said benefice. The family of Oliphant held this relation during the reign of James V., Mary, and James ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... supposed, where licence was untrammelled, there was much needless slaughter. Fine carcasses were left as they fell, with the loss only of a few choice cuts. As the beasts, especially the pigs, which looked like our ordinary porkers well stretched, could run with great speed, the chase was amusing as well as exciting. Red breeches and blue fraternized and vied with each other in the sport, to quarrel, perhaps, over ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... occasionally and feel no temptation to take his watch. Sink into yonder soft-yielding leather and allow me to offer you one of these plutocratic perfectos. Only the elect get these, I can tell you. In that drawer there I keep a brand made out of car waste and hemp rope, that does very well for ordinary commercial sociability. Got a match? All right; smoke up and tell me what you're doing to make the world a better place to live in, as old Prexy used to say ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... desolate she was in the world, and he returned to her. 'I beg your pardon, Clara,' he said, 'I am passionate; but I must be a beast to show my passion to you on such a day as this. If I were you I should accept Lady Aylmer's invitation merely thanking her for it in the ordinary way. I should then go and see how the land lay. That is the advice I should give ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... in order to make them more respectable and sacred, are not only entirely susceptible of being understood by you, but that they are likewise within the comprehension of every one who possesses even an ordinary share of good sense. If my frankness shall appear too undisguised, I beg you to consider, Madam, that it is necessary I should address you explicitly and clearly. I now consider it my duty to administer an energetic and prompt remedy for the malady ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... writer infinitely clearer, and gives a new character altogether to his style. But we ought also to bear in mind, that the following sermons were prepared for a country audience, and that they were the ordinary weekly production of a very young clergyman, struggling with bad health, and burdened with the performance of various other arduous duties. Many, I have no doubt, will think this apology for the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... or artistic world, who possessed, besides their literary or artistic gifts, a certain art of agreeable living, and some few others—especially young girls—admitted generally for some peculiar quality of beauty or manner outside the ordinary canons. Money was really presupposed by the group as a group. The life they belonged to was a life of the rich, the houses they met in were rich houses. But money as such had no power whatever to buy admission to their ranks; and the members of the group ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... remarked by some of their companions how much Jacqueline Gabrie and the young student from the city walked together. But the subject of their discourse, as they rested under the trees that fringed the river, was not within the range of common speculation; far enough removed from the ordinary use to which the peasants put their thought was the thinking of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... be granted to every honest bankrupt (whether his estate pays anything to his creditors or not), which clears him forever of all his ordinary debts. It does not apply to taxes nor to liabilities for certain wrongs of an aggravated character; nor can two successive discharges in bankruptcy be procured within six years unless the first was the result ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... all this, if the truth must be told, the conclusions of Amanda's mind were, in ordinary affairs, even more correct than her husband's judgment; for he was governed a great deal by impulses and first impressions, instead of by the reason of which he was so proud, while she came naturally into the woman's quick perceptions of right ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur

... by his English interpreter the author of the "Vestiges of Creation," had rather discredited than helped on a belief in organic evolution—a belief, that is, in new kinds being produced from older {4} ones by the ordinary and constant operation of natural laws. Now, however, this belief is widely diffused. Indeed, there are few drawing-rooms where it is not the subject of occasional discussion, and artisans and schoolboys have their views as to ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... the specimens this young man has since given of his intellect to the world, it is, indeed, lamentable,—supposing skill to have been, at this moment, of any avail,—that a life so precious should have been intrusted to such ordinary hands. "It was on this day, I think," says Count Gamba, "that, as I was sitting near him, on his sofa, he said to me, 'I was afraid I was losing my memory, and, in order to try, I attempted to repeat some Latin verses with the English translation, which I have not endeavoured to recollect ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... confess, not with Injustice: But that Mr. Otway shou'd say, my Sex wou'd not prevent my being pull'd to Pieces by the Criticks, is something odd, since whatever Mr. Otway now declares, he may very well remember when last I saw him, I receiv'd more than ordinary Encomiums on my Abdelazer, But every one knows Mr. Otway's good Nature, which will not permit him to shock any one of our Sex to their Faces. But let that pass: For being impeach'd of murdering my Moor, I am thankful, since, when ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... also have sufficient understanding to transact the ordinary business of life. Idiots and lunatics cannot legally contract marriage. Persons must also act freely. If the consent of either party has been obtained by force or fraud, the marriage may be declared void. The parties must not be nearly related. The degrees of ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... its judgment. There were many unusual points in the case, some of which bore heavily against Lord Falworth, some of which were in his favor. He was very ably defended by the lawyers whom the Earl of Mackworth had engaged upon his side; nevertheless, under ordinary circumstances, the judgment, no doubt, would have been quickly rendered against him. As it was, however, the circumstances were not ordinary, and it was rendered in his favor. The Court besought the King to grant the ordeal by battle, to accept Lord Falworth's champion, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... the whole party. He had a military demeanor. When the mules were brought up and their packs fastened upon their backs, which operation required both skill and labor, it was Kit who ordered the march, which was conducted with more than ordinary ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... "For their ordinary burials, they dig a deep hole in the earth with sharp stakes, and the corpse being lapped in skins and mats with their jewels they lay them upon sticks in the ground, and so cover them with earth. The burial ended, ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... busy he was, I felt certain that something out of the ordinary had called him from his regular duties at this time of day, and I was interested ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory

... too, we may philosophize about Wagner's Tristan, but the philosophy is our own; it is not in the work. What is meant no doubt is that the work itself is not a concrete reality, but an exposition of an abstract conception. Philosophy has only herself to blame if abstractions are in the naif, ordinary mind opposed to realities, for it is unhappily true that nearly the whole of our current philosophy does consist of abstractions which are mere "Hirngespinnste," rooted in words and not in nature; philosophy itself ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight

... since. I don't mind any more. I'm raised up and blessed now. Indeed I feel I've got much more by a long way than my share of good things, and with what Kloster said hugged secretly to my heart I'm placed outside the ordinary toiling-moiling that life means for most women who have got to wring a living out of it without having anything special to wring with. It's the sheerest, wonderfullest, most radiant luck that I've got this. ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... an appreciative grin, Jumbo's long ears lying as far back on his head as they would reach. To the ordinary observer it might have been supposed that the mule was angry about something. On the contrary, it was his way of showing his pleasure. When a pan of oats was thrust before Jumbo, or he chanced upon a patch of fresh, tender grass, the ears ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... of them were still remaining, who lived promiscuously with the men, frequently changing their abode from one house to another. Young, being a man of some education, kept a kind of journal, but it is a document of very little interest, containing scarcely anything more than the ordinary occupations of the settlers, the loan or exchange of provisions, the dates when the sows farrowed, the number of fish caught, etc., and it begins only at the time when Adams and he were sole masters of the island; and the truth, therefore, of all that has been told rests solely ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow



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