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Specialty   Listen
noun
Specialty  n.  (pl. specialties)  
1.
Particularity. "Specialty of rule hath been neglected."
2.
A particular or peculiar case. (Obs.)
3.
(Law) A contract or obligation under seal; a contract by deed; a writing, under seal, given as security for a debt particularly specified. "Let specialties be therefore drawn between us."
4.
That for which a person is distinguished, in which he is specially versed, or which he makes an object of special attention; a speciality. "Men of boundless knowledge, like Humbold, must have had once their specialty, their pet subject."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Specialty" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Transcendentalism and its teachers and disciples held by the social, political, and religious establishment. The separation and specialty of the 'movement' soon passed. The leaders and followers were absorbed in the great world of America; but that world has been deeply affected and moulded by this seemingly slight and transitory impulse. How much of the wise and universal ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... essay might be written on the ads in the theatre program—what high-spirited ads they are! How full of the savour and luxurious tang of the beau monde! How they insist on saying specialite instead of specialty! ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... at the slightest provocation. If his methods had been followed, "the Party" would have murdered someone every day. Don Andres had a smooth tongue and a seraphic smile that simply wound alcaldes or rebellious electors around his little finger, and his specialty was the art of letting loose a rain of sealed documents over the District that started complicated and never-ending ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... a large candy store on the corner of Chambers and Greenwich Streets, under the firm name of R. L. & A. Stuart. Their establishment was a favorite resort of the children of the day, who were as much addicted to sweets as are their more recent successors. "Broken candy" was a specialty of this firm, and was sold at a very low price. Alexander Stuart frequently waited upon customers, and as a child I have often chattered with him over the counter. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... don't know anything except the steel business. I can lick my weight in wildcats on my own ground—but—" The wife nodded her blonde head in complete agreement. "But that lets me out," he concluded, despondently. "I can sell steel because I know it from the ground up; it's my specialty." ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... dominoes, harlequins' dresses, monstrous and outrageous pasteboard noses, and, especially and above all, every kind of contrivance for making a noise. In this latter kind the peculiar and characteristic specialty of the day are straight tin trumpets some four or five feet in length. These are in universal request among young and old; and the general preference for them is justified by the peculiarly painful character of the note which they produce. It is a very loud ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... This regional specialty of Franche-Comte is made with white wine. Sauterne, Chablis, Riesling or any Rhenish type will serve splendidly. Also use butter, grated Gruyere, beaten eggs and that ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... let me call him the chef—because she is going to make a specialty of the southern element of his education. He has a serving-table by his range and he cuts up the meat and fowl, and dishes up the vegetables. In a bigger establishment he would have a helper ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... another draft! An advertisement! Listen: 'Mademoiselle de Castiglione's select seminary. Young ladies instructed in the arts of the bon ton. Finesse, repose, literature! Fashions, etiquette, languages! P. S. Polkas a specialty!' Celestina, your destiny lies at Mademoiselle de Castiglione's. They will teach you to float into a drawing room—but you won't forget the garret? They will instruct you how to sit on gilt chairs—you will think sometimes of the box, or the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... know, Mr Yule, that you have suggested a capital idea to me? If I were to take up your views, I think it isn't at all unlikely that I might make a good thing of writing against writing. It should be my literary specialty to rail against literature. The reading public should pay me for telling them that they oughtn't to read. I must ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... Lille, himself; and I marked how that Jonson and Shaxpur did fidget to discharge some venom of sarcasm, yet dared they not in the presence, the queene's grace being ye very flower of ye Euphuists herself. But behold, these be they yt, having a specialty, and admiring it in themselves, be jealous when a neighbor doth essaye it, nor can abide it in them long. Wherefore 'twas observable yt ye quene waxed uncontent; and in time labor'd grandiose speeche out of ye mouth ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain

... was written at Nashville, Tennessee, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, by the Reverend Hubert Parsons of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South), showing that negroes were in a like predicament. But a more notable instance of the danger of a specialty is the Reverend Cotton Mather, who investigated the subject of witchcraft and issued a modest brochure incorporating his views on the subject. He succeeded in convincing at least one man of its verity, and that man was himself, and thus immortality was ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... "My specialty is sprains," he said, speaking a little lightly to raise her spirits for the instant's ordeal through which she must pass. "I have doctored half a dozen during the last three months. You must take off your moccasin and your stocking, and I will make ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... taken up by friends of Jackson and Polk and carried into Congress without much plan or objection on either side. Since his arrival at the capital he had been present at few roll-calls, and had voted on fewer measures. His life was given up in the main to one specialty, to-wit: the compounding of a certain beverage, invented by himself, the constituent parts of which were Bourbon whiskey, absinthe, square faced gin and a dash of eau de vie. This concoction, over which few shared ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... peculiar a specimen of legislative legerdemain as the Canadian, where an interest was created in 1843 by a Parliament in which the parties affected had no voice, only to be knocked down by the same Parliament in 1846. But it is the latter consideration which constitutes the specialty of the Canadian case. What in point of fact can the other suffering interests, of which the Times writes, do? There may be a great deal of grumbling, and a gradual move towards republicanism, or even communism; ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... to me that the principal drawback about the average guidebook is that it is over-freighted with facts. Guidebooks heretofore have made a specialty of facts—have abounded in them; facts to be found on every page and in every paragraph. Reading such a work, you imagine that the besotted author said to himself, "I will just naturally fill this thing chock-full of facts"—and then ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... on the sixth floor at 325 W. Ohio St., Chicago, and entered the John Baumgarth's Specialty Company, would have suspected anything out of the ordinary about the place. It looked just like hundreds of other business firms where pale girls and anemic-looking ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak

... applause, the best of them cannot for an instant be placed in the same high rank as her novels. For with all her wide grasp of the value of dramatic art and her exact appreciation of the strength and weakness of the acting world, her plays remain, to great expectations, uniformly disappointing. Her specialty in fiction lies in her favorite art of analyzing and putting before us, with extreme clearness, the subtlest ramifications, the most delicate intricacies of feeling and thought. A stage audience has its eyes and ears too busy to give its full attention ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... result of the struggles of the three decades from 1850 to 1880, a majority are already becoming obscure, and in another generation most of the rest will be "names only" to all who are not students of history as a specialty. But the mind in Henry Ward Beecher was so representative; he was so fully mastered by the forces which sent Sherman on his march to the sea and Grant to his triumph at Appomattox, that he will always be remembered as ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... and the Fleet dry nurse 'em. It rather breaks up shore discipline, but it gives the inland men a bit of experience, and, of course, it gives us a fairish supply of men behind the gun, in event of any strain on the Fleet. Some coast corps make a specialty of it, and compete for embarking and disembarking records. I believe some of the Tyneside engineerin' corps put ten per cent of their men through the Fleet engine rooms. But there's no need to stay talking ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... with me," and going over to the tent I picked up the birds and went to some trees near by, and handing the doctor one, asked him to help me pick them, at the same time commencing to pull the feathers out of one myself. The poor doctor looked as though he was wishing he had made a specialty of dementia, and stood like a goose, looking at the chicken. Charlie soon became very restless—went inside the tent, and then came out, humming all the time. Finally he gave in, and coming over to us, fairly snatched the birds from me and said, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... ALLEN. A complete treatise on the history description, methods of propagation and full directions for the successful culture of bulbs in the garden, dwelling and green-house. The author of this book has for many years made bulb growing a specialty, and is a recognized authority on their cultivation and management. The cultural directions are plainly stated, practical and to the point. The illustrations which embellish this work have been drawn from nature and have been engraved ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... consequently is more restricted in its range. If the mullein were fragrant, or toadflax, or the daisy, or blue-weed, or goldenrod, they would doubtless be far less troublesome to the agriculturist. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule I have here indicated, but it holds in most cases. Genius is a specialty: it does not grow in every soil; it skips the many and touches the few; and the gift of perfume to a flower is a special grace like genius or like beauty, and ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... was reasonably secure, the colonel began his preparations for building the cotton mill. The first step was to send for a New England architect who made a specialty of mills, to come down and look the site over, and make plans for the dam, the mill buildings and a number of model cottages for the operatives. As soon as the estimates were prepared, he looked the ground over to see how far he could draw upon local ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... He beat you at your own game, man. You're a bear for the outdoor stuff, they tell me. You chew up a blizzard for breakfast and throttle a pack of wolves to work up an appetite for dinner. It's your specialty. All right. Take your hat off to that chechacko who has just whaled you blind. He has outgamed you, Colby Macdonald. You don't run in his class. I see he is holding his haid up again. Give him another half-hour and he'd be ready to go to the ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... to this vice of sullenness is Alacritas, uniting the sense of activity and cheerfulness. Spenser has cheerfulness simply, in his description, never enough to be loved or praised, of the virtues of Womanhood; first feminineness or womanhood in specialty; then,— ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... demand for "bust foods" and "bust developers." A perfectly developed bust has become so rare that many hundreds of beauty doctors and of business concerns that make a specialty of developing the flat-bosomed realize thousands of dollars annually. One firm in this city, and a small concern at that, has made from $2,500 to $5,000 a year and has over ten thousand names on its constantly increasing ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... looked at his watch, bethought him of a big silver dish filled with an amber-hued specialty of the Ship and Turtle, and adjourned court. His address interrupted by the exigencies of the moment, John Steele began mechanically to gather up his books; his face that had been marked by the set look of one determined to drive on at his best with a task, now wore a ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... Aunty-laureate if the children had an opportunity, for the wonderful books she writes for their amusement. She is the Dickens of the nursery, and we do not hesitate to say develops the rarest sort of genius in the specialty of depicting ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May

... any more. In 1845 another was found, however, in Germany, and a few weeks later two others by Mr. Hind in England. Since then there seems no end to them; numbers have been discovered in America, where Professors Peters and Watson have made a specialty of them, and have themselves found something like ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge

... this honor, which often came to girls of the humblest classes, and the need there could be for supplementing wardrobes suddenly. After that it was confidence for confidence. Madame had seen that in the matter of lingerie mademoiselle "left to desire," and though Margot made no specialty in this line, they happened to have on an upper floor a consignment just arrived from Paris, and if monsieur would allow mademoiselle to come up and inspect it.... Then it was Madame Simone's coiffeur. At least it was the coiffeur whom Madame Simone recommended, who came to the house, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... alacrity, stripping off his coat as quickly as the circumscribed space would permit. Fortunately, it was a garment of the sack specialty, without any split in the tail, and when extended offered a good breadth ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... Beaver Tail, says, someone told his father and his father told him that et is a Patrick Mullen gun an' is a special make inlaid with gold and silver, an' all ornamented up, an' built for an ol' muzzle-loadin' flint-lock. Now Mullen never made no flint-lock rifles that I hear'n tell of, his specialty be shotguns an' if he made this rifle I'm ganderplucked if I cud tell ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... measure when you proceed to pay him. How should it be otherwise when on that waiter's soul there lies heavy a perpetual sense of injury caused by the savoury odour of steaks, and 'muts' to follow; of cheese-bubbling in tiny tins—the 'specialty' of the house; of floury potatoes and fragrant green peas; of cool salads, and cooler tankards of bitter beer; of extra-creaming stout and 'goes' of Cork and 'rack,' by which is meant gin; and, in the winter-time, of Irish stew and rump-steak pudding, glorious and grateful to every ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... only the first of these aspects; they neglect or overlook the second. Nevertheless, according to the profoundest philosophers of modern times, La Rochefoucault, Helvetius, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Jacotot, intelligence differs in individuals only QUALITATIVELY, each having thereby his own specialty or genius; in its essence,—namely, judgment,—it is QUANTITATIVELY equal in all. Hence it follows that, a little sooner or a little later, according as circumstances shall be more or less favorable, general progress must lead all ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... school New England education can scarcely fit a man for intercourse with polished Italians. The granite hills of New Hampshire have never been famous for producing men of high breeding. That is not their specialty." ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... will take your father into his own home," he said. "He has two patients suffering from mental troubles and makes a specialty of such things. ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... certain articles of which various districts make a specialty, and which Athens is constantly importing: Boetia sends chariots; Thessaly, easy chairs; Chios and Miletos, bedding; and Miletos, especially, very fine woolens. Greece in general looks to Syria and Arabia for the much-esteemed spices and ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... and Jermain did not talk much on these occasions. They listened with edification to the racy remarks of their hostess, voicing that theoretical "broadness" of opinion as to the conduct of life which, quite as much as the perfume which she always used, was a specialty of her provocative personality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, as she drew them into conversation, but their real intercourse was almost altogether silent. They eyed each other across the table, breathing quickly, and flushing or paling if their hands chanced to touch in the services ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... best of groceries in Quebec. We make a specialty of the choicest goods. Everything is fresh and appetizing. If you are among our customers you are aware of these facts. If not give us ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various

... here aren't talking about it, they're doing it. Grubby, earthy work. And it was to prepare for this sort of thing that I loafed through Leyden and Heidelberg! Yes, and loafed through, creditably, too; even if Oom Peter did bully me into making a specialty of botany. Botany! Dry as dust. After the University and after my wanderjahr, I thought it would be another easy task to come here, and 'learn the business.' Easy! As easy as the ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... on special occasions to report big funerals. I'm very good at that sort of thing. I seem to have a flair for funerals somehow. I've never done a show like this before, but if I can only persuade myself to believe that there's a corpse about, I'll do it better than anybody else. I make a specialty of quoting the more literary parts of the Burial ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... of the heroes of modern art. Envy and scandal have done their worst now. The libeller has said his say; the detectives who make a specialty of literary forgeries have proved their cases one and all; the judges of matter have spoken, and so have the critics of style; the distinguished author of Nana has taken us into his confidence on the subject; we have heard from the lamented Granier and others as ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... traffic contract with the S. L & E. to exclude us, and build a branch from Jack's Canyon, say, up into the Copah country." And then in loyal admiration: "That's what I call the sure word of prophecy—your specialty, Stuart. How many nights' sleep did you ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... was afraid there might be a complete break in the subject of our discourse. Casting about, I could think of nothing better than to call upon Wilson, the biologist. For though he was a specialist, he regarded everything as a branch of his specialty; and would, I knew, be as ready to discourse on society as on anything else. Although, therefore, I disliked a certain arrogance he was wont to display, I felt that, since he was to speak, this was the proper place to introduce ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... the introduction of more applied courses; this seems to be the tendency of the times. The economic geologist, fresh from vivid experiences in his special field, is often insistent that a new course be introduced to cover his particular specialty. Any attempt, however, to put into a college course a considerable fraction of the applied phases of geology would mean the crowding out of more essential basic studies. To yield wholly to such pressure would in fact soon develop an impossible situation; for, on the basis of time alone, it would ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... afraid that a lightsome disposition and a relish for humor are not so common in those whose benevolence takes an active turn as in people of sentiment who are always ready with their tears and abounding in passionate expressions of sympathy. Working philanthropy is a practical specialty, requiring not a mere impulse, but a talent, with its peculiar sagacity for finding its objects, a tact for selecting its agencies, an organizing and arranging faculty, a steady set of nerves, and a constitution such as Sallust describes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... Madame Desvarennes was still enthroned, was of a width worthy of the receipts that were taken every day. Business increased daily; the Desvarennes continued to be hard and systematic workers. The class of customers alone had changed; they were more numerous and richer. The house had a specialty for making small rolls for the restaurants. Michel had learned from the Viennese bakers how to make those golden balls which tempt the most rebellious appetite, and which, when in an artistically folded damask napkin, set ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... pulpit. I can conceive of a church which should be so undogmatic, so unpolemic, as to command the respect, engage the interest, and secure the co-operation of all who care less for the prevalence of their specialty than they do for the maintenance of public worship." There is one Boston pulpit at present conducted in this spirit, but it is very feebly sustained. There was another, and it was occupied with brilliant ability, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various

... as an example of a police detective of a very unusual type, but I have known several other men on the New York Police Force of real genius in their own particular lines of work. One of these is an Irishman who makes a specialty of get-rich-quick men, oil and mining stock operators, wire-tappers and their kin, and who knows the antecedents and history of most of them better than any other man in the country. He is ready to take the part of either a "sucker" or a fellow crook, as the exigencies ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... railroads. The steamship lines have long since cast him off. The banks dare not use him. He cannot keep accounts. Only the people, long-suffering and generous, remain as his resource. For this reason municipal government is his specialty; and while this patience of the people lasts, our cities will breed scandals as naturally as our swamps breed malaria. Already the business of the century recognizes the truth of all this. The bonding companies ask, before they sign a contract, whether the official ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... about 4500 lbs of French or flake spawn, and 4000 bushels, or 64,000 lbs of English or brick spawn, and that fully a half of this whole importation is handled by the seedsmen of New York city. In New York one firm alone, who make a specialty of supplying market gardeners, has in one year imported 1500 bushels of brick spawn. But the vicinity of New York is the great mushroom-growing center of the country, also the best market for mushrooms in the country. One gardener at Jamaica, L. I., bought 1000 lbs ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... cause of action, the validity of the claim upon which it was founded is not open to inquiry, whatever its genesis. Regardless of the nature of the right which gave rise to it, the judgment is an obligation to pay money in the nature of a debt upon a specialty. Recovery upon it can be resisted only on the grounds that the court which rendered it was without jurisdiction, * * * or that it has ceased to be obligatory because of payment or other discharge * * * or that it is a cause of action for which the State of the forum has not provided ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... His specialty was the art of Magic, so much so that he had actually written and published a little booklet on it, the front page of which bore his name with the title of Professor. I had never before come across a schoolboy whose name had appeared ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... Baptist Publishing Board, of Nashville, Tenn., under the auspices of the National Baptist Convention. Dr. Brawley's qualifications and experience well fit him for his present position, for he has made a specialty ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... Dikanka" appeared at the end of 1831, and had an immense success. The second volume, "Mirgorod," was equally successful, all the more so, as it introduced, together with the pure merriment which had characterized the earlier tales, and the realism which was his specialty, so to speak, a new element—pathos; "laughter piercing through a mist of tears." In this style "Old-fashioned Gentry"[20] and "How Ivan Ivanovitch Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovitch" are famous examples. Success always turned Gogol's head, and he immediately aspired to some ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... my specialty," said he, patting his side where the hilt of his sword should be. "My whinger, as you call it, is an auger: who the devil ever broached a pipe of Scots spirits with a penknife? But I see you are too much in the confidence ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... fully loaded?" the Master demanded. "Be sure they are! And don't forget the mercy-bullets, men. These Arabs are rather ingenious in their tortures. They make a specialty of crucifying unbelievers—upside down. That sort of thing won't do, for us not for fighting-men ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... up there one night. I was afraid somebody would see me, so I took along Joey's aunt, Matilda. We saw the young woman. She does a dance specialty—an alleged Hawaiian hula-hula. It's ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... Heartnuts are a Canadian specialty. Gellatly, of all varieties in the printed list, is reported as best in all departments. Of the twelve varieties written in by reporters as worthy of special mention, it is difficult to make a just appraisal. Okanda, O. K., and Crofter are reported ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... changed. Preachers had long been her specialty at the Poor Farm, and she knew exactly the care ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... always has a spread eagle above it. The specialty mark indicating to which department he belongs is just below in the angle formed by the chevrons. The chevrons indicate the class. Three chevrons, first class; two, second class, and so on. The chief ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... arresters so far mentioned depend on the discharge taking place through air. A given pressure will discharge further in a fairly good vacuum than in air. The National Electric Specialty Company mounts three conductors in a vacuum of the incandescent lamp type, Fig. 212. A greater separation and less likelihood of short-circuiting can be provided in this way. Either carbon or metal plates are adapted for use in such ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... 'done to death,' and the consequence is, that a good book describing it, like this of Taylor's, has a peculiar charm of freshness and of novelty. In it, as in every volume of his travels, Bayard Taylor gives us the impression that the country in question is his specialty and favorite, the result being a thoroughly genial account of all he saw. Readers not familiar with this series may be pleased to know that as regards typography, illustration, and binding, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... him exceedingly, musical phrases being his specialty. "You shall," he said. "I'll set it ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... ability on the part of the executive officers, as well as the highest skill of the workers, and each man should have the satisfaction of knowing that no one on the face of the globe can excel him at his specialty, and furthermore that his energies are expended in the best way to ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness

... clever inventor, as you now know, and having this unusual device for cutting stones by machine, he called on father's law firm to secure a patent on it for him. Latimer Brothers make a specialty ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... the road, as usual, being lined with beggars who importunately followed the carriage; while, no sooner had they reached the village itself than they were besieged by at least a dozen women selling the straw baskets which are the specialty of Fiesole. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... my specialty, Mr. Wilson," she said brightly. "That is, I don't love it as I do other studies; but I assure you I shall be ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... Bath house (where the hot waters are made available to colored folk) with the Alice Eve Hospital (45 beds, 5 nurses, 2 resident physicians—negro doctors thruout the town cooperating—surgical work a specialty) stood out in quiet dignity. For the rest, buildings were an indiscriminate hodge-podge of homes, apartment houses, shacks, and chain groceries. At the corner where "the street turns white" the ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... Shorthand, Typewriting, English, Penmanship, Bookkeeping, Business, Telegraphy, Plumbing. Best teachers. Thorough individual instruction. Rates lower than any other school. Instruction also by mail in any desired study. Steam engineering a specialty. Call or address, INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... indifferent, went on trying to enlighten and move him. But he realised that this man's mind, so far-reaching and penetrating in the field in which it had worked for forty years, closed up as soon as one sought to divert it from its specialty. It was neither an inquisitive nor a supple mind. All trace of life faded from the Cardinal's eyes, and his entire countenance assumed an expression of mournful imbecility. "I know nothing, nothing," he repeated, "and I never recommend anybody." However, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... broker; and accidents were his specialty. As soon as one took place, he was notified by some friends of his at police headquarters. At once he started in quest of the victim, overtook her at home or at the hospital, and offered his services. For a moderate commission he undertook, if needs be, to recover damages. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... a specialty with me. But I didn't come alongside any of it, since I set out to make here 'cross country from Moosemin on the advice of the only bigger fool than myself I've ever met, until I ran into him. Say, Charlie, I s'pose ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... I owe the information that Albrecht, an attache to the Saxon legation (a post which gave him a good standing in society) and at the same time a wine-merchant (with offices in the Place Vendome—his specialty being "vins de Bordeaux"), was one of Chopin's "fanatic friends." In the letters there are allusions to two Albrechts, father and son; the foregoing information refers to the son, who, I think, is the T. Albrecht to whom the Premier Scherzo, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... on a bird's tail, it would be because it could not fly and there would be no difficulty in catching it. If the bird had wings and did not want to be caught, it would not let one put salt on its tail, because the specialty of a bird is to fly. In precisely the same way the specialty of government is not to obey, but to enforce obedience. And a government is only a government so long as it can make itself obeyed, and therefore it always strives for that and will never ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... the far-seeing politician, his father, had bequeathed to his house—the Ommiade. The fourth of this dynasty, 'Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, "the Father of Flies," and his successor, Al-Walid, were happy in being served thoroughly and unscrupulously by Al-Hajjaj, the ablest of Lieutenants. whose specialty it was to take in hand a revolted province, such as Al-Hijaz, Al-Irak, or Khorasan, and to slaughter it into submission; besides deaths in battle he is computed to have slain 120,000 men. He was an unflinching preacher of the Divine ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... to study law when I get through with this school, and I'm going to make the law of divorce a specialty. If I can't do I may undo; I'm going to be a wolf, and whenever I see a man aiming a gun at another man, I'm not going to catch the hammers. Why, yesterday my heart was tender because it thought to please her. Discretion! I've got ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... council-chamber and the Vandyck room are the most attractive, all of them for the historical portraits they contain, and the first, besides, for its merit as an example of a Gothic interior and its associations with the order of the Garter, the knights of which society are installed in it. The specialty of the Waterloo room is the series of portraits of the leaders, civil and military, English and continental, of the last and successful league against Napoleon. They are nearly all by Lawrence, and of course admirable in their delineation of character. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... is seldom expert in more than one style of work. Each makes a specialty of some branch, portraiture, lettering, scroll-work, etc. For this reason several engravers are usually employed on each die for a postage stamp. And in this inability of one individual to do all styles of work equally well lies one of ...
— What Philately Teaches • John N. Luff

... have either one or both of these things. A man may live a false life and deceive his most intimate friends in the matter of anatomical analogies or homologies, but he cannot conceal it from the eagle eye of the medical student. The ambitious medical student makes a specialty of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... this truth which more than any other has been the distinctive character of all my own past work. And in closing a series of art-studies, prolonged during so many years, it may be perhaps permitted me to point out this specialty,—the rather that it has been, of all their characters, the one most denied. I constantly see that the same thing takes place in the estimation formed by the modern public of the work of almost any true person, living or dead. It is not needful to state ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... home that he had realized that David was growing old. Even then he might have felt that, by the time David was compelled to relinquish his hold on his practice, he himself would be sufficiently established in his specialty to take over the support of the household. But here there was interposed a new element, one he had not counted on. David was fiercely jealous of his practice; the thought that it might pass into new and alien hands was bitter to him. To hand it down to his adopted son was one thing; to ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... remarkable for steadiness of judgment and for sound business sense. Whatever he did was so well done that he was naturally followed as a model by those who were seeking a high standard. Others may have excelled in extraordinary boldness or in some remarkable specialty, but in all that rounds out the perfect engineer, whether natural characteristics, professional training, or the well digested results of long and valuable experience, we look in vain for his superior, and those who ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... only the weapons of their specialty and have their loads lightened. The ordinary riflemen carry the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker

... manufactures cannot fit personal wants as perfectly as special things can do. It must be remembered, also, that the interchange of news between bodies of women interested in industrial art will be a very potent factor in the creation of a market for any domestic specialty. In fact, it is in response to a demand that these articles upon home-weavings have been prepared, and a demand for technical instruction presupposes an interest in ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler

... each other in the eyes with subtle interchange of intelligence, such as belongs to their sex in virtue of its specialty. Talk without words is half their conversation, just as it is all the conversation of the lower animals. Only the dull senses of men are dead to it as to the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... willingness to do all in my power to aid him, and he left me. The next morning's papers contained the advertisement and I had several calls in answer to it. These would have caused me much inconvenience had I not explained the whole ruse in confidence to a medical friend who made a specialty of the treatment of cancers, and persuaded him to come to my office during the hours specified in the advertisement. When a patient would call I would satisfy myself that it was neither the person we ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... commission. Six years of training made them proficient in the techniques of exploration, fighting, rocketeering, and both navigation and astrogation. In addition, each became a full-fledged specialist in one field of science. Rip's specialty was astrophysics. ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... seek, by preference, the large cities where periodicals and publishing houses offer some hope of support in a literary career. Even in the older and better equipped universities the faculty is usually a corps of working scholars, each man intent upon his specialty and rather inclined to undervalue merely "literary" performance. In many cases the fastidious and hypercritical turn of mind which besets the scholar, the timid conservatism which naturally characterizes ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... the United States can a young man prepare himself thoroughly to become a teacher of the ancient classics. A simple college course is not enough. The Germans require that their teachers of Latin and Greek should pursue the classics as a specialty for three years at a University after having completed the gymnasium which, as a classical school, would be universally admitted to rank with our colleges.... If an American (or a Canadian) wishes to pursue ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... small-pox. She described the condition of these poor wretches, gave details of their disorder; and while they were thus stopped upon the road by the whim of this Prussian, many French soldiers might die whom perhaps they could have saved. That was her specialty—nursing soldiers. She had been in the Crimea, in Italy, in Austria; and relating her campaigns, she suddenly revealed herself as one of those Sisters of the fife and drum who seem made for following the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... Emerson, Roosevelt, Scott, Cooper, Marden and Hubbard one would have quite a representative collection for a start. It would be easy to expand the list into many more. Of course, those collecting a small library who have a specialty, will want books dealing with the subjects in which they are interested. However, every practical library includes books of inspirational character, and if one makes a study of the books written by great authors it will be found that all of them profited ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (her specialty), received due plaudits, and withdrew. John attacked the dinner; Phyllis's fork toyed with her greens. The all-important subject was not mentioned until Genevieve had cleared the table. Phyllis passed John a ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens

... will perhaps remember that, as I have already mentioned, the simple and childlike old Abbe Birotteau, victim of the infernal machinations of the Abbe Troubert and Mademoiselle Gamard, had his quarters in the house of that lady (she had a specialty of letting lodgings to priests), which stood on the north side of the cathedral, so close under its walls that the supporting pillar of one of the great flying buttresses was planted in the spinster's garden. If you wander round behind the church in ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... worked was young and small—Benson & Honaton. They made a specialty of circularization in connection with the bond issues in which they were interested, and Wayne had charge of their "literature," as they described it. He often felt, after he had finished a report, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... and lost in them. He only is a well-made man who has a good determination. And the end of culture is, not to destroy this,—God forbid!—but to train away all impediment and mixture, and leave nothing but pure power. Our student must have a style and determination, and be a master in his own specialty. But, having this, he must put it behind him. He must have a catholicity, a power to see with a free and disengaged look every object. Yet is this private interest and self so overcharged, that, if a man ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... of a technical sort. That is, really successful salesmanship. The other kind consisted of selling goods over a counter for ten dollars per—with an excellent chance of continuing in that unenviable situation until old age overtook him. This was an age of specialists—and he had no specialty. Moreover, every avenue that he investigated seemed to be jammed full of young men clamoring for a chance. The skilled trades had their unions, their fixed hours of labor, fixed rates of pay. The big men, the industrial managers, the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... years—and then they "showed their keeping." If I should wish to find a narrow-minded, uncharitable, bigoted soul, in the smallest possible space of time, I would look among those who have made temperance the specialty of their lives—not because temperance is bad, but because one idea is bad; and the men afflicted by this particular idea are numerous and notorious. They have no faith in any man who does not believe exactly as they do. They accuse ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... the short-range target is his specialty," announced Walt, whose score was also a modest one. "Remember, he has been doing a lot of practicing at the Haven Point ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... ain't mistook. I've hunted 'coons an' 'possums at night too much to be mistook about shadders. I reckon, if I may say so, shadders is my specialty, me bein' somethin' o' a night owl. As shore as I'm standin' here, leftenant, and as shore as you're settin' there on your hoss, a mounted man come to the edge of that wood an' stayed thar a while, watchin' ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler

... trade; it's pulled many a sucker. He's got a mighty convincing way about him, believe me! He can tell the damnedest bunch of lies, looking you straight in the eyes all the time, till you'd swear everything he said was gospel. But his big specialty is egging somebody else on to do the dirty work, and when the dangerous part is over, he steps in and hogs most of the profits. He's organized fake mining companies and stock companies. Last year he got up a big cattle-raising combine, persuaded three or four men over in the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... nothing to buy suspenders with, for his shirt always hung out between his waistcoat and trousers—was persuaded that an indemnity of two million francs would suffice to obtain from the Pope the transfer of Rome to the Italians; and another Metternich on a small scale assumed for his specialty the business of offering a serious affront to England and threatening her, if she did not listen to his advice, with a loss in a short time of her Indian Empire ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... something worse—you have the grip," Doc Leiser whispered gently. "You see I tried hard to mention some symptom which you didn't have, but you had them all, and the grip is the only disease in the world which makes a specialty of having every symptom known to ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... of a hen's egg, to which add a small shalot already chopped; hash up together the roe and the tunny, so as to mix them well, and throw the whole into a saucepan, with a sufficient quantity of very good butter: whip it up until the butter is melted! This constitutes the specialty of the omelet. Take a second piece of butter, a discretion, mix it with parsley and herbs, place it in a long-shaped dish destined to receive the omelet; squeeze the juice of a lemon over it, and place it on hot ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... business partners, Solomon Isaacs and David Levy; and while these gentlemen are compelled by nations to "move on," they have the great gift of loading up their pack with the rarest jewels—silver, gold and diamonds being their great specialty—with ready made clothing, pawnshops and banks as ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... the summer is ended. But that isn't helping us out any, now. Phil's patrol is down there with Tod right this minute, and I bet you they know a thing or two about mechanics. That seems to be their specialty—knowing something about most everything. I'm mighty sure that if you tell us what to do, we can do it. We may not know a lot about the why of it, but ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... from all the great confectioners of the world, boxes of champagne, fine wines of every vintage, fruits, game, ornaments and utensils, clothes, smoking materials, inkstands, paperweights. Every territory sent its specialty. The painter sent his picture, the sculptor his statuette, the dear old lady a comforter or socks, the shepherd in his hut carved a pipe for his sake. All the manufacturers of the world who were hostile to Germany shipped their products, Havana its cigars, Portugal its port wine. I have ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... river. Coyotes and wolves killed my poultry, however, and sores occasioned by ranch work broke out on my hands, so I sold the chicken ranch and moved to Arizona City, opening a restaurant on the main street. In this cafe I made a specialty of pickled feet—not pig's feet, but bull's feet, for which delicacy I claim the original creation. It was some dish, too! ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady

... our work to run up against the terrible problem of prostitution, and what a prostitution at that—the Russian! Lichonin, I, Borya Sobashnikov and Pavlov as jurists, Petrovsky and Tolpygin as medicos. True, Veltman has a distinct specialty—mathematics. But then, he will be a pedagogue, a guide of youth, and, deuce take it, even a father! And if you are going to scare with a bugaboo, it is best to look upon it one's self first. And finally, you yourself, Gavrila Petrovich—expert of dead languages ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... (the whole at the most moderate figure) to a Jew receiver. The bandit sells the traveller an article of prime necessity: that traveller's life. And as for the old soldier, who stands for central mark to my capricious figures of eight, he dealt in a specialty; for he was the only beggar in the world who ever gave me pleasure for my money. He had learned a school of manners in the barracks and had the sense to cling to it, accosting strangers with a regimental freedom, thanking patrons with a merely regimental difference, sparing you at once the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... predilection for natural history by getting me books on conchology and taking me to museums to study the specimens and make pencil drawings of them. In these avocations I was also companioned by Frank Channing, whose specialty was ornithology, and who was making a series of colored portraits of the birds in the museum, very ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... thousand hams those intended for the Star brand are chosen; the process of curing is a specialty of Armour and Company, and careful smoking over green hickory logs gives the ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various

... you Imperfectly are sensible of all The miseries they actually feel. Hence, Providence has prudently raised up Clear-sighted men like me to diagnose Their cases and inform them where they're hurt. The wounds of honest workingmen I've made A specialty, ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... dinner—the Olivers, Mr. Padget, the rector of Arden, who was to assist cheery Matthew Oliver in tying the fatal knot, and Mr. and Miss Granger—a pleasant little party of seven, for whom Mr. Lovel's cook had prepared quite a model dinner. She had acquired a specialty for about half-a-dozen dishes which her master affected, and in the preparation of these could take her stand against the pampered matron who ruled Mr. Granger's kitchen at a stipend of seventy guineas a year, and whose subordinate and assistant had serious thoughts of launching ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... Raggles's specialty, had he been driven to ink and paper, would have been sonnets to the cities. He studied cities as women study their reflections in mirrors; as children study the glue and sawdust of a dislocated doll; as the men who write about wild animals ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... publishers issue this work for the use of teachers and scholars, as well as for its fitness as a companion to all Histories of the United States, with confidence that it will prove a valuable specialty ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various

... Borgia was getting a trifle impatient about the building of his forts. Two years had passed when Cesare and his father met with an accident not uncommon in those times. The precious pair had indulged in their Borgian specialty for the benefit of a certain cardinal, whom they did not warmly admire, though the plot seems to have been chiefly the work of Cesare. By mistake they drank the poisoned wine prepared for the cardinal, and the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... peculiarity. It is for the children, and nobody else; for the children, little and great. This is children's bread; this is a mess for Benjamin; this is to be eaten in the holy place. Children use to make much of that which, by way of specialty, is by their relations bestowed on them-"And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to thee" (I Kings 21:3). No, truly will I not. Why so? Because it was my father's gift, not in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... then served with plenty of olive-oil and pimento. The people who have no home of their own, or at least no place to cook, can buy their food already prepared from the mchannes lapacotte, who seem to make a specialty of macadam (codfish stewed with rice) and the other two dishes already referred to. But in every colored family there are occasional feasts of lamori-au-laitt, codfish stewed with milk and potatoes; lamori- au-grattin, codfish boned, pounded with toast crumbs, and boiled ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... Time there was a Specialty Team doing Seventeen Minutes. The Props used in the Act included a Hatchet, a Brick, a Seltzer Bottle, two inflated Bladders and a Slap-Stick. The Name of the Team was ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... effect on the British prisoners was bad, but little by little events revealed to them that the Continental Times, which makes a specialty of attacks on the ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... nasal field, that a new smell must invariably be described in terms of other smells, and by reason of a curious, inherited prudery this province has been left severely alone by English writers. I know of but one man, M. Sentant, the governor of Battambang, Cambodia, who frankly makes a specialty of odors. [Footnote: See Journal des Debats, '09, "Le nez ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... an intelligent comparison, you have to take into consideration the specialty of the painter. You could hardly compare Alma Tadema, for instance, with Sir John Millais, or Sir Frederic Leighton with Hubert Herkomer, or any of them with some of your own painters. Each has his specialty, and each stands at ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... of space in papers making base ball a specialty have been occupied with long arrays of figures giving the averages of the players in the batting and fielding departments of the game. To such an extent has this feature of the annual statistics of the game been carried that the records based upon these ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... the moon shall endure. Oh, the barnacles that cling to your keel in such waters! The inevitable result is, that they win your intense rancor. You would feel a genial kindliness towards them, if they would be satisfied with that; but they lay out to be your specialty. They infer your innocent little inch to be the standard-bearer of twenty ells, and goad you to frenzy. I mean you, you desperate little horror, who nearly dethroned my reason six years ago! I always meant to have my revenge, and here I impale you before the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... and especially when it is warm and damp, the evening meal in the country is attended with difficulty because of the quantity of insects, especially beetles, which are attracted by the lamp, and they appear to make a specialty of falling into any dish which may be at hand. When camping out the difficulty is intensified, and the only thing to be done is to put the lamp at a distance and to dine in comparative darkness. Such a variety of insects come that an entomologist ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... soon on a trolley car and, a little later, they had reached the town, heading for a drug store where ice cream sodas were a specialty. ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... race, character. He avoids grooves, because New York will not tolerate grooviness. He knows that he must be able, on demand, to bowl anywhere over the field of human tastes and sympathies. Professionally he may be a specialist, but in New York his specialty must be only the axis around which are grouped encyclopaedic learning, faultless skill, and catholic intuitions. Nobody will waste a Saturday afternoon riding on his hobby-horse. He must be a broad-natured person, or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various



Words linked to "Specialty" :   green thumb, specialism, foible, individuation, green fingers, specialisation, specialty store, strong suit, plus, calling, forte, weak point, specialness, strength, speciality, strong point, individuality, asset



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