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Preparative   Listen
adjective
Preparative  adj.  Tending to prepare or make ready; having the power of preparing, qualifying, or fitting; preparatory. "Laborious quest of knowledge preparative to this work."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Preparative" Quotes from Famous Books



... says, our loss is heavy. But whit shocking notice to those who have Harry Conways there! The Gazette breaks off with saying, that they were to storm the next day! Upon the whole, it is regarded as a preparative to worse news. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... charges, ignited remains of cartridges, &c., from fire-arms. Called also a wad-hook in artillery. (See also TEREDO NAVALIS.)—To worm. The act of passing a rope spirally between the lays of a cable; a smaller rope is wormed with spun-yarn. Worming is generally resorted to as a preparative for ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... lately dead Our-reverent dirge shall here be said. Them, when their martial leader called, No dread preparative appalled; But leaden hearted, leaden heeled, I marked them steadfast in the field Death grimly sided with the foe, And smote each leaden hero low. Proudly they perished one by one: The dread Pea-cannon's work was done O not for them the tears we shed, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and did not hesitate to declare that, in going to America, under such circumstances, to seek his fortune, he was acting a manly and spirited part; and that the voyage thither, as a sailor, would be an invigorating preparative to the landing upon a shore, where he must battle out ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... and my darkness became as the noon-day. I began to have openings leading to the ministry, which brought me under close exercise and deep travail of spirit; for although I had for some time spoken on subjects of business in monthly and preparative meetings, yet the prospe of opening my mouth in public meetings was a close trial; but I endeavor'd to keep my mind quiet and resign' d to the heavenly call, if it should be made clear to me to be my duty. Nevertheless, I was, soon ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... of the intention, and none of the pleasure of the practice—'tis true you are so eager in pursuit of the temptation, that you save the devil the trouble of leading you into it. Nor is it out of discretion that you don't swallow that very hook yourselves have baited, but you are cloyed with the preparative, and what you mean for a whet, turns the edge of your puny stomachs. Your love is like your courage, which you show for the first year or two upon all occasions; till in a little time, being disabled or disarmed, you abate of your vigour; and that daring blade which was so often drawn, is ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... marching that way, look'd something like a Descent, but this was not sufficient to convince me, who knew that such Alarms were often given upon a quite different Score, to what the Generality of People had in View. However, the French laid strong Colours upon this Preparative; first they gave out, That they had bribed most of the English Fleet, so there wou'd be no Danger from that Quarter nor Body to oppose the Descent; again, King James set forth a solemn Manifesto, inviting ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... not my intention to depreciate the politer arts or abstruser studies. That curiosity which always succeeds ease and plenty, was undoubtedly given us as a proof of capacity which our present state is not able to fill, as a preparative for some better mode of existence, which shall furnish employment for the whole soul, and where pleasure shall be adequate to our powers of fruition. In the mean time, let us gratefully acknowledge that goodness which grants us ease at a cheap rate, which changes the seasons ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... the mill. In England all is of a different and a higher order. The bar itself is but a step; distinction in the courts is only the first stage of an ascent which may raise the individual to eminence in government, as well as dignity in the high places of his profession—it is the preparative for wearing those honours which form a family, and give a pledge to fortune. As the ancients said of the eagle, that, before he takes his flight for the day, he prepares his wings by plunging them in the mountain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to-night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young lady; but I managed this interview with so much art that, while I was scrupulously polite and even cordial to the fair one, I contrived to keep Robbie beside ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there; all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... such elegant pursuits could be regarded by any one as interfering with the proper studies of their professional career; justly believing, on the contrary, that for the higher class of forensic exertion some acquaintance with almost every branch of science and letters is a necessary preparative. He contrasted their liberal aspirations, and the encouragement which these received in their domestic circles, with the narrower views which predominated in his own home; and resolved to gratify his ambition by adopting a most precarious walk in life, instead of adhering ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... being accustomed to the doings of the Indians, and aware of the fact that whatever was provided for each man must be eaten before he quitted the scene of operations, advised Charley to eat no breakfast, and to take a good walk as a preparative. Charley had strong faith, however, in his digestive powers, and felt much inclined, when morning came, to satisfy the cravings of his appetite as usual; but Jacques drew such a graphic picture of the work that lay before him, that he forbore to urge the matter, and ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... preparative to a renewal of the gracious experience. The road of common duty was just the way appointed for another meeting with his Lord, for in the morning-light there came a voice across the waters: "Children, have ye any ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... my dear, preparative to the conversation you led me to expect in the dining-room? And do you thing [sic] I can part with you thus?—Do you think ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... obedience, or inclination to obedience, that is before faith, or the understanding of the gospel, is so far off from being an excellent preparative, or good qualification for faith, and the knowledge of the gospel, that in its own nature, which is more than in its consequences, it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... been emulous to distinguish themselves, and their proficiency in dancing is an excellent preparative to running, we may soon hope to see them exhibit themselves in the gymnastic lists, as candidates for that public admiration which seems to be the great business of their lives. The disparity between the competitors will doubtless be very amusing, as well ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... Christ.... 6. This proposition, too, is false: The regenerate after the Fall are righteous in the same manner as Adam was before the Fall, namely, not by imputation, but by inhabitation or original righteousness.... 8. It is also false when some say we are righteous by faith, namely, in a preparative way in order afterwards to be righteous by the essential righteousness. At bottom this is Popish and destructive of faith.... 9. The following propositions must be rejected altogether: The obedience of Christ is called righteousness in a tropical ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... thus thrice heard; so the poet would go away empty-handed. The celebrated poet Al-Asma'i, having heard of this device, determined upon outwitting the king, and accordingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words. But this was not the poet's only preparative measure—another will be presently explained; and a third was to assume the dress of a Bedouin, that he might not be known, covering his face, the eyes only excepted, with a litham (piece of drapery), as is usual with the Arabs ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... Induction and Deduction as correlative Processes belonging to one Method, each of which has been disproportionately in vogue at different epochs, or as distinctive Methods, having each their own Deductive and Inductive Processes, in either aspect, Induction is only a preparative labor, leading in the more important work of the application of the Law or Principle derived. It is only, indeed, for the purpose of discovering this Law that Observation, Classification, and Induction are undertaken. It has been ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... emotional, encounters in dealing with ordinary unemotional narrative, to lie as a technical reason at the bottom of Horace's advice to the writer of Epic to plunge in medias res, thus avoiding flat preparative and catching at once a high wind which shall carry him hereafter across dull levels and intervals. I believe that it lay—though whether consciously or not he scarcely tells us—at the bottom of Matthew Arnold's mind when, selecting certain qualities for which ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... took a new possession of me, and left me not. It was a time of continual joy without interruption. As I had experienced many inward difficulties and weaknesses it was a new life. It seemed as if I was already in the fruition of beatitude. How dear did this happy time cost me, since it was only a preparative to a total privation of comfort for several years, without any support, or hope of return! It began with the death of Mrs. Granger, who had been my only consolation under God. Before my return from St. Reine I heard she ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... bade his incidental gossip and the tiny Lottie good-night, and sought his early bed. He maintained in good faith that Saturday night was "a great night to sleep," because of the later hour for rising; probably having also some factitious conviction that there prevailed a hush preparative of the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, in summer, the other members of his family always looked uncommonly haggard at the Sunday breakfast-table. Accepting without question his preposterous legend of additional matutinal slumber, they postponed retiring to a late hour, and were awakened—simultaneously ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... "threeped them down" that they did not know what a Quaker meant. What! were not his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather before him all Quakers? Was not he born in the Society, brought up in it? Hadn't he attended first-day, week-day, preparative, monthly, quarterly, and sometimes yearly meetings too, all his life? Had not he regularly and handsomely subscribed to the monthly, and the national, and the Ackworth School Stocks? Had he not been on all sorts of appointments; to visit new members, new comers into the meeting; to warn disorderly ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... and I had purposed to be extraordinarily merry, I had drunk off a good preparative of old sack here; but will they come, ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... successions" of modern Europe, was too little respected in those ages, in many countries of Christendom—and had no settled prescription in its favour among the Irish. Primogeniture and the whole scheme of feudal dependence seems to have been an essential preparative for modern civilization: but as Ireland had escaped the legions of Rome, so she existed without the circle of feudal organization. When that system did at length appear upon her soil it was embodied in an invading host, and patriot zeal could discern ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... disappointed, were content to let matters take their course, at least until they saw some prospect of a change; while the Levellers, the party most dreaded by the Protector, and which had been most fatal to the Stuarts, remained in that dangerous state of repose that is but the preparative ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... tobacco, and that which the villagers gave us was of very inferior quality. Nevertheless, the pipe which we smoked with them in the twilight, beside the marble fountain, promoted that peace of mind which is the sweetest preparative of slumber. ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... unless I except my Poems (and these I can exclude in part only), are introductory and preparative, while its result, if the premises be as I with the most tranquil assurance am convinced they are-incontrovertible, the deductions legitimate, and the conclusions commensurate, and only commensurate with both ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... subject may not be forgotten, it is incorporated in their religious discipline; in consequence of which, it is held forth to their notice, in a public manner, in all the monthly and quarterly meetings of the kingdom, and in all the preparative meetings, at least once ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... was grating to these restless people, who longed for nothing but debauchery, and struggled for liberty only as a preparative to the indulging of their vices; and so they began to contrive how they should free themselves from hence. Barton and his fellow engineer were not long before they fell on a method to effect it, by wrenching open the outer doors in the night, and getting to an ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward



Words linked to "Preparative" :   prepare, propaedeutic, preceding, preparatory



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