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Outline   Listen
noun
Outline  n.  
1.
(a)
The line which marks the outer limits of an object or figure; the exterior line or edge; contour.
(b)
In art: A line drawn by pencil, pen, graver, or the like, by which the boundary of a figure is indicated.
(c)
A sketch composed of such lines; the delineation of a figure without shading. "Painters, by their outlines, colors, lights, and shadows, represent the same in their pictures."
2.
Fig.: A sketch of any scheme; a preliminary or general indication of a plan, system, discourse, course of thought, etc.; as, the outline of a speech. "But that larger grief... Is given in outline and no more."
Synonyms: Sketch; draught; delineation. See Sketch.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Outline" Quotes from Famous Books



... twenty years after his death, still pointed to the life of Champlain as a model of all Christian virtues, is sufficient, and it is certain that no governor under the old regime presented a more brilliant example of faith, piety, uprightness, or soundness of judgment. A brief outline of the character of Champlain has been given in order that the plan of this biography may be better understood. Let us now glance at his ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... outline, is the framework of the American state governments. But our account would be very incomplete without some mention of three points, all of them especially characteristic of the American state, and likely to be ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... two hundred yards it was impossible to get; even to raise my head or find a tussock whereon to rest the rifle would have started any deer but this one. From the hollow I was in, the most I could see of him was the outline of his back and his head and neck. I put up the 200 ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... air and slight smile the stranger accepted the invitation, and listened with profound interest to Paul as he gave a brief outline of the wreck of the Water Wagtail, the landing of the crew, the mutinous conduct of Big Swinton and his comrades, and the subsequent adventures and wanderings of himself, Master ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... desist gazing in the glass at her wan face. Nothing can from that knitted brow of hers those frowns dispel; For hard she finds it patient to abide till the clepsydra will have run its course. Alas! how fitly like the faint outline of a green hill which nought can screen; Or like a green-tinged stream, which ever ceaseless floweth onward far ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... evidence both for and against "twilight sleep," it may be of assistance to the lay reader to have placed before her the personal conclusions and working opinions of the authors. We, therefore, undertake to summarize our present attitude and outline our practice ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... according to popular apprehension. For Prussia there was an immense giant, one of whose knees was on the stomach of Austria represented as a lank figure utterly prostrate, while the other foot threatened to crush South-western Germany. One hand menaced France, whose outline the designer had managed to give rudely in the figure of a Zouave in a fierce attitude; and the other was thrust toward Russia, a huge colossus with Calmuck dress, and features. The most conspicuous thing in the giant's dress was a helmet with a spike projecting from the ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... stood stupidly staring at him, but my full understanding coming to me on a sudden, I jumped to the ladder and darted on deck. I heard voices over the starboard side and ran there. It was not so dark but that I could see the outline of a Deal lugger. Whilst I was peering, the voice of my man Wilkinson cried out, "On deck, there! ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... a little girl named Lucie, kept shyly pointing out to me the shelves of glass jars. They said nothing, but, glancing at me, traced on the glass with their finger-tips the outline of the cherries and strawberries and crabapples within, trying by a blissful expression of countenance to give me ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... a pleasure to attend this meeting of the Northern Nut Growers. Association and to take part in your program. I shall discuss the Japanese beetle as it seems to affect nut culture, and outline our methods of control. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... or four weeks through the reaches and tickles of this bay, which has the singular advantage of being free from rocks and shoals, with abundance of good and safe harbours, almost all surrounded by hills and headlands of picturesque outline, covered with trees, against which no feller has raised his axe. Our harbour this ...
— Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the "Hawk," 1859 • Edward Feild

... 1. The outline of this Tale is to be found in the "Cento Novelle Antiche," but the original is now lost. As in the case of the Wife of Bath's Tale, there is a long prologue, but in this case it has been treated as part of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... stouter than is usually to be found in men of his race. His bearing was graceful, lofty, and commanding; his eye eagle-like in its unflinching brightness; his face, in its European regularity of feature and clearness of outline, eminently handsome, showing in its lines the energy and intelligence of a great mind, true to itself and to the best impulses of human nature. He was dressed in the peculiar and picturesque costume of his people, made magnificent by fineness of material and the richness of decoration. Besides ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... that I recollected in the parent, were reproduced (slightly reproduced, I ought to say) in the child. As for the other features, I had never seen a more beautiful nose and mouth, or a more delicately-shaped outline, than was presented by the lower part of the face. But Miss Helena somehow failed to charm me. I doubt if I should have fallen in love with her, even in the days when I was ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... given an outline of the data which led to the belief that the stratified and fossiliferous rocks were originally deposited under water; but, before entering into a more detailed investigation, it will be desirable to say something of the ordinary materials of which such strata are composed. These ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... a woman of some threescore years, tall, stately, and squarely formed, with ample breadth of back and size of chest, like the robust dames of Sorrento. Her strong Roman nose, the firm, determined outline of her mouth, and a certain energy in every motion, speak the woman of will and purpose. There is a degree of vigor in the decision with which she lays down her spindle and bows her head, as a good Christian of those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... faint and broad outline of some of the features of Seneca's age; and we shall be unjust if we do not admit that much at least of the life he lived, and nearly all the sentiments he uttered, gain much in grandeur and purity from the contrast they offer ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... secured for the first time a view of his face in profile; and found it to be startlingly unfamiliar. Seen thus, my acquaintance was another man. I realized that there was something unnatural about the long, white hair, the gray face; that the sharp outline of brow, nose, and chin was that of a much younger man than I had supposed ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... outline through the infra-red, the valley lay revealed as a great natural cradle for a mammoth body of rock which had been swung down from the deeps of space to the surface ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... would not leave old Scotland's mountain gray, Her hills, her cots, her halls, her groves of pine, Dark though they be: yon glen, yon broomy brae, Yon wild fox cleugh, yon eagle cliffs outline An hour like this—this white right-hand of thine, And of thy dark eyes such a gracious glance, As I got now, for all beyond the line, And all the glory gained by sword or lance, In gallant England, Spain, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various

... intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred years; and these say that he comes regularly when his father dies; and if he be like the painting, he is of this size and nature, that is to say, some of his feathers are of gold colour and others red, and in outline and size he is as nearly as possible like an eagle. This bird they say (but I cannot believe the story) contrives as follows:—setting forth from Arabia he conveys his father, they say, to the temple of the Sun (Helios) plastered up in myrrh, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... A black outline woven in the fabric is one which artists prior to the Seventeenth Century used to give greater strength to figures. It was the habit thus to trace the entire human form, to lift it clearly from its background, after the "poster" manner of to-day. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... artist has concealed. Some traits in the character, and some wit in the dialogue, might descend traditionally; and the most experienced actor on that stage would make use of his memory more than he was willing to confess. Goldoni records an unlucky adventure of his "Harlequin Lost and Found," which outline he had sketched for the Italian company; it was well received at Paris, but utterly failed at Fontainebleau, for some of the actors had thought proper to incorporate too many jokes of the "Cocu Imaginaire," which displeased the court, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... intractable country, but that does not save the harsh landscape from being unattractive. The high plateaus of New Mexico and Arizona have everything that the rainy wilderness lacks—sunshine, heaven's own air, immense breadth of horizon, color and infinite beauty of outline, and a warm soil with unlimited possibilities when moistened. All that these deserts need is water. A fatal want? No. That is simply saying that science can do for this region what it cannot do for the high wilderness of frost—by the transportation of water transform ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... memory that nothing can dispel. This spectre doubtless follows you too, dear Edgar. It is a mute, eloquent image fashioned in the empty air, like the outline of a grave; a phantom that the sun drives not away, pursuing me by day and by night. It is Raymond's face as he stood opposite to you on the field of death, his brow, his eye, his lips, his whole bearing ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... wish," the Doctor resumed, still with his face averted and his gaze directed on the dull outline of Looe Island, a mile away. "He says he knows he's disgracing the Company: but he's anxious, all the same, to have a military funeral: says if you can promise this, he'll feel in a way ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... authoritative, summary of the facts of normal and pathological olfaction will be found in a little volume of the "Actualites Medicales" series by Dr. Collet, L'Odorat et ses Troubles, 1904. In a little book entitled Wegweiser zu einer Psychologie des Geruches (1894) Giessler has sought to outline a psychology of smell, but his sketch can only be regarded as tentative ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... me so full of color, and cut in such precision and keenness of outline, that at no point can I bring myself to say, "Perhaps I am in error concerning this," or to ask, "Has this perchance been confused with other matters?" Moreover, there are few now remaining who of their own memory could controvert or correct me. And if they essay to do so, why should not my ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... her house seemed to gleam from the great lady's brilliant eyes, such courage as women use to repel audacity or scorn, for they were full of tenderness and gentleness. The outline of that little head, . . . the delicate, fine features, the subtle curve of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore an expression of delicate discretion, a faint semblance of irony suggestive of craft and insolence. It would have been ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... bluff is Italian;" said our heroine, pointing down the river at a noble headland of rock, that loomed grandly in the soft haze of the tranquil atmosphere. "One seldom sees a finer or a softer outline on the shores ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... bathed in the hot rays of the sun, its tall minaret-like outline looks like a block of ice against the blue sky. By night, with the aid of the intense, phosphorescent moonlight proper to India, it is still more dazzling and poetical. The summit looks as if it were covered ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... posterolingual cusp separated from the main cusp by a distinct groove, which deepens posteriorly. The posterolingual cusp is supported by the broad posterior root. P4 of the type specimen of Sinclairella dakotensis is described (Jepsen, 1934, p. 392) as having an oval outline at the base of the crown, and a small, posterolingual cusp. A chip of enamel is missing from the posterior slope of the main cusp of the P4 of KU no. 11210. The anterior slope of the main cusp is flattened, ...
— Records of the Fossil Mammal Sinclairella, Family Apatemyidae, From the Chadronian and Orellan • William A. Clemens

... The matter, anyway, is now ripe for settlement, and procrastination can only aggravate the financial difficulty. So far as the educational problem is concerned, it is a manifest obligation upon the Nationalist Party to outline their proposals for the redress of these grievances, and to indicate the means by which they can be carried out, before a separate Legislature is set up for the people ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... everything appeared lonely and deserted—only a shooting star showed that in the heavens there was yet life. I know not whether the clear, blue atmosphere gleamed with its own light, or if the radiance came from the stars; but we could distinguish quite plainly the outline of the mountains. My mother lighted a fire, and roasted some roots she had brought with her, and I and my little sister slept among the bushes, without fear of the ugly smidraki, from whose throat issues fire, or of the wolf and the jackal; for my ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... commercial convention failed in point of representation. If it should produce a full meeting in May, and a broader reformation, it will still be well. To make us one nation as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in domestic ones, gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general and particular governments. But, to enable the federal head to exercise the powers given it to best advantage, it should be organized as the particular ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... khaki-clad giant who took his seat for East Toxteth to-day, had a warm reception, all the more grateful in view of the blizzard that raged without. The temperature of the House fell rapidly, however, when Mr. SNOWDEN proceeded to outline his views on the subject of peace. In vain he attempted to show that there was a considerable party in Germany ready to come to terms if only they knew what our terms were. Members listened in chilly silence. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various

... Doubleday, 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' vol. i. 1848, p. 379. I may add that the wings in certain Hymenoptera (see Shuckard, 'Fossorial Hymenoptera,' 1837, pp. 39-43) differ in neuration according to sex.), and sometimes considerably in outline, as in the Aricoris epitus, which was shewn to me in the British Museum by Mr. A. Butler. The males of certain South American butterflies have tufts of hair on the margins of the wings, and horny excrescences on the discs of the posterior pair. (11. H.W. Bates, in 'Journal ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... The whole thing was abominably disagreeable to him, but it had to be done, he had promised Ethel it should be done. Presently Miss Heydinger knew the main outline of his story, knew all his story except, the emotion that made it credible. "And you were married—before the second ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... beautiful; at least for the greater part of its course. Indeed, you can hardly compare American with European rivers, for the charm is of another description, quite. With us it is nature only, here it is almost all art. Our rivers are lovely, because the outline of the shore is graceful, and particularly because the vegetation is luxuriant. The hills are green, the foliage deep and lavish, the rocks grown over with vines or moss, the mountains in the distance covered with pines and other forest-trees; everything is wild, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... chair-cover and your faded linen skirt, which you said I might use for carpet rags; and, should more material be needed, I have some old, gray woolen underwear in my patch bag, a gray-white, similar to the real Navajo. The rows of black with which we shall outline the triangles may be made from those old, black, silk-lisle hose you gave me, by cutting them round and round in one continuous strip. Heavy cloth should be cut in very narrow strips. Sibylla will do that nicely; her hands are more used to handling large, heavy shears ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... she started, drew back into the brougham, became an outline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me. Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel a faint ache in the scar of the long healed wound. My face was not hidden as was hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... coast of Finistere, is the site of no less than forty-one standing stones of quartz, which outline a rectangular space 600 yards in length at its base. Many stones have been removed, so that the remaining sides are incomplete. None of these monoliths is of any considerable size, however, and the site is not considered to be of much ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... looked abroad upon it she marvelled at a hundred differences between it and her native Midlands. It was wilder—infinitely wilder—than Warwickshire, and at the same time less unkempt; far more savage in outline, yet in detail sober almost to tidiness. It seemed to acknowledge the hand of some great unknown gardener; and this gardener was, of course, the sea-breeze now filling her lungs and bracing her strength. The shaven, landward-bending thorns and hollies, the close-trimmed hedgerow, the clean-swept ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... engrafted on romantic tradition or classical history, looks like genius.... His tragedy of the Fall of Sejanus, in particular, is an admirable piece of ancient mosaic.... The depth of knowledge and gravity of expression sustain one another throughout: the poet has worked out the historian's outline, so that the vices and passions, the ambition and servility of public men, in the heated and poisonous atmosphere of a luxurious and despotic court, were never described in fuller or more glowing ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... millions upon great charities and religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like sums upon matters to which (at first) he gave definite names. Only at first. Later the names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and eventually faded into "sundries," thus becoming entirely—but safely—undescriptive. For Sally was crumbling. The placing of these millions added seriously and most uncomfortably to the family ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... it empty? Straight ahead of him he seemed to see an outline through the falling snow, like a dim and dusky figure behind a veil. He rose, new strength flowing into his veins, and took a step or two forward, fearful that he had been deceived by one of the fancies or visions, supposed to float before the eyes of the dying. Then ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... little interest under our present point of view, because they have been almost exclusively attended to and selected for their beautiful colour, size, perfect outline, and manner of growth. In these particulars hardly one long-cultivated flower can be named which has not varied greatly. What does a florist care for the shape and structure of the organs of fructification, unless, indeed, they add to the beauty of the flower? ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... proved to be a row-boat with a double set of oar-locks, a perfect boat for the lake, strong and safe, but trig and neat of outline. ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs

... face and affected to see nothing as Roger buttoned her cheapish vague-coloured jacket around her and ordered her sternly to straighten her hat. Her fingers literally trembled with rage, her soft, round breasts, strangely distinct in outline to his fingers as he strained the tight jacket over them, rose and fell stormily; in a troubled flash of memory he seemed to be handling some throbbing, shot bird. His own clumsiness and strange, heady elation he attributed to the shock of ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... lay, side by side, propped up partly on their elbows, their rifles thrust well forward, and watching toward the north. They were not able to see anything, save the dark outline of the forest, and a little puff of smoke rising where an Indian had fired. The wilderness itself was absolutely still but Robert's vivid imagination as usual peopled it thickly. Although his eye did not reach ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... from the fact that Mr. Bankhead's note of 28th December, 1835, suggested the river St. John from the point in which it is intersected by a due north line drawn from the monument at the head of the St. Croix to the southernmost source of that river as a part of the general outline of a conventional boundary. No difficulty was anticipated on the part of Her Majesty's Government in understanding the grounds upon which such a proposal was expected to be entertained by it, since the precedent proposition of Mr. Bankhead, just adverted to, although professedly based on the principle ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... I could now describe to you the aged pair, to whom all in the house look up with love and reverence, who soon will have been a wedded couple forty years, and who appear no longer able to live the one without the other—but my pen is too weak for that. I will only venture upon a slight outline sketch. My father is nearly seventy years old—but do you think he indulges himself with rest? He would be extremely displeased if he were to sleep longer in a morning than usual: he rises every morning ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... scandalised by the tweeds and the brown boots). Yes, I've been here some little time. I wish you could have managed to come before, because they close early here to-day, and I wanted to go thoroughly over the tour I sketched out before getting the tickets. [He produces an elaborate outline. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various

... sordid or discordant colors do we move about! What desolate blurring of outline and action, by our dragging masses of cloth, stiffened and padded like Chinese armor! What strange figures, conventionalized as a lotus pattern, instead of the moving glory of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... yet they lived in tents, and the shade-trees seen in his imagination are now an established fact. Greeley is to-day a town embowered in trees. The first work was to dig a canal at a cost of sixty thousand dollars, this being the initial experiment of upland irrigation. Such is, in outline, the history of Greeley, which the colony desired to name Meeker—for its founder—but which Horace Greeley's friend and associate editor insisted should bear its present name. Greeley is known as the "garden city" of Colorado, and that it ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... as she stood before him, with her waterproof, still covered with rain-drops, partially thrown back and revealing the outline of a form which, though not stout, was suggestive of health and strength. She seemed, with her warm, high color, like a hardy flower covered with spray. Instead of shrinking feebly and delicately from the harsher moods of nature, and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... In outline the lake is like a dolphin just about to dive. At the dolphin's snout lies Geneva, and here the river Rhone flows out of the lake to run to Lyons and debouch into the Mediterranean immediately to the west of the ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... to Mrs. Aders it appears that Coleridge did not contemplate the epitaph being inscribed on his tombstone, but that he intended it to be printed 'in letters of a distinctly visible and legible size' on the outline of a tomb-stone to be engraved as a vignette to be published in a magazine, or to illustrate the last page of his 'Miscellaneous Poems' in the second volume of his Poetical Works. It would seem that the artist, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... begin at the extreme easterly point of the borough, the toe of the boot which the general outline resembles. We are here in Knightsbridge. The derivation of this word has been much disputed. Many old writers, including Faulkner, have identified it with Kingsbridge—that is to say, the bridge over the Westbourne in the King's high-road. The Westbourne formed the boundary of Chelsea, ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... imperfect outline of the code which the inventor asserts may be introduced with wonderful advantage in the streets, the theatres, at churches, and dissenting chapels; and, in short, everywhere that the language of the lips ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... whose transparence was absolute. They challenged the eye, stereoscopic in their relief. Were it not for the belittling effects of the distance, we felt that we might count the frost seams or the glacial scorings on every granite apron. Far below we saw the irregular outline of our lake. It looked like a pond a few hundred feet down. Then we made out a pin-point of white moving leisurely near its border. After a while we realized that the pin-point of white was one of our pack-horses, and immediately ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... true outline of the actual state of affairs. Richard Ashton, at the date of which we are speaking, found absolute ruin staring him in the face, and he now knew he must either sell or be sold out. He wisely chose the former ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... all around. For a moment or two I heard the runners crashing through the brush. Several shots hummed past me, but I was too preoccupied to notice them much. I knew I'd have to get cover soon—before they saw and dropped me. Just ahead, in dark outline, I spotted what seemed to be a providential bit of cover. I made for it full tilt, the ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... this be so, what's the use of your petty criticism? If this marvel, before whose spell all men, even you yourselves, must bow, has a "rigidity of outline," an "air of littleness and luxury," a "poverty of relief," and if "the inlaid work has been vulgarly employed," and the patterns are "meagre in the extreme," wasn't it the highest aim that its builder could probably ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... "The agreement of so many genera of animals in a certain common schema, which appears to be fundamental not only in the structure of their bones, but also in the disposition of their remaining parts—so that with an admirable simplicity of original outline, a great variety of species has been produced by the shortening of one member and the lengthening of another, the involution of this part and the evolution of that—allows a ray of hope, however faint, to penetrate into our minds, that here something may be accomplished by the aid ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... that every man should desire to possess; do you think many men, set upon by robbers, would act as bravely and as faithfully as Turk? Give reasons for your answer. 4. What do you know of the author? 5. Class readings: The conversation between Mr. Prideaux and the butcher, (2 pupils). 6. Outline for testing silent reading. Tell the story in your own words, using these topics: (a) Turk's adventure; (b) how the mystery was explained. 7. You will enjoy reading "Cap, the Red Cross Dog" (in Stories for Children, Faulkner). 8. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: alert; mission; dejected; ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... May having been given because she was born in the month of blossoms.) This lady (now Mrs. Warter,) was the bard himself with a different sex and complexion. "Her features his, but softened." Her gentle, graceful deportment was in perfect harmony with flaxen hair tinted with gold; and the outline of her father's face was embellished by the blue eyes and other delicate colors of her too sensitive mother, (named, also, Edith,) who had been chosen for love alone. The second daughter, Birtha, as I have said, was absent. The third, Catherine, "between the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... to the green tunnel so the descent was not difficult. Here and there beside the path upreared huge broken blocks. On them I thought I could see faint tracings as of carvings—now a suggestion of gaping, arrow-fanged dragon jaws, now the outline of a scaled body, a hint of ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... glance back and down from his high seat at his load. It consisted, for the most part, of boxes of canned goods, but near the front there was a sort of nest, made from bags of Indian meal. In the middle of the nest lay another bundle of slim, irregular outline. It was covered with a thin blanket and a piece of sacking protected it from the sun. A large, clumsy parcel lay beside it. Each time Thatcher looked at this portion of his load he pulled more anxiously at his mustache. At last, when the noon sun stood straight ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... right, looking down the stream, the hills closed in quite to the water's brink on the far side, rough and uncultivated, with many a blue and misty peak discovered through the gaps in their bold, broken outline, and a broad, lake-like sheet, as calm and brightly pictured as a mirror, reflecting their inverted beauties so wondrously distinct and vivid, that the amazed eye might not recognize the parting between reality and shadow. An old gray mill, deeply embosomed in ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... sank behind the Mount of Olives, leaving the towers, minarets, and domes of Jerusalem in deep shadow; the lamps in the city went out, and every outline was lost in gloom; but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre still shone in the darkness like a beacon light. There, while every soul in Jerusalem slumbered, Tancred knelt in prayer by the tomb of Christ, under the lighted dome, waiting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... to his trunk. It puzzled me to know how or why he had been billeted on my palatial shelf, for the whole of which I had paid; but as it was rather a cold night, and there was something respectable in the outline of that Roman nose, I turned my back on him and determined to accept the situation, soothing myself with the reflection that if I repeated the assault upon his nose, such an accident must be excused as a fortuitous result ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... awaken fresh and unexpected notes in his nature. His fibres seem to lie more exposed; you have glimpses into the man's anatomy. There is something hostile in this sunlight to the hazy or spongy quality which saturates the domestic Anglo-Saxon, blurring the sharpness of his moral outline. No doubt you will also meet with dull persons; Rome is full of them, but, the type being easier to detect among a foreign environment, there is still less difficulty in evading ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... the lake is most perfect when, like Derwent-water, and some of the smaller lakes, it least resembles that of a river;—I mean, when being looked at from any given point where the whole may be seen at once, the width of it bears such proportion to the length, that, however the outline may be diversified by far-receding bays, it never assumes the shape of a river, and is contemplated with that placid and quiet feeling which belongs peculiarly to the lake—as a body of still water under the influence of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... described in print,[9] though inadequately and, in one important respect, most unfairly. That unfairness I shall correct in the next chapter. But for this first action I do not propose to do more than give an outline of the work of the two Brigades engaged, and an account of ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... You will recall how most of the early races first wrote in pictures instead of letters. There were hieroglyphics in Egypt; 'speaking stories' in Assyria; and picture-writing in Turkey, China, and Japan. The picture book of the time was merely an attempt to put into simple outline, by means of woodcuts, the religious drama, or dumb shows of the day. The city of Florence did much for this form of work, its rappresentazioni being printed as early as 1485. Albrecht Duerer of Germany was one of the later and most skilful woodcut artists. What ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... outline of the main historical facts in this controversy, and it is worthy of note, as remarked, that for the first 400 years of the Christian era the Calvinistic system of theology was unknown to the Christian church. It began, as we have seen, with ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace

... wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... from their many tasks to send Dr. May the presentment of his namesake grandson. Little Dickie stood before them, a true son of the humming-bird sprite, delicately limbed and featured, and with elastic springiness, visible even in the pencilled outline. The dancing dark eyes were all Meta's, though the sturdy clasp of the hands, and the curl that hung over the brow, brought back the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... distance, he saw against the darkness the yet darker outline of the chapel, the ruins of which towered above the path. A few drops of rain began to fall; and he heard a clock strike nine. He quickened his pace. There was a short descent; then the path rose again. And suddenly, he stopped ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... outline might be preserved must depend on the care with which the old stories of the gods were passed from one person and one generation to another. The fundamental myths of a race have a surprising tenacity ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... d'Esgrignon, the thankless sacrifices of Armande, the /prisca fides/ of Maitre Chesnel, present pictures for which, out of Balzac, we can look only in Jules Sandeau, and which in Sandeau, though they are presented with a more poetical touch, have less masterly outline than here. One takes —or, at least, I take—less interest in the ignoble intrigues of the other side, except in so far as they menace the fortunes of a worthy house unworthily represented. Victurnien d'Esgrignon, like ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... thus fulfilled, though the elder Browning did not live to see it. Mrs. Bronson describes his enjoyment of nature in this lovely little hill-town,—"the ever-changing cloud shadows on the plain, the ranges of many-tinted mountains in the distance, and the fairy-like outline of the blue Euganean Hills, which form in part the southern boundary of the vast Campagna." Browning would speak of the associations which these hills bear with the names of ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... valley below the fall. A purple bank of vapour blocked the end of it. But the rolling outline was edged already with gold, and already ray upon ray of gold shivered across the upper sky and touched the pinewoods at the head ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... sitting in front of the hut, over their coffee, the setting sun cast the shadow of the cliff right before their feet; and, at the very edge of the craggy outline, they perceived the shadow of something else which was ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... more favoured lands to the south. For torrid heat fell suddenly upon them, heat well-nigh as unmeasured as was the winter's cold. The tops of the spruces and cypresses, forgotten by the wind, were utterly still, and above the frowning outline stretched a sky bare of cloud which likewise seemed fixed and motionless. From dawn till nightfall a merciless sun calcined ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... the long vista of memory, to the many faces turned to me from beds of pain, I find few to which I can attach a name, and one I seem never to have looked upon but once. It is a long, sallow face, surmounted by bushy, yellow hair; it has a clear, oval outline, and straight nose, brown eyes and a down of young manhood on the wasted, trembling lips; I knew it then, as the face of a fever patient, but not one to whom I had rendered any special service, and felt surprised when the trembling lips said, in a ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... office; a comfortable looking place, with plenty of outline maps hanging about the walls and in the windows, and a spectacled man was marking out another one on a long table. The office was in the principal street. The General received Washington with a kindly but reserved politeness. Washington rather liked his looks. He was ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... unnecessary to go minutely into the details of the Popish Plot. A general outline will answer our present purpose. The first who pretended any knowledge of it, or made any disclosure respecting it, was Titus Oates. He, when examined before the council in October, 1678, stated that at a consult held by the Jesuits on the 24th of April preceding, at the White ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... this turn of the conversation, when Planchet, looking up, perceived the houses at the commencement of Fontainebleau, the outline of which stood out strongly upon the dark face of the heavens; while, rising above the compact and irregularly formed mass of buildings, the pointed roofs of the chateau were clearly visible, the slates of which glistened beneath the light of the moon, like the scales of an immense fish. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... to myself a grim old devotee—M. de Pontverre's "worthy lady" could, in my opinion, be none other. But lo, a countenance beaming with charms, beautiful, mild blue eyes, a complexion of dazzling fairness, the outline of an enchanting neck! Nothing escaped the rapid glance of the young proselyte; for that instant I was hers, sure that a religion preached by such missionaries could not fail to lead ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... at the bulging outline of her brother's coat, but her newly formed hopes were doomed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... found himself waiting to catch a view of the man's face in full. The head was shapely, and balanced upon a neck broad at the base, but of exceeding pliancy and grace. The features in profile were of Oriental outline, and of that delicacy of expression which has always been thought a sign of blood and sensitive spirit. With these observations, the tribune's interest in ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... link by link, has the reasoning chain been forged. Some links, too quickly and too slightly made, have given way, and been replaced by better work; but now the great phenomena are known—the outline is correctly and firmly drawn—cunning artists are filling in the rest, and the child who masters these Lectures knows more of fire than ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday

... This topical outline is arranged to accompany Robinson's "History of Western Europe" or to correlate with "Readings in European History" by the same author. It is not a lecture syllabus, but is meant as an aid in ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... silhouette against the rising moon, was the outline of the little hamlet of Hankey, comforting, though it showed never a light, and he cracked his whip and spoke again, and then in a flash the rats were ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... of teamsters, with a couple of hundred horses or bullocks, waiting for the high-piled wool bales, which are loaded up and sent away almost as soon as shorn; wool-sorters, pickers-up, pressers, yardsmen, extra shepherds. It may easily be gathered from this outline what an 'army with banners' is arrayed at Anabanco. While statistically inclined, it may be added that the cash due for the shearing alone (less the mess bill) amounts to 1700 pounds; for the washing (roughly), 400 pounds, exclusive of provisions consumed, hutting, wood, water, ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood

... the life of Agricola. If we add to his account of the Germans and Britons, what has been transmitted to us, concerning them, by Julius Caesar, we shall see the origin of the Anglo-Saxon government, the great outline of that Gothic constitution under which the people enjoy their rights and liberties at this hour. Montesquieu, speaking of his own country, declares it impossible to form an adequate notion of the French monarchy, and the changes of their government, ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... At his side, Rudolph moved as a soldier, carried onward by pressure and automatic rhythm, moves in the apathy of a forced march. The day had been so real, so wholesome, full of careless talk and of sunlight. And now this senseless picture blotted all else, and remained,—each outline sharper in memory, the smoky lamp brighter, the blow of the hilt louder, the smell of peanut oil more pungent. The episode, to him, was a disconnected, unnecessary fragment, one bloody strand in the whole terrifying snarl. But his companion stalked on ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... characteristics which make it desirable as an ornamental and as a nut-bearing tree. It grows rapidly, has large numerous luxuriant leaves which give it a tropical effect, and usually has a symmetrical outline. It bears early, sometimes in the second year from the graft, yields heavily and is ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... little mistress. Mr. Russell, sauntering through a footpath in the field, came up and looked at them; and his artist's eye was at once charmed with the picture they made. He stood, and taking out his sketch-book, drew a rapid outline of Betty's little figure as she lay there, one hand grasping some red poppies, and the other arm thrown behind her curly head. Prince was also sketched; and then Betty awoke. She looked confused at first, ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... miles in a S. W. and S. S. W. direction, skirting the scrub. During the journey, two thunder-storms passed over; one to the southward beyond the Condamine, the other to the north and north-east over the mountains. The scrub is a dense mass of vegetation, with a well defined outline—a dark body of foliage, without grass, with many broken branches and trees; no traces of water, or of a rush of waters. More to the southward, the outline of the scrub becomes less defined, and small patches are seen ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... described. The reader is assured that every incident is strictly true: nothing, in that respect, has been altered; nor, indeed, anywhere except in the conversations, of which, though the results and general outline are known, the separate details have necessarily been lost under the agitating circumstances which produced them. It has been judged right and delicate to conceal the name of the great city, and therefore of the nation ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... woman talking to a company of Christian Endeavorers chanced to remark, "After all, the real kings of earth are seldom crowned." All through the evening service thoughts that this inspired kept running through the author's mind and late that same night he wrote the outline which was only completed some years later and given to his ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... him says that he is a dull speaker, full of commonplaces, elderly, smelling strongly of the Chapel, and giving the impression that he is tired out; flogging up sham enthusiasm with stale phrases which the reporters have already learnt to put into shorthand with one conventional outline years ago.[1] ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc

... Gisors, we had a view of the keep of the castle, rising majestically above the town, which is indeed at present "une assez maussade petite ville, qui n'a guere qu'une rue." From its position and general outline, the castle, at first view, resembles the remains of Launceston, in Cornwall. It recalled to my mind the impressions of surprise, mixed with something approaching to awe, which seized me, when the first object that met ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner

... sand hills was for a time apparently as endless and impervious as ever, and they still travelled on in silence, the Mexican making no further sign of interest. Yet presently the procession of the sand dunes began to show gaps and open places. The hills grew less tall and more regular of outline. Finally they shrank and fell away, giving place again to the long roll of the prairie, across which, and near at hand to the edge of the sand hills, there cut the open and flat bed of a water ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... liable to error. But it must be remembered that in a first Work like this many difficulties will occur, and having no tract to guide me, I have frequently wanted the necessary information. The Work, however imperfect, must be useful, as giving the first general outline of the Province, and interesting to every person who possesses a feeling of interest for his own fireside. In short, persons who strike out a first tract in any thing, may be compared to pioneers who trace a road for ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... Agra one should either visit the Taj Mahal for a final look, or, from the Jasmine Tower of the palace, gaze through the intervening two miles of space to catch its shadowy outline as seen by Shah Jahan during those seven solitary years of vigil. I chose the latter method for convenience' sake, after visiting the bazars, and in consequence was ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck

... near enough to see the white breakers, in the middle of which the ship was lying. She was fast breaking up. The jagged outline showed that the stern had been beaten in. The masts and funnel were gone, and the waves seemed to make a clean breach over her, almost hiding her from sight in a ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... snow ... is the frontier of barren Tibet, where sandy wastes replace verdant meadows, and where the wild ridges, jutting up against the sky, are kept bare of vegetation, their strata crumbling under the destructive action of frost and water, leaving bare ribs of gaunt and often fantastic outline.... The colouring of the mountains is remarkable throughout Ladakh and nowhere more so than near the Fotula (a pass on the road to Leh to the south of the Indus gorge).... As we ascend the peaks suggest ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... he had to lift her over a swampy patch in a hollow to a stony place beyond it; whereafter they were soon as well hidden from the road as its outline lay exposed to the search of ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming

... which comes out, as the artist shapes your features from his outline. It is that you resemble so many relatives to whom you yourself never had noticed any particular likeness ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... only difference observable in the later works being, on the whole, an increased richness and greater breadth of scheme. They are nearly always brilliant, often incisive; there are most lovely melodies; and there are numerous specimens of Purcell's power of writing music, endless in its variety of outline and colour and changing sentiment, on a ground-bass—i.e., a bass passage repeated over and over again until the piece is finished. The instrumentation must have been largely dictated by the instruments placed at his disposal, though we must remember that in days when it was an everyday ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... the main outline of Kidd's history; but it has given birth to an innumerable progeny of traditions. The circumstance of his having buried great treasures of gold and jewels after returning from his cruising set the brains of all the good people along the coast in a ferment. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... Majesty should be advised to demand reparation and redress. The Cabinet is to meet again to-morrow at two, by which time Lord Russell will have prepared an instruction to Lord Lyons for the consideration of the Cabinet, and for submission afterwards to your Majesty. The general outline and tenor which appeared to meet the opinions of the Cabinet would be, that the Washington Government should be told that what has been done is a violation of international law, and of the rights of Great Britain, and that your Majesty's Government trust that the act will be disavowed ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria



Words linked to "Outline" :   penning, coastline, synopsis, abstract, sketch, epitome, boundary, silhouette, write, lipstick, draw, skyline, scheme, authorship, program, block out, summary, delineate, depict, brief, pen, apercu, indite, adumbrate, contour, composition, sum-up, bounds, bound, writing, compose, lineation, schema, describe, plan



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