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Retard   Listen
verb
Retard  v. t.  (past & past part. retarded; pres. part. retarding)  
1.
To keep delaying; to continue to hinder; to prevent from progress; to render more slow in progress; to impede; to hinder; as, to retard the march of an army; to retard the motion of a ship; opposed to accelerate.
2.
To put off; to postpone; as, to retard the attacks of old age; to retard a rupture between nations.
Synonyms: To impede; hinder; obstruct; detain; delay; procrastinate; postpone; defer.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Retard" Quotes from Famous Books



... parts, 'what would have kept 50,000 men five months in bread' (not to mention hay at all); gave the Enemy sore slaps (caught about 3,000 of him, NOT yet got on gallop for Prag); burnt his 200 boats on the Elbe:—forced him to begin anew at the beginning; and did, in effect, considerably lame and retard certain of his operations through the Summer. Speedy Henri marched for home April 20th; and was all across the Mountains April 23d: a profitable swift nine days." [Tempelhof iii. 47-53; Helden-Geschichte, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... to retard the inquest, which I shall refer to only as is necessary to keep bound together the thread ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... acts of rapacity, are now compelled to enter into a compact which obliges them, half civilized as they are, to return to the forest. The case is this,—the white people, or rather Jackson and the southerns, say, that the Indians "retard improvement"—precisely in the same sense that a brigand, when he robs a traveller, might say, that the traveller retarded improvement—that is, retarded his improvement, inasmuch as he had in his pocket, what would improve the condition of the brigand. The Indians ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall

... bands and belts must be done away with. You must have full, free use of your lungs. Then, don't wear heavy petti-coats that will retard the free movements of your legs and make your hips ache with their tiresome weight. Dress warmly but as lightly ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... still catch the after-image of i perfectly distinct and not at all horizontally elongated, as it would have to be if eye and pendulum had not moved just together. It appears from this that certain motives are able to retard the rate of voluntary movements of the eye, even when the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... for us to retard your convalescence, and set you fretting, and perhaps destroy your child? Rosa, my darling, think what a treasure Heaven has sent you, to love ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... you would slacken the pace of your horses, to satisfy the passion of his amorous heart, and so make of a delightful night the longest night of all; that you would give him more time for his transports, and retard the birth of day since it will hasten the return of him ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere

... de secretis artis et naturae cap. 7. de retard. sen. Remedium esset contra corruptionem propriam, si quilibet exerceret regimen sanitatis, quod consistit in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... it carries with it many a stately structure, which the toil, the economy, the self-denial of years had hardly raised. Extraneous causes,—a short crop,—a reduced tariff,—a peculiar mania of enterprise,—may hasten or retard the various steps of the process which has been described; but its cause and its course are almost always the same, and the discerning eye may easily detect them, from the beginning to the end of our modern commercial experience. In the existing difficulties, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... influence on the course of convalescence following labor. Certain nervous and highly excitable women certainly seem to do better, as a result of experiencing less pain and nervous shock; while other cases do not turn out so well. It certainly does not retard repair and recovery ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... very soon, probably in about an hour. Yet, in Mrs. Inglethorp's case, the symptoms do not manifest themselves until five o'clock the next morning: nine hours! But a heavy meal, taken at about the same time as the poison, might retard its effects, though hardly to that extent. Still, it is a possibility to be taken into account. But, according to you, she ate very little for supper, and yet the symptoms do not develop until early the next morning! Now that is a curious circumstance, ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie

... bigness of the whole dilatation, the midwife ought to let them break of themselves, and not, like some hasty midwives, who being impatient of the woman's long labour, break them, intending thereby to hasten their business, when instead thereof, they retard it; for by the too hasty breaking of these waters (which nature designed to make the child slip more easy), the passage remains dry by which means the pains and throes of the labouring woman are less efficacious to bring ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... of the sun. It is so irregular that it is impossible for man to devise a clock that will keep the sun's time. The sun accelerates and retards as no clock could be made to accelerate and retard. The sun is sometimes ahead of its schedule; at other times it is lagging behind; and at still other times it is breaking the speed limit in order to overtake itself, or, rather, to catch up with where it ought to be in the sky. In this last case it does not slow down quick enough, and, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... statesman must form in his own mind a conception whether a prevailing tendency is favourable or opposed to the real interests of the country. It will depend upon this judgment whether he will endeavour to accelerate or retard it; whether he will yield slowly or readily to its pressure, and there are cases in which, at all hazards of popularity and influence, he should inexorably oppose it. But in the long run, under free governments, political ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... lofty trees that shaded the banks and crossed one another a hundred—a thousand—ways to prevent the boat's passage and retard its progress, as if the devil himself was mixed in it; and, frankly, I believe that he had something to do with us in that cavern. Often our emigrants were forced to take their axes and hatchets in hand to open a road. At other times tree-trunks, heaped ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... malice in burning d'Aumont's house. I hear little Harrison(9) is come over; it was he I sent to Utrecht. He is now Queen's Secretary to the Embassy, and has brought with him the Barrier Treaty, as it is now corrected by us, and yielded to by the Dutch, which was the greatest difficulty to retard the peace. I hope he will bring over the peace a month hence, for we will send him back as soon as possible. I long to see the little brat, my own creature. His pay is in all a thousand pounds a year, and they have never paid him a groat, though I have teased their hearts out. He must be three or ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... safety. In slave ethics I suppose this is called "moral force." If the slave population is left to its own natural increase, the crisis will soon come; for labor will be so very cheap that slavery will not be for the interest of the whites. Why should we retard this crisis? ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... first in keeping the poison out of the general blood stream. With this purpose in view a handkerchief, piece of cotton clothing, string, or strap should be immediately wound about the bitten limb above the wound, between it and the heart. This will retard absorption of the poison only for a time; it is said twenty-five minutes. The knife is the most effective means of removing the poison by making an oval cut on each side of the wound so that the two incisions meet and remove all the flesh below and around the wound. Bleeding ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... said against the materialistic tendency of the present time, the scholarship of the idealists at least did not retard its growth. Materialism abounds everywhere at present. The object sought by introducing scientific in lieu of classical studies in some of the higher institutions of learning is that facilities may be afforded ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst

... unsatisfactory. It was murder unquestionably—and murder of a most brutal character. The headline had epitomised it—the face was mutilated beyond recognition. Every belonging, obviously with the design to prevent, or at least retard, identification, had been stripped from the body. One point alone appeared to be established, and that, if anything, but added to the mystery which surrounded the crime. According to medical opinion, the murder ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... will impede digestion is a fact familiar to almost every one; but, I believe, it is not so generally known, that it will with no less certainty retard and alter the nature of the secretion furnished by the breasts of the lactescent female. Violent affections of the mind will cause the milk to become thin and yellowish, and to acquire noxious properties: even the fond mother's anxiety, ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton

... encourage any portion of the population of this country in the perpetration of crimes, such as those which have recently brought disgrace upon the Irish people; and which have tended, in no trifling degree, to retard the success of our efforts in the cause ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny

... been ready for the press by the beginning of this winter, but interruptions occasioned partly by bad health, arising from want of amusement and from thinking too much upon one thing, and partly by the avocations above mentioned, will oblige me to retard its publication for a few months longer.—I ever am, my dearest Pulteney, most faithfully and ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... all circumstances opposed to that sympathy all men owe one to another, and to that Greater Source of love and sympathy in which 'we live and move and have our being.' Where this bond has been broken, we long for its restoration; but it cannot but tend to retard this restoration, to impute to one or other of the parties concerned motives that are entirely foreign to its action. Peace, to be lasting, must stand on a foundation of truth; and there is no truth whatever in the idea that the English Government provoked the present war, ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... friendly stone which appears likely to give up prematurely from exhaustion. Sweeping is carried out under the direction of your captain, and the process is known in the vernacular as "sooping 'er oop." You are not allowed to retard the progress of a stone, friendly or otherwise, by intentionally sweeping obstructions into its path. To discard a portion of your "cow" in front of a rapidly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various

... paternalized, is allowed to take a hand in his own development. This is as it should be. Many theories have been advanced concerning him; but I think we all agree that he has outgrown the present method, which now seems to retard his progress. Yet the old machinery continues to exist in cumbersome and more or less inefficient form. It is a question whether it really does much more good than harm; but it seems clear that some of the tribes still need intelligent ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman

... statesmen {325} are, on the one hand, not directly responsible for good harvests or bad, on the other, they are not 'flies on the wheel.' The powers confided to them are great for good or ill. They may hasten or retard material progress, and guide, if they cannot create, the current of national destiny. It is impossible to imagine what different course the Dominion would have taken had there been no Macdonald and no Laurier at ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... neglected cathedral. They have become dead branches that must be lopped off. They are rubbish that must be removed—relics of monarchy or aristocracy, cunningly devised inventions of priestcraft or kingcraft, that retard the triumph of democracy. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... preposterous, absolutely grotesque. Society? The whole human framework in all its manifestations, social, literary, religious, artistic, and civic, is perpetually guilty of the greatest mischief in the matter. Nothing is done to retard or prevent marriage; everything to accelerate and promote it. Marriage is universally treated as a virtue which of itself consecrates the lives of the mostly vulgar and entirely selfish young creatures who enter into it. The blind and ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells

... to be able to help you, and thus help the Southern cause," replied Marion. "But you must not speak too much. It may retard ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield

... shelter whatever being given, so that we are not put to the great expense that growers of this fruit in Florida and some other pineapple-producing countries must incur if they wish to secure a crop. Here we have no severe freeze-outs, and, though dry spells retard the growth at times, we have never suffered any serious injury from this cause. In the Southern part of the State, the coolness of the winter retards growth somewhat, and occasionally the tops of the leaves and young fruit are ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson

... long since descended. Her anxieties were only for her daughter, her hopes only for the world beyond the grave. The latter was a man of peace, who, having found in the ordinances of his church everything to aid and nothing to retard his spiritual development, had no conception of the nature of the puritanical opposition to its government and rites. Through neither could Dorothy come to any true idea of the questions which agitated the politics ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... exclaimed Napoleon. "I might, perhaps, repose confidence in the personal attachment of my father-in-law, but this could not blind me to the policy of his cabinet. This policy never changes. Treaties of alliance and marriages may somewhat retard its course, but never deflect it. Austria never renounces what she was compelled to cede. When she is weaker than her enemy, she resorts to peace, but this is always only an armistice for her, and, in signing it, she thinks of a ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... this there is a bed of shingle of vast thickness, through which the water percolates; it is this that renders the sinking of wells so difficult in the Deyrah Dhoon, and which has tended so much to retard individuals from becoming permanent residents; at present there are many tracts of several thousand acres in that valley unoccupied from want of drinking water, as ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... are now struggling with the problem whether it is any longer possible to punish the guilty." It is a melancholy fact that at the present time "penal statutes and procedure tend more to defeat and retard the ends of justice than to protect ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... letter produced a marked improvement in my patient's health. In a postscript, reference was made to an accident which had happened to poor Pepito, who was prevented from being the bearer of this letter, by having sprained his ankle. This would retard his return to the city for a day or two; nevertheless, she begged her 'dear Arthur' not to be uneasy, as even this delay, annoying as it was, might prove of advantage, as it would give him time to recover from the effects of the excitement of the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... population. It is destined to increase for a few years still more rapidly than it has heretofore. But that it will be a second Chicago is what I do not expect. It would certainly seem that the high prices demanded for building lots must retard the progress of the place; but I am told the prices have always been as high in proportion to the business and number of population. $500 and upwards is asked for a decent building lot in remote parts ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... reign its best claim to be honored in history. The reign of George the Fourth teaches us that in a country like modern England, while a good sovereign may do much to forward the intellectual, political, and social progress of the people, even the worst sovereign could no longer do much to retard it. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... three hours! This is your perpetual recreation, which is the least eligible of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating the motion of the fluids, the rigid attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions. Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such a course of living but a body replete ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... the rest, but she was one of the few whose brain could travel faster than her hands. She thought as she worked, for her muscles did not retard her mind. She was composed of two motions, one within the other, and the central motion was so swift that ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... desires, she began the most exquisite pressures upon me, which very shortly brought us both up to the point of demanding more active measures. However, I rather restrained her, and told her we must retard our movements to increase our pleasures, because mere quick repetitions would only exhaust her, without yielding the true extasies of enjoyment. I, therefore, taught her the pleasures of the slow movements, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... progress goes on; and for those bursts, and starts, and halts of progress which are so marked as minor phenomena. And, thus, it must show us what are the essential conditions of progress, and what social adjustments advance and what retard it. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... inconsistent with the belief in a benevolent Creator. In its essence, the law of population is simply that a tendency and ability exist in mankind to increase its numbers faster than subsistence, and that this result actually will happen unless checks retard it, or new means of getting subsistence arise. If an undue increase of population led to vice and misery, in Malthus's theory, he certainly is not to be charged with unchristian feelings if he urged a self-restraint by which that evil result should be avoided. Malthus's doctrines excited great ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... increase, may, like all the forces of nature, yield to a greater force; it is an impulsion rather than a necessity; it solicits and does not constrain. A thousand obstacles stay its development in individuals and in societies; moral liberty may retard or accelerate its effects. Progress is therefore a law which cannot be abrogated, but which ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... thought; and it was almost unconsciously that she yielded to emotions which did not seem to have the least effect upon her protector. Aouda took the keenest interest in his plans, and became impatient at any incident which seemed likely to retard his journey. ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... the fact, that at the present day one of the best administered States has been ruled by native ladies during two generations, and that the most ably managed of the great landed properties are entirely in the hands of women. The chief causes which retard their education are to be found in the social customs of the country, the seclusion in which women live, the appropriation of the educational fund to the schools for boys, and the need ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... the service of men? As I grew more sensible of the labour of pursuing, I saw more of the inutility of accomplishing, individual measures. There is one great and moving order of events which we may retard, but we cannot arrest, and to which, if we endeavour to hasten them, we only give a dangerous and unnatural impetus. Often, when in the fever of the midnight, I have paused from my unshared and unsoftened studies, to listen to the deadly pulsation of my heart,—[Falkland ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which have depressed the followers of this religion in the scale of civilization. I shall take the former first—just remarking here, in respect of the latter, that the depression of Islam is itself one of the causes which retard the expansion of ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... hope of extinguishing the flames, they had closed all the hatches, to retard the crisis as much as possible. Here and there, however, little torch-like lights were beginning to show themselves through the planks, and the whole deck, forward of the main-mast, was already in a critical and sinking state. One or two ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... advocated all the sections of the proposed amendment except the third. Of this he said: "Though it seems just on its face, I doubt the propriety of embodying it with the other amendments, as it may retard, if not endanger, the ratification of the amendment in regard to representation, and we can not afford to endanger in any manner a matter of such vital ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... inference, namely, that the education and intellectual capacity of women is likely to remain at the point, or advance to the degree at which men may consider it desirable for it to exist; if, therefore, certain conditions are seen to favor this advancement to an extraordinary degree, and others to retard it in a manner as extraordinary; if, in addition to results already achieved by the increased education of women, others far greater may be foreseen, when that education shall have become really equal to that now accessible to men; it becomes imperative to concede the conditions in question, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... report for 1911 that the protection now enjoyed by the giant brown bear (Ursus middendorffi) on Kadiak Island be removed, for the benefit of settlers and their stock! It goes without saying that no one proposes that predatory wild animals shall be permitted to retard the development of any wild country that is required by civilized man. All we ask in this matter is that, as in the case of the once-proposed slaughter of sea-lions on the Pacific Coast, the necessity of the proposed slaughter shall be fully and adequately proven before the killing begins! It ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... too often less happy. Orsino was inexperienced, but Maria Consuelo was quite conscious of the tendency in a fixed direction. Whether she had made up her mind, or not, she tried as skilfully as she could to retard the movement, for she was very happy in the present and probably feared the first stirring of ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... the czar for such employment, but it will be for the emolument it will bring, and cannot be induced by patriotic sentiment. We would have little cause to dread such people, since we would not be long in identifying them, and ultimately I believe they would assist, rather than retard our efforts." ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... the office of religion in keeping morality operative among men is not to be discarded. It is doubtless impossible to estimate with entire correctness the relative value of the different forces that advance or retard civilization, but we believe the weight of historic evidence goes to prove that religious skepticism was the actual cause, as it has always been the inevitable precursor, of national decay. Coleridge in The Friend quotes the historian Polybius as attributing the strength ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... but by particular examples, both the constitution and course of courts being divers in different governments, but best beyond compare in Venice, where they regard not so much the arbitrary power of their courts as the constitution of them, whereby that arbitrary power being altogether unable to retard or do hurt to business, produces and must produce the quickest despatch, and the most righteous dictates of justice that are perhaps in human nature. The manner I shall not stand in this place to describe, because it is ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... hasten or retard Bismarck's ultimate victory; for he remained the one truly masterful ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... obliged to speak of them. To do so can neither hasten nor retard the event. All the more obliged to speak of them, because I have never greatly cared about money, except for what I could do with it.—As a means, of vast importance. As an end, uninteresting.—So it has been lightly come and lightly go, I am afraid. All the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... definitely teach the truths contained in the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds, whatever benefits may accrue to individuals from the moral teaching which they impart, are not merely negative in tendency and results, but retard the progress of the Kingdom of Christ in Eastern lands." Such are the weighty words of Bishop Bickersteth,(33) the occasion which drew them forth being the adoption by the Congregationalists of Japan of the following Declaration of Belief:—"We believe (i) in the One God, ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... exercising influence. But the wonderful, the inexplicable thing is that my Father,—who, with all his limitations, was so distinguished and high-minded,—should listen to her for a moment, and still more wonderful is it that he really allowed her, grim vixen that she was, to disturb his plans and retard his purposes. I think the explanation lay in the perfectly logical position she took up. My Father found himself brought face to face at last, not with a disciple, but with a trained expert in his own peculiar scheme of religion. At every point she was armed with arguments the source of ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... stay in Jarvis's Bay we were by no means idle, which you will be convinced of, I hope, when we arrive. The weather I have had these 5 days convinces me that the Bee would have been a very great retard to us...for the sea here, when it blows hard (owing, I presume, to the current setting strong against the wind) makes it run confused and break much...Mr. Barrallier has got nearly well of his seasickness and we have had the azimuth compass to work, which he now understands thoroughly. Murray ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... estimates, and of taking the world as I find it. You say you were capable of this mood—let us call it an aspiration—before. I do not deny this, yet doubt it. When people change it is because they are ripe, or ready for change, as are things in nature. One can force or retard nature; but I don't believe much in intervention. With many I doubt whether there is even much opportunity for it. They are capable of only the gradual modification of time and circumstances. Young ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... his own compositions very capriciously, yet he adhered, on the whole, strictly to the beat and only at times, but seldom, accelerated the tempo a trifle. Occasionally he would retard the tempo in a crescendo, which produced a very beautiful and striking effect. While playing he would give a passage, now in the right hand, now in the left, a beautiful expression which was simply inimitable; but ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven

... contingent or evanescent? The general motion is necessary, but the given motion is not so; only during the season that the particular combinations subsist, of which this motion is the consequence, or the effect: we may be competent to change the direction, to either accelerate or retard, to suspend or arrest, a particular motion, but the general motion can never possibly be annihilated. Man, in dying, ceases to live; that is to say, he no longer either walks, thinks, or acts in the mode which is peculiar ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... Marmette. He knew the way they would go, so he fell behind a tree, and saw them start for the place where they could order a cab. Then he followed them. Looking at his watch he saw that, if they got a cab, they would get to the station before the train started, and he wondered how he could retard Barouche. A delay of three minutes would be enough, for it was a long way, and the distance could only be covered with good luck in the time. Yet Denzil had hope, for his faith in Junia was great, and he felt sure she would do what she planned. He ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... clear and distinct utterance, must always ensure to her the approbation of an enlightened audience; we feel some reluctance in adding that her uniformity of declamation, and something in her tones approaching to monotony, retard her progress to that excellence to which the qualifications abovementioned must ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... Spaniards had filled the river with stakes, to retard the progress of the corsair, but the latter removed them. He compelled some of his men to enter the water; and ropes being tied to the shoulders of these men, they removed, although with considerable difficulty, a sufficient number of the stakes to clear the vessels. While he was removing ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson

... Virginia through Pound Gap, and had reached a strong natural position near Paintville, where he was rapidly increasing his army, with the intention of raising a sufficient force—already some five thousand—to operate on General Buell's flank and to retard his advance into Tennessee. The Forty-second Ohio, just organized, was in a camp of instruction near Columbus, Ohio, under its Colonel, James A. Garfield. While there, in December, he was ordered by General ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... quacks in Medicine, excite the malady to profit by the cure, and retard the cure to augment the ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... province with united strength Assail the foe, the foe may yield at length, And backward shrink, while in the favouring hour All Sweden aids us with collective power. The hope that yet remains our care should guard, Nor blast by rashness, nor by fears retard. Ere yet the assembled chiefs our fate decide, Let chosen spies among the council glide, To every speech a listening ear incline, And sound each heart, and fathom each design. Let the skill'd augur Heaven's high will explore, And all with suppliant fear Heaven's Lord adore: So may success ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... unpremeditated deeds of violence, or whether his design had been fostered in the recesses of his own dark mind, cannot be fully ascertained. In some measure his revenge was gratified. He was enabled, by the events which followed, to delay the marriage of Fraser of Salton, and to retard the nuptials,—which, indeed, never took place. "This wild enterprise," observes Arnot, in his Collection of Criminal Trials in Scotland, "was to be accomplished by such deeds, that the stern contriver of the principal ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... the heavenly bodies, and calculating their probable influence; until at length the result of his observations induced him to send for the father and conjure him in the most solemn manner to cause the assistants to retard the birth if practicable, were it but for five minutes. The answer declared this to be impossible; and almost in the instant that the message was returned the father and his guest were made acquainted with ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... dull-witted old farmer who has just heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious details that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them out conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless; making minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and explain how he came to make them; remembering things ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... prevalent," he said, "that any interference by the free States, however benevolent or cautious it might be, would only irritate and inflame the jealousies of the South, and retard the cause of emancipation. If any man believes that slavery can be abolished without a struggle with the worst passions of human nature, quietly, harmoniously, he cherishes a delusion. It can never be done, unless the age of miracles returns. No; we must expect a collision, full of sharp asperities ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... WORK FROM SUN AND FROST.—Sun and frost cause scaling and hair cracks. For work in freezing weather the water, sand and gravel should be heated or salt used to retard freezing until the walk can be finished; it may then be protected from further action of the frost by covering it first with paper and then with a mattress of sawdust, shavings or sand and covering the whole with a tarpaulin. Methods of heating concrete materials and rules for compounding ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... being—none but God alone. These are only the instruments that He usually employs, but not always; we sometimes see people swoon, fall down, and be dead in a moment. When our time does come, all means are vain,— they rather hurry on death than retard it; this we saw in the case of our friend Hefner. I do not mean to say by this that my mother will or must die, or that all hope is at an end; she may recover and be restored to health, but only if the Lord wills it thus. After praying to God with all my strength ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... planks, as I feared), creaking under such a heavy stream of feet and wheels all night, did at last break, in some degree, and needed to be mended; so that the rearward regiments, who are to form Friedrich's left wing, are in painful retard;—and are becoming frightfully necessary, the Austrians as yet far outflanking us, capable of taking us in flank with that right wing of theirs! The moment was agitating to a General-in-chief: Valori will own this young King's bearing was perfect; not the least flurry, though ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... give him stomach for the day's debate, Entering a restaurant, with eager mien, Demands an ounce of bacon and a bean. The trembling waiter, by the statesman's eye Smitten with terror, hastens to comply; Nor chairs nor tables can his speed retard, For famine's fixed and horrible regard He takes for menace. As he shaking flew, Lo! the portentous Pixley heaved in view! Before him yawned invisible the cell, Unheard, behind, the warden's footsteps fell. Thrice in convention rising ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... with by movement of the part (Fig. 59). The more nearly the part can be fixed or rested, the more quickly and satisfactorily does healing occur. Irritation by biting, nibbling, licking, bandaging, wrong methods of treatment and filth retard healing and may result in serious wound complications. An animal in poor physical condition, or one kept under unfavorable conditions for healing, cannot recover from the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... Sir to have your Iron work made of the best Iron, as breaches in any part of mills is of fatal consequence to the profit of them. I have sent the dimensions of the cranks, knowing it to be the practice in New England to make them so small as to retard the business of sawing, besides frequently breaking—the breaking of one may be a greater damage than the cost of two. I have described them something large, but think you had better exceed the size than ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... later, and the sooner one learns it the better for his soul. And if life was not meant to be easy, what was it meant for? It was meant to be overcome. It stands before one like the friction of the world of nature, which is always seeming to retard one's motion, but which makes really the only condition under which we move at all. If there is to be any motion through life, then it must be by overcoming its friction. If life was meant just to stand still, then it might stagnate in a soft place; but life was meant to ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... retard the progress of his statue or make its beauty indifferent. The more he suffered the greater the passion in the face. He labored daily ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... siege of a stronghold it is of very great importance for the besieged to embarrass the first progress of the attack, in order to complete their own armament, and to perform certain operations which are of absolute necessity for the safety of the place, but which are only then possible. In order to retard the completion of the first parallel, and the opening of the fire, it is necessary to try to discover the location of such parallel, as well as that of the artillery, and to ply them with projectiles. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... from the castle he had been flung from his horse. She knew the spot, she told him, and there at dusk upon the following day she would come to him. Her woman must accompany her, and for all that he feared such an addition to the party might retard their flight, yet he could not gainsay her resolution. Her uncle, he learnt from her, was absent from Sheringham; he had set out four days ago for London. For her father she would leave a letter, and in this matter Crispin urged ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... chemical transformation being effected, the grain is in the condition in which the ants prefer it. Like a wine-grower who watches over the fermentation in his vat, and stops it before the wine turns sour, they stop the digestion of the starch at this stage. If we do not know how they retard germination, we know at all events how they render it impossible at this later stage. It is the young plant which absorbs the glucose, and which must therefore be destroyed; they cut off the radicle with their mandibles, and gnaw the stalk; the germ is thus suppressed. They have not ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... right. Had his persistence equalled his insight, instead of being the spasmodic and fitful thing it was, fame and fortune need never have remained a wish with him. His freedom from conventional errors and crusted prejudices had, indeed, been such as to retard rather than accelerate his advance in Hintock and its neighborhood, where people could not believe that nature herself effected cures, and that the doctor's business was only to smooth ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... to make. "We have much to suffer," added I, "as we must follow the track of the camels; I know not, besides, on what we are to subsist, for we have no she-camels, and of consequence can have no milk. I am persuaded we will be obliged to beg our way from village to village, which will greatly retard our journey." ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... He continues—more and more lyrically: "Who can listen unmoved, to the sweet love-tales of our robins, told from tree to tree? Or to the shrill cat birds? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high, always retard my steps, that I may listen to the delicious music." And the Farmer is no less interested in "the astonishing art which all birds display in the construction of their nests, ill provided as we may suppose them with proper tools; their neatness, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... of the globe would have previously acquired less diurnal velocity than the earth's surface from whence it rose, it would receive during the time of its rising additional velocity from the earth's surface, and would consequently so much retard the motion of the earth ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... a fixed period, and immovable during that period: all the arrangements are for STATED times. There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated. Come what may, you can quicken nothing, and can retard nothing. You have bespoken your Government in advance, and whether it suits you or not, whether it works well or works ill, whether it is what you want or not, by law you must keep it. In a country of complex foreign relations it would mostly happen that the first and most critical ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... precipitated the Pope's death,[1] as seems more than probable, they have acted more by the spirit of their order, than by its good sense. Great crimes may raise a growing cause, but seldom retard the fall of a sinking one. This I take to be almost an infallible maxim. Great crimes, too, provoke more than they terrify; and there is no poisoning all that are provoked, and all that are terrified; who alternately provoke and terrify each other, till common danger ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... of the mercy promised to the fathers." We behold the consummation of a great plan, which, throughout a course of ages, had been uniformly pursued; and which, against every human appearance, was, at the appointed moment, exactly fulfilled. No length of time alters His purpose. No obstacles can retard it. Toward the ends accomplished in this hour, the most repugnant instruments were made to operate. We discern God bending to His purpose the jarring passions, the opposite interests, and even the vices of men; uniting seeming contrarieties in His scheme; making "the wrath of ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... are coming out to treat with us. This is what we had Reason to expect. Her only Design is to amuse us & thereby to retard our operations, till she can land her utmost Force in America. We see plainly what Part we are to take; to be before hand of her; and by an early Stroke to give her a mortal Wound. If we delay our vigorous Exertions till the Commissioners arrive, the People abroad may, many ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... all the more painful when these unfaithful men are persons of power and influence. Some of them were once very useful, and have wielded an influence for good that was of immense use; but, alas! in an evil hour they turned aside, and now retard the progress of what they once loved to assist. We appeal to such of our readers as are doing good service, that they pray to be kept from backsliding in heart, lest their oars be broken, and they become a dead weight ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... afternoon, we had reached within a mile and a half of her. And then began one of those barbarous practices that I had heard of, but had hitherto been scarcely able to credit as sober truth, namely, the throwing of slaves overboard in order to retard pursuit by causing the pursuer to stop and pick up the poor wretches, as British men-o'-war invariably did whenever it was ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... germinate on moist and rich spots, while their neighbors are impeded by local dryness, or by distance from manure. Some come to light on a sunny day, and increase their first leaves rapidly, while on [721] the following day the weather may be unfavorable and greatly retard growth. The individual differences seem to be due, at least in a very great measure, to such ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... her arms around his neck, but Napoleon pushed her back. "You are a fool, Josephine!" he said, angrily. "This is childish; you ridiculously retard my departure. I do not wish to hear any more! Be kind enough to leave the carriage! It is necessary that ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... and undeveloped countries largely retard that moment. The favored portions of the earth's surface are already occupied, though the resources of many are yet virgin. That they have not long since been wrested from the hands of the barbarous ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... exhausting war springing from the only great element of national discord among us. While it can not be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population, civilization, and prosperity, no one can doubt that the extent of it would be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... this march, and though in some places the packs met with accidents, they were not such as seriously to retard progress. By 10 A.M. we were in camp in the midst of an imposing view of green sward and forest domed by a cloudless sky. We had again pitched our camp in the wilderness, and, as is the custom of caravans, fired two shots to warn any Washensi having grain ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... poets (though surely spiritual beauty, and not sensuality, was their general aim) of more importance than the "unity of a great nation." But it is in my minute power to deal successfully (I feel) with the one, while no such entity, as I am, can advance or retard the other; and thus mine must needs be the poorer part. Nor (with alas, and again alas!) will Italy or another twice have her day ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine

... justified in not increasing the difficulties which would retard the reception of his views, by introducing matter, which he still regarded as of a more or less speculative character, I think everyone will be prepared to admit. Darwin had to contend with the same difficulty in writing the Origin of Species. To have included the question ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... was either lessened or increased the results obtained fell off. The effect of either too little or too much water is seen in the development of the different organs of the plant as well as on its period of growth, much water seeming to retard the growth. The quality of the plant seems also to be influenced by this condition. Experiments on cereal grains by Wollny show that not merely is the texture of the grain influenced, but that much moisture ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... an English acquaintance, and we agreed to go towards the scene of action together, in order to learn what was going on. My companion was loud in his complaints against the revolters, who, he said, would retard the progress of liberty half a century by their rashness. The government would put them down, and profit by its victory to use strong measures. I have learned to distrust the liberalism of some of the English, who ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the language of detestation of this species of obstructiveness, which prevents hundreds of valuable schemes of social melioration from being entered into. Fortunately, Mrs Chisholm treated with scorn or indifference the various means adopted to retard her benevolent operations. She persevered until she had organised the Female Emigrants' Home. She says: 'I appealed to the public for support: after a time, this appeal was liberally met. There were neither sufficient arrangements made for removing emigrants into the interior, nor ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... blooms, O spring, retard! While thus thy raptures press on, How many a joy is lost, or marred How many a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... because it threw no light upon the proposition, would be retained by a skilful writer because it added power. You may know the character of a redundancy by this one test: does it divert the attention, or simply retard it? The former is always a loss of power; the latter is sometlmes a gain of power. The art of the writer consists in rejecting all redundancies that do not conduce to clearness. The shortest sentences are not necessarily the clearest. Concision gives energy, but it also adds restraint. ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes

... their service, who are required to convey the necessary stores to the different posts in the interior; that it was very probable a sufficient number of men might not be procured from this indispensable duty; and, considering that any delay at York Factory would materially retard our future operations, I wrote to the Under Secretary of State, requesting his permission to provide a few well-qualified steersmen and bowmen, at Stromness, to assist our proceedings in the former part of our journey ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... enchanted with it that he bought a score of copies at once, and as my good stars prevailed, he sent me one. You are welcome to see it, sir. It is unknown in these parts; but will soon be known all over Europe, unless these cruel wars retard it." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... a person "seirchiawc saphwyawc—(and perhaps) elydnan," would necessarily be. The bundles of combustible materials, which he also carried, would add to the weight of his armour, and tend to retard his movements. Or, "yn trwm" may refer to the battle, as being a pressure, or a ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... well know that there is in effect no such person,—that the Assembly is in reality, and by that king is acknowledged to be, the master,—that what he does is but matter of formality,—and that he can neither cause nor hinder, accelerate nor retard, any measure whatsoever, nor add to nor soften the manifesto which the Assembly has directed to be published, with the declared purpose of exciting mutiny and rebellion in the several countries governed by these powers. By the generality also of the menaces contained ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... 1849,—to step between Francis Joseph and humiliation, perhaps destruction. If it be true that the Czar has ordered all Russians to leave Italy, that piece of pitiful spite would show how he hates the Italian cause, and also that it is not in his power seriously to retard its progress at present. Instead of ordering Russians from Italy, he would send them to that country in great masses, could he have his way in directing the foreign policy ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... intelligence, there will be an increase of race rivalry and jealousy. It is said that savages, by putting their ears to the ground, can hear a far-off tread. So, to-day, I fear that there are savage elements in our civilization which hear the advancing tread of the negro and would retard his coming. It is the incarnation of these elements that I dread. It is their elimination I do so earnestly desire. Whether it be outgrown or not is our unsolved problem. Time alone will tell whether or not the virus of slavery and injustice has too fully permeated ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... behind. These zones ought, according to appearance, by the condensation and mutual attraction of their molecules, to form various concentric rings of vapor revolving around the sun. The mutual gravitational friction of each ring would accelerate some and retard others, until they had all acquired the same angular velocity. Thus the actual velocity of the molecules most removed from the sun would be the greatest. The following cause would also operate to bring about this difference of speed. The molecules farthest from the sun, and which by the effects ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... would otherwise detract from that progress of cell formation upon which the scheme of human life depends, so do the true lovers of the Divine meet, by active resistance, any attempt of the enemies of the Good, Beautiful and True to retard the advancement of the scheme of Creation to its ultimate goal of perfection. The human body is composed of innumerable cells and several special colonies of cells, which we call organs, each of which has its special work to do, and ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... the midst of a detachment of pretorians. The sun had inclined somewhat toward Ostia already; the day was clear and calm. Because of his advanced age, Peter was not required to carry the cross; it was supposed that he could not carry it; they had not put the fork on his neck, either, so as not to retard his pace. He walked without hindrance, and the faithful could ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... hundreds were destroyed in cold blood. It is the evil influences of such irresponsible men as Mr. Courtland, whose ill-directed enterprise we cannot in justice to him refrain from acknowledging, that retard the efforts of those noble pioneers of Nonconformity who have already made such sacrifices for the cause, and who rejoice at the difficulties with which they find themselves beset. We understand that a question will be put to the Minister ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... well tucked around her, in order to thoroughly exclude the air from the body. The extra clothing, as soon as she is warm and perspiring, should be gradually removed, as she ought not to be kept very hot, or it will weaken her, and will thus retard her labor. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... the cast-away, who strives, in mid-ocean, for the only plank which can possibly retard his doom, did I toil to re-establish in my mind that conviction of her guilt which the demon in my soul had made so certain by his assurances before. Alas! I had not only lost the wife of my bosom, but its fiend also. Vainly now did I seek to summon him back. Vainly ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... attacked him in a deserted spot and either murdered or kidnapped him. But who? And for what purpose? Robbery? Personal enmity? Revenge? Or an impersonal motive, such as a desire, for some reason, to damage and retard the doings of the Assembly? It might be any of these.... Let us for a moment take the hypothesis that it is the last. To whom, then, might such a desire be attributed? Unfortunately, my dear Mr. Beechtree, to many ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... necessary engagements for his release, and for taking him to the United States, even if he is there to be guarded as a captive. If his wife and his children could be comprised in this mission, it is easy to judge how happy it would be for her and for them; but if this would in the least degree retard or embarrass the measure, we will defer still longer the happiness of a reunion. May Heaven deign to bless the confidence with which it has inspired me! I hope my request ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... one, and to conquer the other. The scriptural representations of the state of the Christian on earth, by the images of "a race," and "a warfare;" of its being necessary to rid himself of every encumbrance which might retard him in the one, and to furnish himself with the whole armour of God for being victorious in the other, are, so far as these nominal Christians are concerned, figures of no propriety or meaning. ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... rapid with as little headway as possible, and often executed "back-water" to retard the boat. The steering oar was used to throw the boat one way or another in rapids, but it was mainly on the side oars that we relied ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... individuals composing the Fuegian tribes must for a long time retard their civilisation. As we see those animals, whose instinct compels them to live in society and obey a chief, are most capable of improvement, so is it with the races of mankind. Whether we look at it as a cause or a consequence, the more civilised always have ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... are correct and cautious about most things, are so very careless of their own personal comfort in the matter of clothing. Is anything more important than that which concerns their health and comfort? Why should they continue wearing clothes which retard their movements, and which are so inconvenient that they expose the wearers to constant risk and danger? How can they consistently call themselves independent while they servilely follow the mandates of the dressmakers who periodically ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... 'Othello,' causes Iago to say that 'he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor, indeed.' Our slighting word may rob some one of his good name and leave him poor, indeed; while the kind word which rises to our lips, but remains unspoken, may retard the progress of the person of whom we might have ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold

... very uncongenial society of little girls of twelve or thirteen. The elder girls commonly hold aloof, while mistresses are apt to view this precocious development with disapproval, and to attempt to retard what cannot be retarded by insisting that the young woman has remained a child. I remember being called in consultation by a surgeon who had been asked to operate for appendicitis upon a girl of fourteen. I found a tall, well-grown girl, with an appearance and manner that made her ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... which raged for some years after the Crimean War ecclesiastical affairs were entirely overlooked. Many of the reformers of those days were so very "advanced" that religion in all its forms seemed to them an old-world superstition which tended to retard rather than accelerate social progress, and which consequently should be allowed to die as tranquilly as possible; whilst the men of more moderate views found they had enough to do in emancipating ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... the solitary rock has shown itself ahead of us—and there is the seaweed. I look intently, I strive to distinguish that rounded object lying on the ground—but I see nothing. We approach closer. I involuntarily retard my steps. But where is that black, motionless thing? Only the stalks of the seaweed stand out darkly against the sand, which is already dry.... We go to the very rock.... The corpse is nowhere to be seen, and only on the spot ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... but cautiously through the black jungle, bent on reaching the gate if possible before the night lifted. Chase and Bobby Browne brought up the rear with the two reserve carriers in hand. Browne, weak and suffering from torture and exposure, struggled bravely along, determined not to retard their progress by a single movement of indecision. He had talked volubly for the first few minutes after their rescue, but now was silent and intent upon thoughts of his own. His head and face were bruised and cut; his body was stiff and sore from the effects of his valiant battle ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... that such a peace would for long years, if not for centuries, retard the triumph of democratic principles in the world, and would ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... direction of increased population and wealth, and in the intellectual advancement and the liberalizing of opinion which go naturally with these. And yet, if one may judge by the past, the river towns will manage to find and use a chance, here and there, to cripple and retard their progress. They kept themselves back in the days of steamboating supremacy, by a system of wharfage-dues so stupidly graded as to prohibit what may be called small RETAIL traffic in freights and passengers. Boats were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... stood out with a pot in his hand, As the King was bewailing the fate of his land, And he said, "If these Ogs you desire to retard, Then hit them quite frequent with anything hard." So the Glugs seized anvils, and editors' chairs, And smote the Ogs with them unawares; And bottles of pickles, and clocks they threw, And books of poems, and gherkins, and glue, Which they'd bought ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... his danger, but in time to send away his army. It was now clear that Thermopylae could no longer be defended, but the heroic and self-sacrificing general resolved to remain, and sell his life as dearly as possible, and retard, if he could not resist, the march of the enemy. Three hundred Spartans, with seven hundred Thespians and four hundred Thebans joined him, while the rest retired to fight another day. It required all ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... designed to give a lively representation of "the Calamities brought on a Country by general Corruption;" and it was duly rehearsed. But unexpected delays took place in its production; the revolted players returned to Drury Lane; and, lest the actors' benefits should further retard its appearance by postponing it until the winter season, Fielding transferred it to the Haymarket, where, according to Geneste, it was acted in April 1734. As a play, Don Quixote in England has few stage qualities and no plot to speak of. But the Don with ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... two distinct species. One of these is the men who, in the opinion of their own conscience, give the preference to another government which they disguise more or less in their language, and seek to deprive our monarchical government of all the strength which can retard the advent of a republic. I declare that these persons I shall not attack. Whosoever has a pure political opinion has a right to communicate it; but we have another class of foes. They are the foes of all government. If this class betrays ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... to rush down, and give her help with an oar; but the woman withheld her, saying that she would only crowd the boat and retard the rescue, for which the two were quite sufficient, only the danger was that the current of the stream might make the tide rise rapidly in the bay. There were besides so many rocks and shoals, that it was impossible to proceed straight across, ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been Eye-witnesses can testifie; they having acted like Merciless Men, not having the fear of God and the King before their Eyes, but by the instigation of the Devil; so that it may well be said and affirmed, not one Person will be left alive, unless his Majesty does retard, and put a stop to the full career of their Cruelties, which I am very apt to believe, for I have seen with these very eyes of mine, many Kingdoms laid waste and depopulated in a small time. There are other stately Provinces on the Confines of ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas

... apres m'etre excuse du retard, de vous dire que je ne partageais ni votre emotion ni votre point d'impatience. Je crois fermement que la solution grecque sera prochainement obtenue, en depit des resistances et des tergiversations qui peuvent se produire chez les Turcs ou ailleurs. L'important est de maintenir le concert ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... to avoid the snag; but he was unable to stop and render assistance to his fallen comrade. The boys, just as they were shooting out upon the ice, saw by his motions that he was hesitating whether or not he should give up the chase. He used his staff as a brake for a few moments, so as to retard his speed; but discovering, perhaps, by the brightening starlight, that his adversaries were not full-grown men, he took courage, started forward again, and tried to make up for the time he had lost. If he could but reach the sheriff's house before ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... may check and retard, it cannot prevent the development of these influences. France, such as I have found it, full of activity, full of energy, leavened with a genuine leaven of religious faith, irritated by a persistent mockery of the forms of liberty into prizing and demanding the realities of liberty, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... have saved themselves and have abandoned the little ones to their fate, as human creatures often do under similar circumstances. But they stayed upon their nests, gathered their little ones about them, covered them with their wings, as if to retard, as long as possible, the fatal moment, and so awaited death, in that loving ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... uniform effect, and can be brought to bear upon almost any point, where it would be difficult for men to work. It is especially effective in a region covered by trees, where the tangled roots would greatly retard the labour of workmen. In such places the stream of water washes out the earth from below, and tree after tree falls before the current, any gold which may have adhered to the roots being washed away. With a pressure of sixty feet and a pipe of from one and a half to two ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... Ali. Though I had had experience enough of the Abban's tricks to see that this was merely a farce, though a very useless and inconvenient one, I permitted the arrangement rather than make a row and retard my progress, and set out with the young prince, Hamed, Farhan, and two camels and drivers, leaving Imam and the other nine camels, with their drivers, behind, to follow as soon as I should ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... the sea appears to be retiring; others, where, from the slow sinking of the land, it seems to be advancing. These movements depend upon geological causes wholly out of our reach, and man can neither advance nor retard them. [Footnote: It is possible that the weight of the sediment let fall at the mouths of great rivers, like the Ganges, the Mississippi, and the Po, may cause the depression of the strata on which they are deposited, and hence if ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... of an adjustment between his own elaborately thought-out intellectual scheme and the "old morality." In that intellectual scheme indeed the old morality had so far been allowed no place, as seeming to demand from him the admission of certain first principles such as might misdirect or retard him in his efforts towards a complete, many-sided existence; or distort the revelations of the experience of life; or curtail his natural liberty of heart and mind. But now (his imagination being occupied for the ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... the gun-boats, not a vessel has been seen upon the coast; and I hope effectually to prevent any supplies getting to the Russian troops in Finland excepting over land, which must tend to retard all ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... industries to survive, as in the small workshop and the home-labour, which form the central crux of our sweating problem. The very lack of leisure, and the incessant strain upon the physique which belong to "sweating," contribute to retard education, and to render mutual acquaintanceship and the formation of a distinct trade interest extremely difficult. How to overcome these grave difficulties which stand in the way of effective ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... little thoughtful and obstinate head. Therefore, after having embraced each other for a long time, they quitted each other, as if the separation were, at this precise minute, an ineluctable thing which it was impossible to retard. And while she returned to her room with sobs that he heard, he scaled over the wall and, in coming out of the darkness of the foliage, found himself on the deserted road, white with lunar rays. At this first separation, he ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti

... ordinary surgical procedures employed for lowering intra-ocular tension furnish a permanent cure of certain fairly well defined varieties of glaucoma. They also relieve the symptoms and retard the progress of other varieties of the disease, even if they do not perform a cure. In a third class of cases, they either have no effect whatever in arresting the disease or they ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various

... fourth day after my early visit, the particulars of which I have just detailed, that it was thought expedient that I should see him, and then only because it appeared that his extreme importunity and impatience to meet me were likely to retard his recovery more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short conversation could possibly do; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some hope that if by holy confession his patient's bosom were ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... in every tone of his voice. He would kiss the little chap and pat him on the head a hundred times a day. He would tell him stories until he himself was completely exhausted; and although I knew that this tended to retard his complete recovery, I had not the heart to forbid it. I have often since felt thankful that I never made ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... Prince of Orange in England. The old magistrates and leading men silently wished, and secretly prayed, that success might attend him, but determined to commit nothing unnecessarily to hazard, and quietly to await an event, which no movement of theirs could accelerate or retard. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... shall lay In Samos' sands, or straits of Ithaca; To seize thy life shall lurk the murderous band, Ere yet thy footsteps press thy native land. No!—sooner far their riot and their lust All-covering earth shall bury deep in dust! Then distant from the scatter'd islands steer, Nor let the night retard thy full career; Thy heavenly guardian shall instruct the gales To smooth thy passage and supply thy sails: And when at Ithaca thy labour ends, Send to the town the vessel with thy friends; But seek thou first the master of ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... with the warmest benevolence in his heart, to relinquish private affections, and to brood even to madness over public offences; to sacrifice everything in a generous though erring devotion for that freedom whose cause, instead of promoting, he was calculated to retard; and, while he believed himself the martyr of a high and uncompromising virtue, to close his career with the greatest ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... stepped out from his post of observation, with a light heart; and strolled off leisurely in search of a weapon. Since the master was now on his way to a better frame of mind, Peter was not the one to retard his happy progress; so he sauntered about, knowing that Roarin' Sandy's Archie would summon him ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... Towards four o'clock in the morning, amongst those who held that watch there had been a strong apprehension that it would fall heavily. But that state of the atmosphere had passed off; and it had not in fact fallen sufficiently to abate the cold, or much to retard their march. According to the usual custom of the camp, a general breakfast was prepared, at which all, without distinction, messed together—a sufficient homage being expressed to superior rank by resigning the upper part of every table to those who had any ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... is the solid rock crumbling into soil by the action of air and water, but the soil gradually progresses towards the sea, and sooner or later the sea must swallow up the land. Vegetation and masses of solid rock retard the seaward flow of the soil; but they merely retard, they cannot wholly prevent. In proportion as the mountains are diminished, the haugh, or plain, between them grows more wide, and also on a lower level; but while there is a river running ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... provide for its requirement of wheat from less fertile sources, which increases its price generally. It is true that the progress of the science of agriculture and of the corn-trade counteract this tendency, retard the advance of the price of wheat, and may, for a time, produce an opposite tendency. It is true, also, that the people are induced by their most general and vital interests to take advantage of this possibility. But spite of the frequency of exceptions to it, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... directly. Clement noted the false intonation and hesitation, recollected his sweetheart's allusion to Martin Grimbal, and read into his companion's question something closely akin to what in reality lay behind it. His discovery might have been expected to hasten rather than retard the truth, and a first impulse in any man had made the facts instantly clear; but Clement rarely acted on impulse. His character was subtle, disingenuous, secretive. Safe in absolute possession, the discovery of Martin's attachment ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts



Words linked to "Retard" :   simple, changeling, half-wit, idiot, cretin, alter, slow down, accelerate, dampen, be, diminish, modify, stay, decelerate, lessen, simpleton, retardation, imbecile, mongoloid, deaden, slow, delay, fall, slow up, moron, decrease, detain, change



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