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Base   /beɪs/   Listen
Base

noun
1.
Installation from which a military force initiates operations.  Synonym: base of operations.
2.
Lowest support of a structure.  Synonyms: foot, foundation, fundament, groundwork, substructure, understructure.  "He stood at the foot of the tower"
3.
A place that the runner must touch before scoring.  Synonym: bag.
4.
The bottom or lowest part.
5.
(anatomy) the part of an organ nearest its point of attachment.
6.
A lower limit.  Synonym: floor.
7.
The fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained.  Synonyms: basis, cornerstone, foundation, fundament, groundwork.
8.
A support or foundation.  Synonyms: pedestal, stand.
9.
A phosphoric ester of a nucleoside; the basic structural unit of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA).  Synonym: nucleotide.
10.
Any of various water-soluble compounds capable of turning litmus blue and reacting with an acid to form a salt and water.  Synonym: alkali.
11.
The bottom side of a geometric figure from which the altitude can be constructed.
12.
The most important or necessary part of something.  Synonym: basis.
13.
(numeration system) the positive integer that is equivalent to one in the next higher counting place.  Synonym: radix.
14.
The place where you are stationed and from which missions start and end.  Synonym: home.
15.
A terrorist network intensely opposed to the United States that dispenses money and logistical support and training to a wide variety of radical Islamic terrorist groups; has cells in more than 50 countries.  Synonyms: al-Qa'ida, al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, Qaeda.
16.
(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed.  Synonyms: radical, root, root word, stem, theme.
17.
The stock of basic facilities and capital equipment needed for the functioning of a country or area.  Synonym: infrastructure.
18.
The principal ingredient of a mixture.  "He told the painter that he wanted a yellow base with just a hint of green" , "Everything she cooked seemed to have rice as the base"
19.
A flat bottom on which something is intended to sit.
20.
(electronics) the part of a transistor that separates the emitter from the collector.



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"Base" Quotes from Famous Books



... thinking of early days, of the time when this miscreant, whose light had just been put out so instantaneously, had played with him day in and day out. They had attended their first school together, had played marbles and prisoners' base a hundred times against each other. He could remember how they used to get up early in the morning to go fishing with each other. And later, when each began, unconsciously, to choose the path he would ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... had seen the cause to which he had attached himself utterly ruined by the base irresolution of a weak monarch, who had lost his crown by his tyranny, and who had failed to regain it by his courage. In the next place, for his devotion to that cause, he was a banished and an outlawed man, with his life ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... observation-post, a rocky eminence on open ground, where, with Tommy at my side, I took my seat with a telescope, I was astonished to see or rather to hear a great number of the natives walking past the base of the mound towards the bush. Then I remembered that some one, Marama, I think, had informed me that there was to be a great sacrifice to Oro at dawn on that day. After this I thought no more of the ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... a commanding hill projecting far into the Hudson which washes three-fourths of its base. The remaining fourth was in a great measure covered by a deep marsh, commencing near the river on the upper side and continuing into it below. Over this marsh there was only one crossing place, but at its junction with the river was a sandy beach passable at ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... I do not base my belief on any preference from Handel's contemporaries. We may, as we are constantly being told, be degenerates; but there was no special grace whence to degenerate in our perruked forefathers. Moreover, I believe that any ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... without clothes, without victuals or drink, or even water, or with those which were base and unwholesome; without fire, a number of them sick, first with a contagious and nauseous distemper; these, with others, crowded by hundreds into close confinement, at the most unwholesome season of the year, and continued there for four months without ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... So poor Romola tells her son, as a warning, and adds: "If you make it the rule of your life to escape from what is disagreeable, calamity may come just the same, and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... Avenue des Champs Elysees, and thence to the immense pavilion on the grounds of General Shian. Only one toast, 'Reform, and the right to assemble,' was announced to be drunk, and then a commissary of police could enter a formal protest against the whole proceeding on the spot, on which to base a legal prosecution, and the ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... Times says I'm mad, And each rascally Rad Abuses my tergiversation; Though those humbugs, the Whigs, Swear that my "thimble-rigs" Were the cause of all their vacill-ation; The whole story's a base fabri-cation To damage my great reputa-tion; So now to be brief, Only make me Lord Chief, And I'll serve ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... bow to any god but the God of Israel! In Him I trust. If we perish by the hand of our enemies, so let it be! Better death than a base betrayal of our sacred trust. But is not that God who saved us once from death able to deliver us again? Is his arm shortened, that he cannot save? Then let them heat the fiery furnace! That God in whom we trust will yet deliver ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones

... north-west is situated the Hood Peninsula in the Central District of British New Guinea. It is inhabited by the Bulaa, Babaka, Kamali, and Kalo tribes, which all speak dialects of one language.[331] The village or town of Kalo, built at the base of the peninsula, close to the mouth of the Vanigela or Kemp Welch River, is said to be the wealthiest village in British New Guinea. It includes some magnificent native houses, all built over the water on ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... ravine on the right, when I halted to have a pull at my flask. I had my eye fixed at the time upon the projecting cliff I have mentioned, and noticed nothing unusual about it. I then put up my flask and took a step or two forward, when in a moment there burst, apparently from the base of the rock, about eight feet from the ground and a hundred yards from me, a strange, lurid glare, flickering and oscillating, gradually dying away and then reappearing again. No, no; I've seen many a glow-worm and firefly—nothing ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... is adjusted by means of the windage screw at the right front end of the base of the sight. Each graduation on the wind-gauge scale is called a "point." For convenience in adjusting the line of each third point on the scale is longer than the others. If you turn the windage screw so that the movable base moves to the right, you are taking right windage, which will ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... and as the youthful colleague of Henry A. Wise and John R. Thompson, he stood at the base of Crawford's statue of Washington, in the Capitol Square, Richmond, Virginia, the 22d of February, 1858. That same year these recited poems, together with ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope

... "Eddy," and the goat, "Corny," for the next five or six months. This I made into a neat stack close to the house, and thatched thickly with brakes, beside which I covered it with tarpaulin, and girded it about with old chain-cable to prevent its being blown away: also I guarded the base with a surrounding of wire-netting to preserve it from ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... that I can let thee go, Lady, without one thought, one base desire To tarnish that clear vision I gained by fire, One stain in me I would not have thee know. That is great might indeed that moves me so To look upon thy Form, and yet aspire To look not there, rather than I ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... Lyre, And Solitary Lute, Melting Airs, soft Joys inspire, Airs for drooping Hope to hear. And again, Now, let the sprightly Violin A louder Strain begin: And now, Let the deep mouth'd Organ blow, Swell it high and Sink it low. Hark! how the Treble and the Base In wanton Fuges each other chase, And swift Divisions run their Airy Race. Thro' all the travers'd Scale they fly, In winding Labyrinths of Harmony, By turns They rise and fall, by Turns we live ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill

... promontory, and show them that before fighting for Sicily they must first fight for their passage across the Ionian Sea, we should strike dismay into their army, and set them on thinking that we have a base for our defensive—for Tarentum is ready to receive us—while they have a wide sea to cross with all their armament, which could with difficulty keep its order through so long a voyage, and would be easy for us to attack as it came on slowly and in small detachments. ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... Come down here and play," A Grasshopper said, As he lifted his head. "Oh, no! and oh, no! Daddy Grasshopper, go! Once you weren't so polite, But said, 'Out of my sight, You base, ugly fright!'" "Oh, no! and oh, no! I never said so," The Grasshopper cried: "I'd sooner have died Than been half so rude. You misunderstood." "Oh, no! I did not; 'Twas near to this spot: The offence, while I live, I cannot forgive." "I pray you explain When and where ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... stood up incandescent, with a vivid colour that seemed to come through them as well as from them. To right and left, mountains out of the direct path of that light gave a soft dead mauve, but these favoured peaks, bathed from base to summit in clear crimson effulgence, glowed like molten metal. It was not the reflected light of the sun, but of the flaming sky, for even as I looked, a swift change came over them. They passed through the tones of red to lightest pink, not fading but brightening, ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... up in part of the seditious and in part of laborers, who, not daring to mix in the revolt, content themselves with coveting the tax on grain."—Toulongeon, "Histoire de France depuis la Revolution," IV. 94. "Do not degrade a nation by ascribing base motives to it and a servile fear. Every one, on the contrary, felt himself infused by an exalted instinct for the public welfare."—Gouvion Saint-Cyr, "Memoires," I. 56: A young man would have blushed to remain at home when the independence of the nation was threatened. Each one quitted ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Nadan appeared in the presence said to him, "Look thou upon this writ and comprehend its contents." But when the youth read it he said to the Sovran, "O my lord the King, leave alone this folk for they point to impossibilities: what man can base a bower upon air between heaven and earth?" As soon as King Sankharib heard these words of Nadan, he cried out with a mighty outcry and a violent; then, stepping down from his throne, he sat upon ashes[FN54] and fell to beweeping and bewailing the loss of Haykar and crying, "Alas, for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... look seriously for the mate's reindeer. We looked in vain—not a living thing was to be seen in any direction. Yes—when we were close inshore we at last descried a large flock of geese waddling upward from the beach. We were base enough to let a conjecture escape us that these were the mate's reindeer—a suspicion which he at first rejected with contempt. Gradually, however, his confidence oozed away. But it is possible to do an injustice even to a mate. The first thing I saw when I sprang ashore was old reindeer ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... from a rock. It is suggestive and prospective, and, by being detached itself, will relieve others and still others. It makes a breach in the blank wall, and the whole is now pregnable. New possibilities are opened, a new outlook into the universe. Nothing, so to speak, has become something; one base metal has been transmuted into gold, and so given us a purchase on every other. When one thought is spoken, all others become speakable. After one atom was created, the universe would grow of its own accord. The difficulty in writing is to utter the first thought, to break the heavy ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... meeting. He wallowed in obvious pathos, and his hearers, often unwillingly, wallowed with him. I have never listened to any orator at once so offensive and so horribly effective. There was no appeal too base for him, and none too august: by some subtle alchemy he blended the arts of the prophet and the fishwife. He had discovered a new kind of language. Instead of "the hungry millions," or "the toilers," or any of the numerous synonyms for our masters, he invented the phrase, ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... those who value his invigorating influence on Italian life more highly than his military triumphs. At this epoch he was still the champion of the best principles of the Revolution; he had overthrown Austrian domination in the peninsula, and had shaken to their base domestic tyrannies worse than that of the Hapsburgs. His triumphs were as yet untarnished. If we except the plundering of the liberated and conquered lands, an act for which the Directory was primarily responsible, nothing ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... quarters; through the forests we shall cut a road if there is none; we shall build bridges across the rivers, and run over the tops of the mountains; if the field-pieces cannot be hauled over them, we shall take them around the base. The most important thing is, that we advance, and I am quite able to consider that on my map here.—Now, then! here is Paris. Put your finger on Paris, Gneisenau." The general obeyed, and pressed the tip ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... weeks, except that now and then they swam or ferried themselves on logs over very cold and rapid rivers. Still, thanks to the surveyor's professional skill, they were quartering the country systematically, and, though now and then they had to leave the horse at a base camp under Grenfell's charge, they had to grapple ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... by no potent antidote withstood. Tyrants, like lep'rous kings, for public weal Should be immured, lest the contagion steal Over the whole. The elect of the Jessean line To this firm law their sceptre did resign; And shall this base tyrannic brood invade Eternal laws, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... or turbinate, about a cm. tall and broad, growing in a dense cluster from a common, mycelial carbonous base. The summit is truncate, and marked with a raised central disc, which is thin and in old plants breaks irregularly. A section of a young plant (Figs. 831 x6) shows the lower part composed of rather soft, carbonous tissue, the upper filled with a light brown powder, composed ...
— Synopsis of Some Genera of the Large Pyrenomycetes - Camilla, Thamnomyces, Engleromyces • C. G. Lloyd

... nearest town of that province was situated, was to expose themselves to many fatigues. Doubtless separation might have its inconveniences, but far less than marching blindly into the midst of a forest which appeared to stretch as far as the base of ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... valley on the southern base of Sinai, which was shut out from the view of Dr. Robinson in his ascent by a long ridge of rocks, and which has been found, by measurement of Krafft and Strauss, and others, to be even greater than the valley of er-Rahah on the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... is the last town of the province of Bretagne, on the Loire, and thenceforwards we had entered Anjou. It is a town of above three hundred houses, built round the base of a sandy hillock, the church being on the hill. The houses are intermingled with trees, and the country very prettily planted. It is not to be expected that the habitations in such a town could be any thing better than cottages; but they were tolerably clean, ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... the method which consists in taking as the base of all strategical and tactical instruction the study of history completed by the study of military history—that is to say, field operations, orders given, actions, results, and criticisms to be made and the instructions ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... women in knickerbockers and puttees, all lighting cigarettes and talking about repairs and gears and a box of bandages. The mornings always start happily enough. The guns are nearer to-day or more distant, the battle sways backwards and forwards, and there is no such thing as a real "base" for a hospital. We must just stay as long as we can and fly ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan

... in the Queen's antechamber by the captain of the Guards then in waiting, who carried me into an apartment where the officers of the kitchen brought me dinner, of which I ate heartily, to the mortification of the base courtiers, though I did not take it kindly to see my pockets turned inside out as if I had been a cutpurse. This ceremony, which is not common, was performed by the captain; but he found nothing except a letter from the King of England, desiring me to try if the Court of Rome would assist him with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... that in this State the influence of woman in politics has been distinctly elevating. In the primary, in the convention and at the polls her very presence inspires respect for law and order. Few men are so base that they will not be gentlemen in the presence of ladies. Experience has shown that women have voted their intelligent convictions. They understand the questions at issue and they vote conscientiously and fearlessly. While we do not claim to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... curse be upon thee for an idiot!" said the knight, who had picked up the glove, and was looking at it—"thou shouldst be sent back to school, and flogged till the craven's blood was switched out of thee—What dost thou look at but a glove, thou base poltroon, and a very dirty glove, too? Stay, here is writing—Joseph Tomkins? Why, that is the roundheaded fellow—I wish he hath not come to some mischief, for this is not dirt on the cheveron, but blood. Bevis ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... caressing with the secretaries whom he feared, holding his remorse at bay with sophistry, paltering with his conscience, inexhaustible in adroitness, in tricks, in resources; mastering his imagination by his intelligence; grotesque and sublime; in a word, one of those men who are "square at the base," as they were described by Napoleon, himself their chief, in his mathematically ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... of the ether cannot be considered from the same standpoint as that for matter, either ideally or really. Not ideally, because we are utterly without any mechanical conceptions of the substance upon which one can base either reason or analogy; and not really, because we have no experimental evidence as to its nature or mode of operation. If it be continuous, there are no interspaces, and if it be illimitable there is no unfilled ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear

... served infamously, often, in modern and semi-modern times. I have been compelled by base men to create fraudulent history, and to perpetrate all sorts of humbugs. I wrote those crazy Junius letters, I moped in a French dungeon for fifteen years, and wore a ridiculous Iron Mask; I poked around ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... that point," answered Crochard slowly. "That little road is used but seldom, for a better one now leads around the base of the hill; and few people ever have occasion to enter the grove. It was, of course, for this very reason that the hut was chosen for this installation. I have found no one who saw any man at work there. On the other hand, a friend of mine, who has a cabaret on the main road just ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... You've cut loose from your base and burned your bridges behind you. I would have brought my congratulations sooner, but I've had a long jury case on hand. You did it, my boy, and you did it like a gentleman. You might have killed him if you ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... a too tufted and too crowded room directly over the frontal half of the store, the window overlooking the remote sea of city was turning taupe, the dusk of early spring, which is faintly tinged with violet, invading. Beside the stove, a base-burner with faint fire showing through its mica, the identity of her figure merged with the fat upholstery of the chair, except where the faint pink through the mica lighted up old flesh, Mrs. Miriam Horowitz, full of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... after charge, in the great Rebellion, now rides at the head of a single regiment. From the northwest, down the Yellowstone, with but a handful of tried soldiery, comes Gibbon; he who led a corps at Gettysburg and Appomattox. From the south, feeling his way along the eastern base of the Big Horn, with less than two thousand troopers and footmen, marches the "Gray Fox," the general under whom our friends of the —th so long and so successfully battled with the Apaches of Arizona. He has met his match ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... Western Hills where are the things you see in the pictures, including the stone boat, the base of which is really marble and as fine as the pictures. But all the rest of it is just theatrical fake, more or less peeling off at that. However, it is as wonderful as it is cracked up to be, and in some ways more systematic than Versailles, which is what you ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... the party. Slowly she and Mr. St. Leger sauntered on, from the shadow of one great tree to another; Dolly thinking what she should do. When they were gotten out of sight and out of earshot, she too stopped, and sat down on a shady bank which the roots of an immense oak had thrown up around its base. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... an appointment would prevent her accompanying him. The problem had appeared insoluble. Desperately he had put off the solution till the crisis should come. But he had felt unhappy, shrinking from the possibility of base action. The thought of Elodie had often paralysed his energy in seeking work. Now, however, he could face the world with a clear conscience. He had cut himself adrift from Lady Auriol and her world. Fate linked him for ever to Elodie. All that remained ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at last?'—Why—" in a tone of surprise, ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... in the minds of the two women. Mrs. Prescott had truly said that knowledge of it in Richmond was vague. Gettysburg, it was told, was a great victory, the fruits of which the Army of Northern Virginia, being so far from its base, was unable to reap; moreover, the Army of the West beyond a doubt had won a great triumph at Chickamauga, a battle almost as bloody as Gettysburg, and now the Southern forces were merely taking a momentary rest, gaining fresh vigour for victories greater than any that ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... be a traitor knave? Wha can fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Let him ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... they taken one by one, and deprived each of the right hand and the testicles beneath. All this was done within the twelfth-night. And that was all in perfect justice, because that they had undone all the land with the great quantity of base coin that they all bought. In this same year sent the Pope of Rome to this land a cardinal, named John of Crema. He came first to the king in Normandy, and the king received him with much worship. He betook himself then to the Archbishop William of Canterbury; and he ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... long run gain by the possession of legislative independence. It is not, however, the doubt as to the reality of the blessing to be conferred on Ireland, but the certainty as to the injury to be done to England, which causes their opposition to Home Rule. To base this opposition upon the probable inconsistency between a Home Rule policy and the true interests of Ireland, involves the assumption that Englishmen are better judges of what makes for the true interest of Ireland than are the majority ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... great crises, Woman needs the highest reason to restrain her; but her besetting sin is that of littleness. Just because nature and society unite to call on her for such fineness and finish, she can be so petty, so fretful, so vain, envious and base! O, women, see your danger! See how much you need a great object in all your little actions. You cannot be fair, nor can your homes be fair, unless you are holy and noble. Will you sweep and garnish the house, only that ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... apprehended. (It has since reached 50 per cent. discount.) It is modelled on our American paper money, and is actually printed in New York. Let us hope that Japan may soon be able to follow the Republic farther by making it convertible—as good as gold. Notwithstanding its wide "base"—in short, our greenbackers' "base"—it doesn't seem to work here any better than ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... the present disruption of Parties, the difficulty of obtaining any strong Government consists, not in the paucity of men, but in the over-supply of Right Honourable gentlemen produced by the many attempts to form a Government on a more extended base. There were now at least three Ministers for each office, from which the two excluded were always cried up as superior to the one in power. He said this could not be amended until we got back to two Parties—each of them capable ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... personages (and of this humor our art produces immense numbers), became as of one mind, once they began to labor in the society of Raphael; continuing in such unity and concord that all harsh feelings and evil dispositions became subdued, and disappeared at the sight of him, every vile and base thought departing from the mind before his influence. Such harmony prevailed at no other time ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... it may be, by Miss Van Orden's example, for even in girlhood the latter was a person of extraordinary beauty, whereas, as has been said, Stella's corners were then multitudinous; and it is probable that those two queer little knobs at the base of Stella's throat would be apt to render their owner uncomfortable and a bit abject before—let us say—more ample charms. In any event, Stella giggled and said she thought it would be just fine, and I presently conducted her to the third ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... were grown for their variegated or odd-colored foliage. The familiar and ever-present ribbon-grass, also called striped grass, canary grass, and gardener's garters,—whose pretty expanded panicles formed an almost tropical effect at the base of the garden hedge; the variegated wandering jew, the striped leaves of some varieties of day-lilies; the dusty-miller, with its "frosty pow" (which was properly a house plant), fill the short list. The box was ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... His leaders God had purposely chosen those reckoned by the world's standards foolish that He might show plainly the shallowness of what they deem wise. And so things reckoned weak had been chosen to give the conception of what true strength is. And things even base, and despised, and not counted at all had been used that so men might learn the God-standards of wisdom and strength and honor and of what is worth while. The purpose being that men should quit glorying in themselves and glorify ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... king's anxiety and so make important contributions to history. But the larger part of them consist of a detailed statement of what omens have been observed by the augurs on examining the entrails of the sacrifices. On these it is probable that the sun-god was to base his opinion. He would know and declare ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... not wish to see them. It would be worse than nothing to give a base imitation. Instead of feeling flattered, St. Christopher would have a right to be annoyed, and perhaps to punish. Recklessly I passed across the counter ten francs, and made the coveted saint mine. Then I darted out, just in time to meet Mr. Dane at ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... resource base including major deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and many strategic minerals, timber note: formidable obstacles of climate, terrain, and distance hinder exploitation ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... of mountain gun wheels on a broad base-line had been brought for the purpose, and the chassis, engine included, was rested on the axle. Relays of men steadied and propelled the heavy load, others armed with axes and entrenching spades going on ahead to clear the path. Other parties transported the floats and planes, while advance ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... and I became a priest of Rome, and in time was sent by my order to Mexico, and thence here to assist my aged and infirm predecessor. I had in my possession a miniature of my father, and no sooner had I met him here than I recognized the base being who had deserted my mother. I kept my peace; but ere he died, he confessed that one sin—heavier than everything beside—weighed on his conscience. In the agony and remorse of that hour my mother was revenged. I told my parentage, and he discovered ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... or because I was in love with her, for that I did so solely out of pity for her, and because from the first I had not accounted her as guilty so much as unfortunate. I longed to console and encourage her somehow, and to assure her that she was not the low, base thing which she and others strove to make out; but I don't think she understood me. She stood before me, dreadfully ashamed of herself, and with downcast eyes; and when I had finished she kissed my ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... down upon my belly, and commenced crawling towards a grove of young cedars, near the base of the mountain. ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... Governor, from his ships, saw in the distance the glare of the burning buildings, he cursed the cowardice of his soldiers that had forced him to yield the place to the rebels. But as it could now serve him no longer as a base, he weighed anchor, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy it!' And as I so thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over my whole soul; and I shook base Fear away from me forever. I was strong, of unknown strength; a spirit, almost a god. Ever from that time, the temper of my misery was changed: not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but Indignation and grim ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... The climate of these volcanic hills is warmer, and the vintage begins a week sooner than in the plains of Padua. Petrarch is laid, for he cannot be said to be buried, in a sarcophagus of red marble, raised on four pilasters on an elevated base, and preserved from an association with meaner tombs. It stands conspicuously alone, but will be soon overshadowed by four lately planted laurels. Petrarch's Fountain, for here everything is Petrarch's, springs and expands itself beneath an artificial ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... late; and when the clock chimed the half-hour after ten I went upstairs softly to her bedroom and turned the handle of the door, meaning to enter, to catch Margot in my arms, tell her how deep my love for her was, how she injured me by her base fears, and how she was driving me back from the gentleness she had given me to the cruelty, to the brutality, ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens

... cabin on the mountain side was closed at an early hour, and its late occupant, accompanied by Peter and the collie, descended the trail to the small station near the base of the mountain, where he took leave of the old hermit. On his arrival at Ophir he ordered a carriage and drove directly to The Pines, for he was impatient to see John Britton at as early a date as possible, and was fearful lest the latter, with his ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... give me back my pants!" said he. Then for the first time he faced his inquisitors eye to eye. "I want my own pants!" he declared, stoutly. Man spoke to man there, and both the male Whipples stirred guiltily; feeling base, perhaps, that mere sex loyalty ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... human excellence. It was therefore very natural for Nietzsche who consciously went back to the Greeks to hail Spinoza as his only philosophical forerunner, the only philosopher who dwelt with him on the highest mountain-tops, perilous only for those who are born for the base valleys of life. And it was equally natural for Nietzsche to fail to see the important differences between his own violent and turbid thinking and the sure and disciplined thinking of Spinoza—on those very points upon which ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... no more of you in with him than the constable. Zounds, here's a beadroll of bills at the gate indeed; back, ye base! ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... marrying than I. But O sweet lady! rashly generous,— Around whom, a protecting atmosphere, Floats Purity, and sends her messengers With flaming swords to guard each avenue From thoughts unholy and approaches base,— Thou who hast made an act I deemed uncomely Seem beautiful and gracious,—do not doubt My memory of thy worth shall be the same, Only expanded, lifted up, and touched With light as dear as sunset radiance To summer trees ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... when, in after days, he stormed Cadiz, outdoing even the daring deeds of emulous and glorious—not when the favor of Elizabeth was forfeited—not in the long years of irksome, solitary, heart-breaking imprisonment, endured at the hands of that base, soulless despot, the first James of England—not at his parting from his beloved and lovely wife—not on the scaffold, where he died as he had lived, a dauntless, chivalrous, ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... said Maggie. "Do you think I could touch that coral? Oh, Rosalind," she added, a sudden rush of intense feeling coming into her voice, "I pity you! I pity any girl who has so base a soul." ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... stretched on it a thong of oxhide with the purple dye made bright. Thus then the sign I have shown thee; nor, woman, know I aright If my bed yet bideth steadfast, or if to another place Some man hath moved it, and smitten the olive-bole from its base.' ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... hundreds of millions of banking reserves released and giving base for a business expansion double any we have had before, seems suddenly paralyzed in its business activities and, comprehending only that the loaf of bread is a cent higher and a pound of cotton a few cents lower, it is ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron

... to do as he pleases. Yet in well-born children, such as yours, much may be trusted to nature. I rely on human essence. Freedom is the best school. I don't believe we are born with evil passions and base propensities. God made our faculties. The doctrine of total depravity slanders the Creator. The perfect man uses all, abuses none of his organs or energies. To educate a man is to give his hands, brain, and heart their maximum power. This can be done outside of academies. The ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... infant. I am just the same age as everybody, old enough to look after myself, don't you know, and pay for myself, and all that sort of thing. Besides, I haven't got any parents and guardians. Is that why you take such a base advantage of ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... and clay-rock below. From the great mountain-rimmed plateau rivers poured in at the sides, cutting lateral canons down to the central flow. Between these stand the little Holyokes aforesaid, with greatly narrowed base. ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... from their scanty stores to the support of the invaders, and burned their dwellings and shot them on sight if they refused, the Indian maid sympathized with the exposed whites and warned them of stratagems against them; captured herself by a base violation of the laws of hospitality, she was easily reconciled to her situation, adopted the habits of the foreigners, married one of her captors, and in peace and in war cast in her lot with the strangers. History has ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... after the publication of Ferrein's treatise, the scientific study of the voice attracted very little attention from the singing masters. Fully sixty years elapsed before any serious attempt was made to base a method of instruction on scientific principles. Even then the idea of scientific instruction in singing gained ground very slowly. Practical teachers at first paid but little attention to the subject. Interest in the mechanics of voice production ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... chosen for the job. Word of the priceless asteroid must have reached headquarters only a short time before he was scheduled to leave the space platform. He could imagine the speed with which the specialists at Terra base had acted. They had sent orders instantly to the fastest cruiser in the area, the Scorpius, to stand by for further instructions. Then their personnel machines must have whirred rapidly, electronic brains searching for the nearest available Planeteer officer with an astrophysics specialty and ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... proceeding with my history, I must not omit a more minute description of Khan Shereefs fort. I have already described its locality on the borders of Toorkisth[a]n. It was situated at the base of a low conical hill, on the summit of which a look-out tower had been erected; this building was in troublesome times occupied by a party of Juzzylchees, who took their station in it, and, fixing their cumbrous pieces on the parapet, watched the approach of any ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... intellect was still alive enough to comprehend that people were aware of his dismal dependence upon that fairy creature, whom it was a shame to think of as the support not only of his deserted children, but of his own base comforts and idleness. But the spur, though it pricked, did not goad him into any action. When he got home, he took refuge in his room up-stairs, in the hazy atmosphere drugged with the heavy fumes of his pipe, and stretched his slovenly limbs on his sofa, and buried ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... intrusive porphyries enveloped with strata, apparently belonging to the upper parts of the porphyritic conglomerate, and dipping both eastward and westward. I will describe the section seen on the eastern side of this mountain [D], beginning at the base with the lowest bed visible in the porphyritic conglomerate, and proceeding upwards through the gypseous formation. Bed 1 consists of reddish and brownish porphyry varying in character, and in many parts ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... Suez Canal, the allied forces, if they were called out, would at any rate arrive too late to prevent it. The overland route through Egypt could be so easily blocked by the Abyssinians that to select it as the base of operations would be simply absurd. The only route that remained was that round the Cape of Good Hope; and how long it would take to transport 350,000 auxiliary troops that way to Freeland, the cabinets of Paris, Rome, and London could calculate for themselves. But the Powers need ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... the character both of indignation and sorrow. All at once the trouble would pass away, and his countenance bask in its habitual calm, like a cloudless summer sky. His indignation flamed out vehemently when he heard of a base action. 'I could kick such a man across England with my naked foot,' I heard him exclaim on such an occasion. The more impassioned part of his nature connected itself especially with his political feelings. He ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... diameter, selecting those whose loss would aid rather than deplete the timber stand, and also, it must be confessed, those whose close proximity to others might make axe swinging awkward. About twenty feet from the base of each tree he placed upright in the earth a sharpened stake. This, he informed the axe-man, must be driven by the fall ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... of Bovadilla towards him. They likewise ordered him up to court, engaging that care should be taken about his affairs, and that he should be speedily dispatched with full restitution of his honour. Yet I cannot remove blame from their Catholic majesties for employing that base and ignorant person; for had he known the duty of his office, the admiral would have been glad of his coming, for he had desired in his letters to Spain that some impartial person might be sent out to take a true information of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... educated intellect. The apologists were indirectly aided by philosophy. The philosophers did not aim primarily at religious truth, and we have had reason to take exception to many of their views; yet they rekindled in France the elements of natural religion, on which the Christians then proceeded to base revealed. The works of Jules Simon are the highest expression of it. (See ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... she went on, her beautiful face lighted up with- enthusiasm, "what a blessed life that must be, when the base things of this world and things that are despised, are so many links to the invisible world and to ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... the foothills nestling at the base of this mountain that Will has chosen the site of his future permanent residence. Here there are many little lakes, two of which are named Irma and Arta, in honor of his daughters. Here he owns a ranch of forty thousand acres, but the home proper will comprise ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... "sacrifice hit" when the score is close and a player comes to the bat, and, although he would like to make a run, nevertheless, for the sake of the man on the base, he makes a "bunt," so that, while the pitcher or shortstop runs up to get the ball and put him out on first base, the man on the ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... be held in check; never would they have submitted to the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth had they not at the same time been converted to Christianity. Nothing, moreover, contributed more to this than the effort, which was then the order of the day in the Christian world, to base the organisation of the Church on monasticism: from Italy this tendency spread to Germany, from South France to North, from thence to England, where it produced its greatest effect. Now the power of conversion is inherent only in sharply-defined ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... outbreak against his corrupter and tormentor—stands as evidence of the fact that no purifying, no cleansing, no really illuminating power remains in what is now only a putrescent luminosity within him. His rage is natural and dramatically true; a noble rage would be to his honour. This is a base and poisonous passion with no virtue in it, and the passion, flaring for a moment, sinks idly into as base a ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... ladies there, seeing that he was young and handsome, treated him with great favor; and even the king's daughter, the Princess Isaure, smiled sweetly on him, which, when divers great lords saw, they were very angry, and plotted to injure the new-comer; for they thought him of base blood, and were much chagrined that he should have been made a knight, and be thus welcomed by the princess and the ladies of the court; and they hated him more as the favorite of the king. So they conferred together how to punish him for his good fortune, and at length ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... call so base a life worthy of thy consideration, and I could not grant thee that 'twould sully thy ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... as the tangible symbol of his mind—was at once his strength and his folly. His strength, for it was such qualities as these that made Old England famous, and set her on the firm base whereon she now stands—built for all Time. His folly, because he made too much of little things, instead of ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... a kind of stupor, looking straight at Harry, without seeing him. Is it possible, she was thinking, that this base wretch, after, all his promises, will take his wife and children and leave me? Is it possible the town is saying all these things about me? And a look of bitterness coming into her face—does the fool think he ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... Rosendo eight pesos for that bit of quinine, Don Mario, you and I are no longer working together, for I do not take base advantage ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... front the flexor tendons are cleared from the carpus, the pisiform bone separated from the others though not removed, and the hook of the unciform divided by pliers. The knife must not go further down than the base of the metacarpal bones, in case of dividing the deep palmar arch. The anterior ligament of the wrist being now divided, the carpus and metacarpus are to be separated by cutting-pliers, and the carpus extracted by strong sequestrum forceps. By ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... him, watching him with anxiety brilliant in his eyes, his tongue moistening, constantly moistening the lips which went dry and parched and cracked. Thornton knew, without lifting his eyes from the pool of shadow quivering at the base of ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... crimes, which make them frightful and odious; but bribery, filthy hands, a chief governor of a great empire receiving bribes from poor, miserable, indigent people, this is what makes government itself base, contemptible, and odious in the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... and then concealing the original at his lodgings, he quietly awaited the legal attachment. It was duly levied, the sale took place, and the would-be amateur bought the familiar picture hanging in its accustomed position, and then boasted in the market-place of the success of his base scheme. Ere long one of Elliot's friends revealed the clever trick. The enraged purchaser commenced a suit, and, although the painter eventually retained the picture, the case was carried to the Supreme Court, and he was condemned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... entrap Flaminius by a stratagem, as he had entrapped Sempronius before. There is in the eastern part of Etruria, near the mountains, a lake called Lake Thrasymene. It happened that this lake extended so near to the base of the mountains as to leave only a narrow passage between—a passage but little wider than was necessary for a road. Hannibal contrived to station a detachment of his troops in ambuscade at the foot of the mountains, and others on the declivities above, and ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... and the valley, but through this he made out after a time evidences of human habitation almost straight under him. There was a small lake out of which ran a shimmering creek, and close to this lake, yet equally near to the base of the mountain on which he was standing, were a number of buildings and a stockade which looked like a toy. He could see no animals, no movement of ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... was always near to its base of supplies, always had its stores accessible, and the care of the clothing and equipments of the men was an essential part of its discipline. A ragged or shabbily dressed man was a rarity. Dress coats, paper collars, fresh ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... below, the sea rose and raged; it was high water at the highest tide, and the wind blew gustily from the land, vainly combating the great waves that came invincibly up with a roar and an impotent furious dash against the base ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Court allowed the cities which they passed by to close their gates upon them, to let down to them from the wall an insufficient supply of food, to mix poisonous ingredients in their bread, to give them base coin, to break down the bridges before them, and to fortify the passes, and to mislead them by their guides, to give information of their movements to the Turk, to pillage and murder the stragglers, and to hang up their dead bodies on gibbets along the highway. The ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... fine mounting, by an old intelligencer (of the same name as was supposed), which very much surprised the sheriff when he received the horse, and the captain when he got notice thereof. This was a most base and shameful action, designing to stain the character of this ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... No sign of Indians had yet been seen around them, but as they crouched there by the corral, eagerly watching the flashes that told of the distant struggle, and listening to the sounds of combat, there rose upon the air, over to the northward and apparently just at the base of the line of bluffs, the yelps and prolonged bark of the coyote. It died away, and then, far on to the southward, somewhere about the slopes where the road climbed the divide, there came an answering ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King



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