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Rectify   Listen
verb
Rectify  v. t.  (past & past part. rectified; pres. part. rectifying)  
1.
To make or set right; to correct from a wrong, erroneous, or false state; to amend; as, to rectify errors, mistakes, or abuses; to rectify the will, the judgment, opinions; to rectify disorders. "I meant to rectify my conscience." "This was an error of opinion which a conflicting opinion would have rectified."
2.
(Chem.) To refine or purify by repeated distillation or sublimation, by which the fine parts of a substance are separated from the grosser; as, to rectify spirit of wine.
3.
(Com.) To produce ( as factitious gin or brandy) by redistilling low wines or ardent spirits (whisky, rum, etc.), flavoring substances, etc., being added.
To rectify a globe, to adjust it in order to prepare for the solution of a proposed problem.
Synonyms: To amend; emend; correct; better; mend; reform; redress; adjust; regulate; improve. See Amend.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rectify" Quotes from Famous Books



... interests may well become the starting points in the day's work. The conversations at breakfast tables and the morning paper beget and stimulate many of these interests and the school does violence to the children, the community, and itself if it attempts to taboo these interests. Its work is to rectify and not to suppress. When the children return to their homes in the evening they should have clearer and larger conceptions of the things that animated them in the morning. If they come into the school all aglow with interest in the great snowstorm of the night before, the teacher does well to ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... that there may have been some mistake with respect to the Chapter of the Garter, for Lord Conyngham,[60] as well as several others, imagined it would be held on Wednesday instead of Friday. The Queen requests Lord Melbourne to rectify this mistake, as it is the Queen's intention to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... before remembered, and the distaste he there received, which possibly might cause his greater neglect of Whitelocke, who took little notice of it. He took upon him to be fully instructed in the affairs of England, and of the laws and government there; wherein Whitelocke presumed to rectify some of ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... to be a country student, dressed in brown, with spatterdashes and round-toed shoes. He had a sword in a huge sheath, and a band tied with tape. He had indeed but two tapes, so that his band got out of its place, which he took great pains to rectify. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... a greater Regard to what will serve their Purpose, than they have to Truth or Sincerity. As they subsist by vulgar Errors, and are kept alive by the Spirit of Strife and Contention, so it is not their Business to rectify Mistakes in Opinion, but rather to encrease them when it serves their Turn. They know, that whoever would ingratiate themselves with Multitudes and gain Credit amongst them, must not contradict them; which is the Reason that, how widely soever these Party-Writers may differ from ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville

... minister; when the father is father, and the son is son [6].' I say that the reply is characteristic. Once, when Tsze-lu asked him what he would consider the first thing to be done if entrusted with the government of a State, Confucius answered, 'What is necessary is to rectify names [7].' The disciple thought the reply wide of the mark, but it was substantially the same with what he said to the marquis Ching. There is a sufficient foundation in nature for government in the several relations of society, and if those be maintained ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt, reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in the proportion of twenty-one ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... strictly honest in all their dealings, lending or exchanging their various articles of live-stock or produce with each other, in the most friendly manner; and if any little dispute occurred, he never found any difficulty to rectify the mistake or misunderstanding that might have caused it, to the satisfaction of both parties. In their general intercourse they speak the English language commonly; and even the old Otaheitan women have picked up a good deal of this language. The ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... all my father's great wealth was left to his two sons, John and Jasper. Jasper expressed great surprise; he even said it was a monstrously unfair thing of his father to do, and that certainly he and his brother would try to rectify it in a measure. He then went back to London, and mother was left alone in the great empty house. She said she felt quite stunned, and was just then in such grief for my father that she scarcely heeded the fact that ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade

... the Standard Oil Company case and the American Tobacco Company case were delivered late in May and were unexpectedly reassuring to business. This was another evidence that the best thought of the Nation everywhere was seeking to rectify the looseness of the past without killing business initiative and continued endeavor. So matters see-sawed in the business world. It was indeed in a state of unstable equilibrum. Stocks declined now abruptly; then, ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... in the worst of times, the pious Jew could count on the saving appearance of the Messiah. Every Utopian is as sure of the salvation promised by his prize solution as he is of the evils which it is intended to rectify. The ardent Socialist may equally divide his energies between pointing out the evils of the capitalist system, and the certain bliss of his Socialist republic. The past is nothing but a festering mass of evils; industry is ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... opportunity to give a remedy; and I hope I shall cheerfully join with you in it. This hath been a great grief to many honest hearts and conscientious people; and I hope it is in all your hearts to rectify it." ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... To rectify our frontier we compelled the Gladsden Purchase within the writer's lifetime. As to our non-contiguous possessions, we hold them by the right of conquest or revolution, salving our consciences with such cash indemnity as we ourselves have chosen to pay, and even now we are considering ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... (stiffness) 323; straight line, right line, direct line; short cut. V. be straight &c adj.; have no turning; not incline to either side, not bend to either side, not turn to either side, not deviate to either side; go straight; steer for &c (directions) 278. render straight, straighten, rectify; set straight, put straight; unbend, unfold, uncurl &c 248, unravel &c 219, unwrap. Adj. straight; rectilinear, rectilineal^; direct, even, right, true, in a line; unbent, virgate^ &c v.; undeviating, unturned, undistorted, unswerving; straight ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... success, and would have achieved her dinner with composure, if white-aproned gentlemen had not effectually taken away her appetite by whisking bills-of-fare into her hands, and awaiting her orders with a fatherly interest, which induced them to congregate mysterious dishes before her, and blandly rectify her frequent mistakes. She survived the ordeal, however, and at four P.M. went to drive with "that Leavenworth boy" in the finest turnout —— could produce. Aunt Pen then came off guard, and with a sigh of satisfaction subsided into a peaceful doze, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... Amazon, from Jaen or the straits of Manseriche to Grand Para. On the meridian of the islands of Corvo and Flores, the most western of the group of the Azores, the breadth of the current is 160 leagues. When vessels, on their return from South America to Europe, endeavour to make these two islands to rectify their longitude, they are always sensible of the motion of the waters to south-east. At the 33rd degree of latitude the equinoctial current of the tropics is in the near vicinity of the Gulf-stream. In this part of the ocean, we may in a single day pass from ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... principles evolved from the brains of the imaginative founders of the science. It is the business of the geomancer to discover such sites, to say if a given locality is or is not all that could be desired on this head, sometimes to correct errors which ignorant quacks have committed, or rectify inaccuracies which have escaped the notice even of the most celebrated among the fraternity. There may be too many trees, so that some must be cut down; or there may be too few, and it becomes necessary to plant more. Water-courses may not flow ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... she may fold her arms in front of her. Whatever may be the pace, if the pupil begins to lose her balance, to be frightened, to sit awkwardly, or to become tired, the driver should at once halt the horse and should try to rectify matters as far ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... Turks last night. This trench was formerly Turkish, but half of it is now in our possession and between us is a pile of sandbags. Over this barrier each takes it into his head to throw a few bombs at his enemy. We are trying to rectify our position by cutting a new sap. The whole of the Turkish trenches from Achi Baba to the sea are visible from Y. Beach O.P. For a long way in front of where we were the distance between the two of us is not ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... a close, and still panting from their exertions, the elder children carry out the tables and rectify their damages as well as may be, while the younger range the stools round the wall and sit down on them or ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... again, that he does not load his pages with references and learned notes has been treated like a crimen loesae majestatis; and yet, with all the clamor and clatter that has been raised, few authors have had so little to alter or rectify in their later editions as Mommsen. To have produced two such scholars, historians, and statesmen as Niebuhr and Mommsen, would be an honor to any kingdom in Germany: how much more to the small duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, in which we have been told so often that nothing is spoken but ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... topicks with which those letters are commonly filled which are written only for the sake of writing, I seldom shall think worth communicating; but if I can have it in my power to calm any harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous desire, to rectify any important opinion, or fortify any generous resolution, you need not doubt but I shall at least wish to prefer the pleasure of gratifying a friend much less esteemed than yourself, before the gloomy calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... replied: "That is notoriety, not distinction." Again he said: "Though a man may be able to recite three hundred odes, yet if when intrusted with office he does not know how to act, of what practical use is his poetical knowledge?" Again, "If a minister cannot rectify himself, what has he to do with rectifying others?" There is great force in this saying: "The superior man is easy to serve and difficult to please, since you cannot please him in any way which is not accordant with right; but ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... those leading articles of the Christian faith which have been consecrated by the belief of the church catholic since the ages of miraculous guidance, and which are now venerable by time. Bold and presuming is he who fancies that his intellect can rectify errors of this magnitude and antiquity, and that the church of God has been permitted to wallow on in a most fatal idolatry for centuries, to be extricated by the pretending syllogisms of his ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... composing their differences with Lord Clive, they sent him out to that country about the year 1765, in order, by his name, weight, authority, and vigor of mind, to give some sort of form and stability to government, and to rectify the innumerable abuses which prevailed there, and particularly that great source of disorders, that fundamental abuse, presents: for the bribes by which all these revolutions were bought had not the name of conditions, stipulations, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Mardens' marriage is still bigamous; they have been living all this time in what would be regarded in the eyes of Heaven (and, still worse, the county of Bucks) as sin. However, a trifling formality at a registry-office can rectify this and nobody need be any the wiser. This at least is Marden's attitude, always free from any suspicion of complexity. But his wife (if that is the word for her), being of a more subtle nature, determines to make profit out of the situation. She points ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various

... they can't furnish pork-butchers' reasons for sundering; because the man makes the money in this country.—My goodness! what a funny people, sir!—It 's our way of holding the balance, ma'am.—But would it not be better to rectify the law and the social system, dear sir?—Why, ma'am, we find it comfortabler to take cases as they come, in the style of our fathers.—But don't you see, my good man, that you are offering scapegoats for the comfort of the majority?—Well, ma'am, there always ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Margarita, was laded and on the point of sailing. Literally he had none, absolutely not one! He understood that Jamaica was expressly named to the Admiral for resting and overhauling. Careen the Margarita there and rectify the wrong—which he trusted was not great. If ships had been idle and plentiful—but he could not splinter any from the fleet that was sailing to-morrow. He was sorry—and trusted that ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... thought. Sometimes it is a little irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody else's business in which we become interested, and which we feel bound to rectify, and before we know, we are absorbed in a lot of distracting cares and interests that quite turn us aside from the ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... were of the same mind. They did not fancy taking any chance of having that concealed six-pounder discharged point-blank at them. Mistakes are hard to rectify after a fatal volley has been fired. The best way is to avoid running ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... to rectify that mistake, madam, which has induced me to call. The Colonel, madam, did hear that your daughter was at Mrs Bradshaw's establishment, and wished to carry her off, supposing that she was a very rich prize, but, madam, ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... Measure if it had a promising Aspect. I question if an Instance of such an hellish Contrivance, and so detestable a Scandal, can be found in any History. A Man to whom a whole Kingdom had committed its only Hope, a Man who had been chosen to rectify and refine the Morals of its King, endeavours by all Means to corrupt them; and, as a Return for the vast Favours received from him, he draws him in to forfeit his Innocence, the Love of his Consort, and ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... of the passage of the knife were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blade was passed down accurately between the two veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify. The phenomena of this water formed the first definite link in that vast chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... beyond reality, in the highest of our sublunary enjoyments? A woman adorned with such an imagination sees no defect in a favoured object, (the less, if she be not conscious of any wilful fault in herself,) till it is too late to rectify the mistakes occasioned by her ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... Sir Arthur," suggested Bok; "with your consent, I will rectify both the inaccuracy and the injustice. Write out a correct version of 'The Lost Chord'; I will give it to nearly a million readers, and so render obsolete the incorrect copies; and I shall be only too happy to pay you the first honorarium ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... do whatever you ask. If I refused a moment ago, it was because I thought there was now in France no Eugene Valmont to rectify my mistake if I ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... wrath for the use of Sophia; but she now transferred it all to the squire. "Brother," said she, "it is astonishing that you will interfere in a matter which you had totally left to my negotiation. Regard to my family hath made me take upon myself to be the mediating power, in order to rectify those mistakes in policy which you have committed in your daughter's education. For, brother, it is you—it is your preposterous conduct which hath eradicated all the seeds that I had formerly sown in her tender mind. It ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... while he listened with tear-dimmed eyes, his soul became white with repentance. As Dawn spoke, the vision came and went,—each time with the countenance more at rest. It was an experience such as but few have; only those who seen beyond, and know that mortals return to rectify errors after their decease. ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... words," (it ran) "because when last I saw you I was profoundly impressed by the suffering you could not hide. I cannot refrain from writing to entreat you will accept the position in which you are placed. Having done your best to rectify what is now irrevocable, be at peace with your conscience. I am the only individual entitled to complain or interfere with your succession, and I fully, freely make over to you any rights I possess. Had your uncle's fortune passed ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... reclaiming the vicious and with the design of warning the young of the delusion and danger of an example, which can only be imitated by the forfeiture of virtue and the practice of vice. "In whatever he undertook, it was his determined purpose to rectify the heart, to purify the passions, to give ardour to virtue ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... thought of taking an hour's sleep. They kept a sharp look-out, for either Lincoln Island could not be far distant and would be sighted at daybreak, or the "Bonadventure," carried away by currents, had drifted so much that it would be impossible to rectify her course. Pencroft, uneasy to the last degree, yet did not despair, for he had a gallant heart, and grasping the tiller he anxiously endeavored to pierce the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... path to the raw blasts of winter. In many sections of our country the climate is drier and colder than it was before so much of the forest was destroyed. We are just waking up to this sad fact which it will take many years to rectify. So let ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low

... general thing, you mix your perfumes too much; your fragrance is sometimes oppressive; you saturate yourself with cologne and bergamot, until you make a sort of Hamlet's Ghost of yourself, and no man can decide, with the first whiff, whether you bring with you air from Heaven or from hell. Now, rectify this matter as soon as possible; last Sunday you smelled like a secretary to a consolidated drug store and barber shop. And you came and sat in the same pew with me; now ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... their boasted astuteness. Swept along by the current, they had failed to appreciate the true conditions. They began to realize that it had been a mistake to keep such men as Percival in power; behind the hand they went about convincing each other that it was high time to rectify the original error. These, in addition to the ignorant, easily persuaded rabble from the steerage,—who, by the way, could give ample testimony as to Percival's ability to "bluff,"—provided Crust with a decidedly formidable following. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... them as belonging among the physically unfit. If the farmer should discover among his animals as large a percentage of unfitness and imperfection, he would reach the conclusion at once that something was radically wrong and would immediately set on foot well-thought-out plans to rectify the situation. But, seeing that these derelicts are human beings and not farm stock, we bestow upon them a sneer, or possibly a pittance by way of alms, and pass on our complacent ways. Looking upon the imperfect passersby, the observer is reminded of the tens ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... experiences; observations which are not only a legitimate source of knowledge, but which are continually made, with more or less accuracy, by every human being. If they are impossible according to the doctrines of phrenology, let phrenology look to this, and rectify her blunder in the best way, as speedily as she can. M. Comte may think fit to depreciate the labours of the metaphysician; but it is not to the experimental philosopher alone that he is indebted for that positive method which he expounds with so exclusive an enthusiasm. M. Comte is a phrenologist; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... took your admonition very kindly, and was far from being offended at you for it. If I say any thing about it to you, 't is only to rectify some wrong opinions you seem to have entertained of me; and this I do only because they give you some uneasiness, which I am unwilling to be the occasion of. You express yourself as if you thought I was against ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... reflection what a conscience disciplined in the highest degree might be; and then to observe what this regulator of the soul actually is where there has been no sound discipline of the reason, and where there is no deep religious sentiment to rectify the perceptions in the absence of an accurate intellectual discrimination of things. This sentiment being wanting, dispositions and conduct cannot be taken account of according to the distinction between holiness ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... from the new Republic. He alone of all the superior officers of the Revolution received no promotion other than that given wholesale by Congress, and was forced to apply personally to Washington to rectify the omission. In language not too cordial, Washington presented his request to Congress, which conferred upon Kosciuszko the rank of brigadier-general with the acknowledgment of its "high sense of his long, faithful ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... going to make a mistake that has become time honored among public speakers, that of telling you what you already know as well as I do. This is that Mr. Prescott ought never to have been deposed from the class presidency. I move, therefore, sir, that we rectify our stupidity and blindness by making Mr. Prescott once more our president. I beg, sir, to place in nomination for the class presidency the name of Richard Prescott, ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock

... no followers or admirers except the vassal envoys who used to come on spiritual business to the metropolis. We have seen how these men used to entertain each other over their wine by quoting the Odes and other ancient saws; when consulting the imperial library to rectify their own dates, they would naturally meet the old recluse Lao-tsz, and hear from his own mouth what he thought of the coming collapse anticipated by all. He is said to have left orthodox China in disgust, and ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very hard that a man can't rectify such an important error. The imposition is simply monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut up in society on the distinct understanding, to begin with, that society was to help them to preserve their lives; instead of which, it starves them and hangs them and sends them to be shot in battle, ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson

... Without talent for original research or discovery himself, his envy and jealousy made him detest every one who gave proofs of either. We are assured by Vesalius, who was some time his pupil, that his manner of teaching was calculated neither to advance the science nor to rectify the mistakes of his predecessors. A human body was never seen in the theatre of Dubois; the carcases of dogs and other animals were the materials from which he taught; and so difficult even was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... tongs at the consciences of their sheep, till they had impressed a conviction on them that if they neglected the commandment of God relative to the observance of one day in seven, He would chastise them till they realised that they had erred, acknowledged their error, and endeavoured to rectify it. ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... sewn fast on the collar," said Sophie, and undertook to rectify it. He could easily keep the uniform on whilst she did this, said she. Her soft hand touched Otto's cheek, it was like an electric shock to him; his blood burned; how much he longed to press the hand ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... mutiny by reason of long liberty, and not having learned to be imperiously commanded,—in which argument the clergy should not have read their first lesson. The synod, therefore, to whom it is not now in integro to go back and rectify what is amiss, without disparagement, must now go forward and leave events to God, and for the countenance of their actions do the best they may." Letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... closely. Then it was that the reason was revealed, both for the falling off in the receipts and for the increase in the orders. The calculations of the unfortunate Yung Chang were correct up to a hundred, but at that number he had made a gigantic error—which, however, he was never able to detect and rectify—with the result that all transactions above that point worked out at a considerable loss to the seller. It was in vain that the panic-stricken Ti Hung goaded his miserable son-in-law to correct the mistake; it ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... verses with great facility, and I was simple enough to imagine that little more was necessary for a translator of Juvenal! I was not, indeed, unconscious of my inaccuracies: I knew that they were numerous, and that I had need of some friendly eye to point them out, and some judicious hand to rectify or remove them: but for these as well as every thing else, I looked to Mr. Cookesley, and that worthy man, with his usual alacrity of kindness, undertook the laborious task of revising the whole translation. My friend was no great Latinist, perhaps ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... thing was to hold you prisoner and so prevent you from communicating with the Ambassador until they had obtained the letter or defeated its purpose. That was not done; but Spencer, you may assume, has attempted to rectify their blunder—possibly by impersonating you, and giving the Marquis d'Hausonville some tale that will fall in with her plans and ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... grand folks, and in the presence of the Superintendent, it was blinding, sickening, confounding. He started at the sound of his own voice, and when he tried to speak, he somehow said just what he didn't intend, and made more mistakes than he had either time or sense to rectify; then, whenever he moved his feet, his clogs clamped on the floor in such a way as he had never heard them anywhere else; he was in a fever of excitement and fear. However, he had to preach; so having ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... had given him opportunity to escape to his own room unobserved; there to examine, bathe and bind his wounds, and to rectify his first hasty impression that he ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... Hopkins," Master Gridley urged, "if you knew the meaning they have to the ears of scholars, you would see that I did very wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellow-creatures, and that I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean to consult you as to the new names; and if we can fix upon proper and pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... He can be neither an infallible judge, nor an infallible correcter of his religious errors. "The conscience of man, says Barclay, is the seat and throne of God in him, of which he alone is the proper and infallible judge, who, by his power and spirit, can rectify its mistakes." It must be obvious again, they say, from the consideration that, if it were even possible for one man to discern the conscience of another, it is impossible for him to bend or controul it. But conscience is placed both out of his sight ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... been able to look at the girl. She was a year or two older than myself, I thought, and the loveliest creature I had ever seen. She had large blue eyes of the rare shade called violet, a little round perhaps, but the long lashes did something to rectify that fault; and a delicate nose—turned up a little of course, else at her age she could not have been so pretty. Her mouth was well curved, expressing a full share of Paley's happiness; her chin was something large and projecting, but the lines ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... Constitution, and the very nature of sovereignty in all countries, the sacred right, with your duty and responsibility to God, to visit and oversee the literary establishments, where the manners and feelings of the young are formed, and grow up in the citizen in after life; to restrain from injustice, and rectify abuses in their management, and, if necessary, to reduce them to their primitive principles, or so modify their powers as to make them subservient to the public welfare. To your protection, and wise arrangements, he submits whatever he holds in official ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle of acting, and adapt it to its end. The sight of a Deing who is not adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... morality and the Belles Lettres, which Mr. Mylne, a Schoolmaster, has properly brought together, and calls the collection by the denomination above mentioned. The Doctor had no sooner discovered his error than he despatched man and horse to rectify the mistake, and with a pretty kind of ingenuous modesty in his note seemeth to deny any knowledge of the Well-bred Scholar; false modesty surely and a blush misplaced; for, what more pleasing than the consideration ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... the failure or the success of all our schemes. And then we must see where our existing social structure fails to satisfy the needs of individual development and of individual duty. In seeking to rectify what may here be wrong, of course we must take first things first—we must set the case right for the most important people before we go ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... in line with the buttresses of the corresponding aisle walls, the columns were not opposite one another, and the discrepancy increased as the church advanced westward. When the builders got clear of the intervening building, in the western bays of the nave, they were able to rectify their mistake slightly; but the effect is unpleasantly noticeable in the obliquity of the transverse arches ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson

... or antimonial wine, which is emetic tartar dissolved in wine. Do not administer either paregoric or syrup of poppies, either of which would stop the cough, and would thus prevent the expulsion of the phlegm. Any fool can stop a cough, but it requires a wise man to rectify the mischief. A cough is an effort of Nature to bring up the phlegm, which would otherwise accumulate, and in the end cause death. Again, therefore, let me urge upon you the immense importance of not stopping the cough of a child. The Ipecacuanha Wine will, by loosening ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... had rejected the offer? Or suppose Gadsden had not exceeded his instructions in Mexico and boldly grasped the opportunity that offered to rectify and make secure our Southwestern frontier? Would this generation judge that they had been equal to their opportunities or ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... them looking at the world as if from the standpoint of that eccentric posture. For they seem to him to see everything topsy-turvy. Whether it be that their antipodal situation has affected their brains, or whether it is the mind of the observer himself that has hitherto been wrong in undertaking to rectify the inverted pictures presented by his retina, the result, at all events, is undeniable. The world stands reversed, and, taking for granted his own uprightness, the stranger unhesitatingly imputes to them an obliquity of vision, a state of mind outwardly typified by the cat-like obliqueness ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... to run out and rectify this omission, but on being assured that the fairy liked tea almost as well without as with cream, and that there was no cream to be got near at hand, he sat down again and continued to do the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... degradation. Happily, these vulgar maxims exhibit economy and luxury in a false light, taking account, as they do, of those immediate consequences which are seen, and not of the remote ones, which are not seen. Let us see if we can rectify this incomplete view of ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... state the following circumstance, to show the unpleasant and distressing situation of the principal officer of the settlement, by the construction that was put on his endeavours to rectify every abuse that ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... guns—one hundred and twenty shots in all, one shot at a time, while our first cruiser squadron, stationed off the port, to the south-east, carefully noted the spot where each shell dropped, and reported the result by wireless to the battleships, thus enabling them to adjust their aim and rectify any inaccuracies. The result was that one of our shells hit the Golden Hill fort, exploding a magazine and doubtless doing a considerable amount of damage to the structure, while the Mantow Hill fort, on the west side of the ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... me responsible," Barbara was saying, "I can't begin to imagine. Surely I've done everything I could to simplify matters, to straighten them out, and to give you a chance to rectify your folly. I've effaced myself; I've broken my heart; I've promised Aunt Marion to go in for a job for which I'm not fitted and don't care a rap; and yet you come here, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... shopping in Gibraltar. As the gates of that town are closed every day at nightfall by a patrol with drum and fife, and everybody is shut either in or out, it may easily happen with shoppers in haste to get through that they bring dutiable goods into Spain; but the official javelins rectify the error. ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... but the lieutenant would not believe that it was Cape Pillar on the S. shore coming into the Streights, but thought we were in a lagoon to the northward; so that we have been above a fortnight coming back to rectify mistakes, and to look at Cape Pillar a second time: At eight o'clock came abreast of the smoke seen in the morning. The people being well assured that we are actually in the Streights of Magellan, are all alive. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... inequalities and ruinous discriminations to which in their business they were accustomed were necessary incidents to it which afforded no just ground of complaint to any one, but they also thought that any attempt to rectify them was a gross outrage on the elementary principles both of common sense and of constitutional law. In other words, they had thoroughly got it into their heads that they, as common carriers, were in no way bound to afford equal facilities to all, and, indeed, that it was in the last ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... nation," says a contemporary writer, "had for many years past been in a state of uncertainty, scarce knowing friends from foes, or indeed whether we had either." Each new treaty seemed only to disturb the balance of power, as it was called, in a new way. The Quadruple Alliance was intended to rectify the defects of the Treaty of Utrecht; but it gave too much power to the Emperor, and it increased the bitterness and the discontent of the King of Spain. The Treaty of Vienna, made between the Empire and Spain, was justly regarded in England as portending danger ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... an expedition of exploration. They were prepared to meet any conditions on those other worlds—no atmosphere, no water, no heat, or even an atmosphere of poisonous gases they could rectify, for their transmutation apparatus would permit them to change those gases, or modify them; they knew well how to supply heat, but they knew too, that that sun would warm some of its planets sufficiently for ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... cares!' And then she saw one little bit of furniture standing awry, in the manner that used so often to worry his fastidious eye; and, in the spirit of doing anything to please him, she moved across the room to rectify it, and then sat down in the large easy chair, wearied by the slight exertion, and becoming even more depressed and hopeless; 'though,' as she told herself, 'all is sure to be ordered well. The past struggle has been good—the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... your answer to my first application was a definite refusal, and I blamed myself for not having presented the case more clearly to your distinguished notice. Will you permit me to rectify that fault now, and to state briefly why I feel assured that my present claim is not an ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... birds we must have been passing some of the Canary Islands. If we continued on the same course, we are now to the north of Cape Blanco, near the unexplored country which skirts the great Sahara. All we can do is to rectify our instruments as far as possible and start ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that occupation of which I had been apprehensive, especially among the men that it accidentally came to my knowledge about this period that they complained of not having time to mend their clothes. This complaint I was as glad to hear as desirous to rectify; and I therefore ordered that, in future, one afternoon in each week should be set aside for that ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... moreover, the thing was no good, for even supposing I had got a hurried sight of the ship's spars, I should have to get down into the fog to pull, and there would be nothing visible to keep us from going astray, unless at every dozen strokes I clambered on Castro's shoulders again to rectify the direction—an obviously ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... [Preuss, iii. 480.] Scarcely was this gone, when, September 29th, the Custrin impertinence, "Perfectly right as it stood," came to hand; kindling the King into hot provocation; "extreme displeasure, AUSSERSTES MISFALLEN," as his Answer bore: "Rectify me all that straightway, and relieve these Arnolds of their injuries!" You Pettifogging Pedant Knaves, bring that Arnold matter to order, will you; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Louis is a man of strict honour; he must have acted on hasty information. To do you entire justice, I shall make it my duty to look over these documents, which are doubtless entirely correct, and will then do the best in my power to rectify this injury so painful ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... designed without being carried into effect; but his reformation of the calendar, in order to rectify the irregularity of time, was not only projected with great scientific ingenuity, but was brought to its completion, and proved of very great use. For it was not only in ancient times that the Romans had wanted a certain ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... have no connection with, and no responsibility to, any world or any group of worlds. We are an arm of the United Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy. Our function is to control space. To forbid, to prevent, to rectify any interplanetary or interstellar aggression. Above all, to prevent, by means of procedures up to and including total destruction of planets if necessary, any attempt whatever to form any ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... this statement here because, although I have often made it before, it has never been in my power until now to place it where it will correct history; and I desire to rectify all injustice that I may have done to individuals, particularly to officers who were gallantly serving their country during the trying period of the war for the preservation of the Union. General Butler certainly gave his very earnest support to ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... a single charge left! How bitterly he blamed himself for not having hove every scrap of the ship's old ammunition overboard, and filled up entirely with new! But it was no time for regrets now; the only thing to do was to rectify matters, if possible; and if not, to make the best of them. Perhaps it might be the primers that were faulty, he thought, and if so, the situation might yet be saved, for there was a supply of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... not stick; but they were fortune-hunters, like the rest of the colony, mere agents of the official will, and seekers of their pleasures in the huts of the negro-quarter.[I] The curates declared that the innate stupidity of the African baffled all their efforts to instil a truth or rectify an error. The secret practice of serpent-worship was punishable, as the stolen gatherings for dancing were, because it unfitted them for the next day's toil, and excited notions of vengeance in their minds. But the curates declined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... in the hottest part of July, with great secrecy, he armed himself, mounted Rozinante, and rode out of his backyard into the open fields. He was disturbed to think that the honour of knighthood had not yet been conferred upon him, but determined to rectify this matter at an early opportunity, and rode on soliloquising, after the manner of knight-errants, as happy ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... swayed by the peculiar interests of the body to which they belong, the rector should be instructed, if he saw any flagrant swerving from an honest appraisement, to notify the same to his bishop, who, by application to the governor, if need were, could thereby rectify it. When the slave was thus valued, the valuation should be registered by the rector, in a book to be kept for that purpose, an attested copy of which should be annually lodged amongst ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... necessary to register his age, and obtain a civil standing by applying to the courts at Andelys for a judgment, which should enable his baptismal record to be transferred from the registry of the parish to that of the mayor's office; and he obtained permission to rectify the document by inserting the name of du Tillet, under which he was known, and which legally belonged to him through the fact of his exposure and abandonment in that township. Without father, mother, or other guardian than the procureur imperial, alone in the world and ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... agent of the Vernon family, will surely recognise this, and if the baron refuses to answer the title contained in the summons, then our case will fall to the ground. We must hope for the best, as we can do no more. It is too late to rectify the ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... not have undertaken his own defence as in these epistles, A measure of esteem was necessary to his usefulness in the ministry. Had all who heard him thought him the enemy of God, he could have done no good in it. Therefore his endeavor to rectify their mistakes. And the rather because he held the truth as it is in Jesus; so that in rejecting him, and the doctrines which he taught, they turned aside into errors which might fatally mislead them. But he did not wrong his conscience to please them, or depart from truth to gain ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee

... labours of the continental scholars, late or living, on the language that was immediate mother to our own, the Anglo-Saxon, makes that which was in Tyrwhitt's day a thing impossible to be done, now almost an easy adventure. Accomplished, it would at once considerably rectify even Tyrwhitt's text. The Rules of the Verse, which are many, and evince a systematic and cautious framing, no less than a sensitive musical ear in the patriarch, would follow of themselves. In the mean time, a few observations, for which the materials lie at hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... he would have told you, "ready for anything." There being no bell, he had raised and let fall the great knocker, and then stood still in the sunshine looking placidly about him. The desolation of the park left him unmoved. Money, judiciously expended, could rectify that. And the house seemed sound enough. They knew how to build in the old days. Colonel Winchester was probably using only one wing for the present. In time to come, possibly ... Mr. Plowman ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... reply by yes or no, these gentlemen should withdraw immediately.... It is not your fault, it is Ardea's, who has allowed that dabbler in spurious dividends to perform his part of intriguer.... But we will rectify all in the right way, which is the French.... And ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... while maintaining their wing positions, the Italians were obliged to rectify somewhat the center of their new line to avoid the Austrian fire, at the same time carrying out frequent counterattacks, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... are not always in possession of any number of loose hundreds which they can throw away without feeling the loss. Nor was the Marquis of Trowbridge so circumstanced now. But that trouble did not gall him nearly so severely as the necessity which was on him to rectify an error made by himself. He had done a foolish thing. Under no circumstances should the chapel have been built on that spot. He knew it now, and he knew that he must apologise. Noblesse oblige. The old lord was very ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... a science professor for being too interested in science. The students didn't like it. I think Khane's successor will rectify that. Have a good ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... you will obtain sweet, tender and wholesome bread. If by any mistake the dough becomes sour before you are ready to bake it, you can rectify it by adding a little dry super-carbonate of soda, molding the dough a long time to distribute the soda equally throughout the mass. All bread is better, if naturally sweet, without the soda; but sour bread you should never eat, if you ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... real name; it was given to her by her brothers and sisters. People with very marked qualities of character do sometimes get such distinctive titles to rectify the indefiniteness of those they inherit and those they receive in baptism. The ruling peculiarity of a character is apt to show itself early in life, and it showed itself in Madam Liberality when ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... to utter some indiscreet words, which I beg you to pardon." "Do not think I am so unjust," resumed Sinbad, "as to resent such a complaint. I consider your condition, and instead of upbraiding, commiserate you. But I must rectify your error concerning myself. You think, no doubt, that I have acquired, without labour and trouble, the ease and indulgence which I now enjoy. But do not mistake; I did not attain to this happy condition, without enduring for several years more trouble of body and mind than can well ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Mr. Dodge reversed this manoeuvre by pretending to be left clinging to the boat of the Montauk, in his zeal to shove off. As the sails were drawing; hard, and the oars dashed the spray aside, it was too late to rectify either of these ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... former assumed an air of even greater geniality than usual and nodded a careless agreement to every accusation hurled against him. "Right you are, men! Absolutely right. We were victimized, but we're tickled to death to rectify the error. Mighty fortunate mistake, as a matter of fact. Brick, out with the old check book and give these birds back their money." With alacrity Mr. Stoner cleared off his desk and seated himself, pen in hand. "Step up and get a dollar a share—just what you paid. Fair enough, I calls it. The banks ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... knew nothing whatever about soldiering and too much about poker. All his seniors in grade, except the West Pointers graduated in '65, had brevets for war service, and Nevins' sponsor was appealed to to rectify the omission in the lieutenant's case. Nevins had held a commission in a volunteer regiment in the defenses of Washington the last few months of the war, and that was found amply sufficient, when a prominent member of the committee on military affairs demanded it, to warrant the bestowal of a brevet ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... gravely and emphatically, as a teacher who has made an incautious speech before his pupils endeavors to rectify it by another of more ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the supposed body, with the prevention or cure of pain and suffering, we must go straight to spirit. Spirit is perfect, and the thought of pain or disease can have no place in it. Let us then leave the curing of our bodies, and seek to rectify ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot

... would be easy to show how many qualifications are needed to rectify this egregious overstatement of propositions that in themselves contain the germ of a wholesome doctrine. Diderot pointed out some of the principal causes of Helvetius's errors, summing them up thus: "The whole of this third discourse seems ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... I have endeavoured both in public and in private to fight against it. But selfishness has diffused itself thro' the whole mass of our people, and hinc illae lacrymae. You mistakenly conceive, as do many others, that I am biassed by personal affection for Mr. Pitt. When we meet, I will rectify your error on ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... to rectify the abuses and evil manners of the schools. In the thirty-eighth year of Henry VIII. an order was made "that the gentlemen of this company" (i.e., the Inner Temple) "should reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... part are actually saved, there must be some difference in the attitude of the saved and the lost towards converting grace, which is denied in Article II. The Lutheran system, then, to be consistent, must rectify itself, and develop either from Article II in the direction of Augustinianism and Calvinism, or from Article XI in the direction of synergism and Arminianism. The former would be simply returning to Luther's original doctrine ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... diminished through the operation of social conditions. For in all grades of civilization above the lowest, "there are so many kinds of superiorities which severally enable men to survive, notwithstanding accompanying inferiorities, that natural selection cannot by itself rectify any particular unfitness." In a race of inferior animals any maladjustment is quickly removed by natural selection, because, owing to the universal slaughter, the highest completeness of life possible to a given grade of organization is required for the mere maintenance of life. But under the ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... secondary possibility. He knew that Eve had written this thing, and he wished to have the opportunity of correcting one or two small mistakes which he anticipated, and which he felt that he himself alone could rectify. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... judging solely from appearance, supposes, with the vulgar, the sky arched, the earth flat, the sun much like a football, describing a curve in the air from east to west, he supposes the infallibility of the senses, reserving the right to rectify subsequently, after further observation, the data with which he is obliged to start. Astronomic philosophy, in fact, could not admit a priori that the senses deceive us, and that we do not see what we do see: admitting such a principle, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon



Words linked to "Rectify" :   alter, amend, falsify, straighten out, purify, find out, moralise, moralize, exchange, ascertain, change by reversal, reclaim, reverse, regenerate, repair, refine, debug



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