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Caliber   /kˈæləbər/   Listen
Caliber

noun
1.
A degree or grade of excellence or worth.  Synonyms: calibre, quality.  "An executive of low caliber"
2.
Diameter of a tube or gun barrel.  Synonyms: bore, calibre, gauge.



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"Caliber" Quotes from Famous Books



... this article. She is a weighty actress corporeally, if not artistically, and poor Mercy Merrick fared rather badly. This Wilkie Collins heroine has been neglected of late, in favor of such base subterfuges as figures of the Nancy Stair caliber, but certain signs point to revivals of "The New Magdalen," which as an emotional story has seldom been surpassed. Compared with the pitiful puppet "romances" of to-day, this genuine piece of throbbing fiction seems to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... building each year of at least one first-class battle ship equal in size and speed to any that any nation is at the same time building; the armament presumably to consist of as large a number as possible of very heavy guns of one caliber, together with smaller guns to repel torpedo attack; while there should be heavy armor, turbine engines, and in short, every modern device. Of course, from time to time, cruisers, colliers, torpedo-boat destroyers or torpedo boats, Will have to be built also. All this, be it remembered, would ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... tarantula nor scorpion to be feared in the Blue Ridge; the harmless lizard is called scorpion by the mountaineer. Nor are there large poisonous reptiles. There are snakes of lesser caliber, but only rattlers and copperheads among them are venomous. The highlander is not bedeviled by biting ants but there are fleas and flies in abundance though no mosquitoes, thanks to the absence of stagnant pools and lakes. There ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... whined again, and sprang aside just as the bear, maddened with the pain of a .450-caliber rifle bullet in his stomach, and seeking a sacrifice, hurled out of the dark and up over the tree-trunk, striking, with appalling nail-strokes, right and left; and the quickness of those strokes was only a less astonishment than the agility of the wolves getting out of the way of them. But—but ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... individual ability possessed by its maker, but he does inherit a "money power" wholly independent of his own qualifications or deserts. By virtue of that power alone he is in a position in some measure to exploit his fellow-countrymen. Even though a man of very inferior intellectual and moral caliber, he is able vastly to increase his fortune through the information and opportunity which that fortune bestows upon him, and without making any individual contribution to the economic organization of the country. His power brings with it no personal dignity or efficiency; and for ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... merciless. For one moment Wilson considered the advisability of springing for him. But he regained his senses sufficiently to realize that he would only fall in his tracks. Even a wounded man is not to be trifled with when holding a thirty-two caliber revolver. ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... that," continued the officer. "I would like to see two lads of your evident caliber going into my own arm ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... the world; his future destroyed at the fair outset of life; his mother and brother estranged from him; his sister lately married, with interests and hopes in which he had no share. Men of firmer mental caliber might have found refuge from such a situation as this in an absorbing intellectual pursuit. He was not capable of the effort; all the strength of his character lay in the affections he had wasted. His place in the world was that quiet place at home, with wife and children ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... a fixed fee. Then quantity of treatment paid, rather than quality. Competence no longer mattered so much. The Lobby lost, but didn't know it—because the lowered standards of competence in the profession lowered the caliber of men running the political aspects of that profession as exemplified by ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey

... to say, that the designs of Providence do not stop on such a fair road. Every scheme of this caliber is completed by its results, like a geometrical calculation. The king, in prison, will not be for you the cause of embarrassment that you have been for the king enthroned. His soul is naturally proud and impatient; it is, moreover, disarmed ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... upward promptly. A couple of middling high-bracket investigators took over for a while. But after the fourth interview I was told I'd have to bring you to the Hub to let somebody really competent handle the next stage of whatever they've been doing. They said they couldn't spare anybody of that caliber for ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... the great national search-light was trained upon the product of the schools, seeking leaders of infinite variety and number, and likewise hosts of followers to do definite and difficult things, many deficient ones were discovered—some deficient in mental caliber, some weak in moral fiber, some lacking in physical stamina. And right here is to be seen the only serious failure of our schools. Not every boy, not every girl, had been made as efficient as could have been desired. ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... to burglarize the house betrayed the caliber of the enemy. In chloroforming Koku he had taken the risk of murdering the giant. Only the fact that the pad of saturated cloth had fallen off Koku's face had, perhaps, ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... 12, 1781.—Nothing remarkable. Very warm weather, and a bad odor from the markets. There is some talk in the city of rebuilding the burned district. Two new cannon have been mounted in the southwest bastion of the fort (George). I shall report caliber and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... marsh a thin puff of vapory smoke drifted across the face of a blackened stump and dissolved in the crisp air, and the sharp crack of a high-power rifle of small caliber raised scarcely an echo against the wall of the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... in the season—and now that one could see his face, all was well. When people speak of the evils of long runs, I should like to answer with a list of their advantages. An actor, even an actor of Henry Irving's caliber, hardly begins to play an immense part like Coriolanus for what it is worth until he has been doing ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... away white with anger. We may credit him with loving Louise as intensely as a man of his caliber can love anyone. His sudden dismissal astounded him and made him frantic with disappointment. Louise's treatment of the past few days might have warned him, but he had no intuition of the immediate catastrophe that had ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... generally the veins of the right side are the larger. In any case, however, the birth of the child removes the source of the interference, and during the lying-in period, provided that the patient remains quiet for a sufficient length of time, the vessels regain their normal caliber. Once they have been distended, however, the veins remain more susceptible to engorgement. Consequently, in order not to increase the strain these vessels naturally bear during the latter months of ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... Buelow was found a player of quite a different caliber. Clarity of touch, careful exactness down to the minutest detail caused the critics to call him cold. He was a deep thinker and analyzer; as he played one saw, as though reflected in a mirror, each note, phrase ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... you to understand that the boy ranchers were a blood thirsty trio of "gun-men." As I have explained, you don't always need a gun in the West, but when you do require it the need is generally urgent. Nor are the "guns" (by which term are meant revolvers of large caliber) used in desperate fights against human beings. In the main the guns are used with blank cartridges to direct a bunch of cattle in the way it is desired they should go. Frequently a fusilade of shots, harmless enough in ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker

... government had sent the long-range guns of large caliber when so urgently called for by Beauregard, and if it had not sent away the best troops against the remonstrances of Beauregard, the people are saying, no lodgment could have been made on Morris Island by the enemy, and Sumter and Charleston would have ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... Gold Bugs are indispensable in our daily walk. There is as fine and as true literature in Poe's Tales as in Milton's epics; only the elevation and dimensions differ. But I would rather live in a world that possessed only literature of the Poe caliber, than shiver in one echoing solely the strains of the Miltonian muse. Mere human beings are not constructed to stand all day a-tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; they like to walk the streets most of the time and sit in easy chairs. And ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... often find puppies among men of his caliber, and then,-oh, how he used to love the girls! Oh, oh! Although, for the matter of that, there are many physicians who are like him. It was at the Opera ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... your gun where you can reach it at any moment!" advised Frank. "Even a twenty-two caliber may prove effective ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... could judge the cave harbored no further surprises. Returning towards the exit his boots dislodged more empty cartridges from the sand. They were shells adapted to a revolver of heavy caliber. At a short distance from the doorway ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... friends who planted them in their gardens, where rich soil has stimulated them to grow at twice the rate of those on my farm. There were four individual pecan trees growing in or near St. Paul from my first planting, the largest being about 25 feet high with a caliber of five inches a foot above ground. Although this tree did not bear nuts I have used it as a source of scionwood for several years. These graftings, made on bitternut hickory stock, have been so successful that I am continuing their propagation at my nursery, having named this variety the Hope ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... stabbed the darkness and a heavy pistol bullet sang past his head. The detective raised his weapon to reply, but three more flashes from the darkness were followed by the vicious cracks of large caliber automatics. ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... worth about thirty-five. Rand was intrigued by this second instance of an un-Rivers-like willingness to spare no expense to get possession of a .36-caliber percussion revolver. ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... the Carrizoso cow outfit came into town one morning, with a requisition for all the loose .44-caliber ammunition that could be bought, begged, or commandeered under the plea of urgent necessity. Whiteman burrowed through his stock from top to bottom, but still the new ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... a barn—surely, I didn't plan that it was a place like this! Here's my mackinaw, boots, and mittens, and here's my hardware." He produced a small rifle that had been packed between the blankets and handed it to Landy for his inspection. "She's a thirty caliber, carries two hundred yards at point blank and won't kick over a little fellow ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the verbs being of the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same caliber and delivery, fifty-seven to the volley, and fatal at a mile and a half. But he said the auxiliary verb AVERE, TO HAVE, was a tidy thing, and easy to handle in a seaway, and less likely to miss stays ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... had not followed at my heels made me believe they were concentrating all their energies on making a surround and killing, or capturing their much feared enemy. They would prefer to dance Cousin's scalp than to dance a dozen of men of my caliber. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... has," Scotty told him. "It was made by the Breda Gun Company in Czechoslovakia before the war. The slug is about .25 caliber, but heavier than the ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... of similar caliber, was the leading spirit in the New Haven settlement, assisted by the Reverend Mr. Davenport; many of the colonists were Second-Adventists, and they called the Bible their Statute-Book. The date of their establishment was 1638. The ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... up behind them, more trains of motor cars, bearing fresh troops, and batteries of field guns advancing as fast as they could. Men were busy also stringing telephone wires, and, presently, they passed a battery of guns of the largest caliber, the fire of which was directed entirely by telephone. Some distance beyond it the regiment stopped again. The huge shells were passing over their heads toward the German lines, and John believed that he could hear and count ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Herzegovina, a step she felt safe in taking since (the Kaiser's own words) behind her was the "shining sword of Germany." It were tedious to enlarge on this point. Let it suffice to say that in 1914 Germany felt herself ready for the conflict. Enormous supplies of guns, of a caliber before unthought of, and apparently inexhaustible supplies of ammunition had been prepared; strategic railroads had been built by which armies and supplies could be hurried to desired points; the Kiel Canal had been completed; ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... inquiry of the authorities, but received little comfort. Salvation Army people they were not, this father and daughter; the tambourine, assumed garb, and prophet's beard had deceived him. Impostors! But of what incredible caliber, of what illusion-creating power! For years he could not see a Salvation Army girl without a sense of cerebral exaltation. If he could have met Debora again, he would have forgiven her sibylline deceptions, her father's chicanery. And how did they spin ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... a small pool of blood near his head, was next examined, and pronounced alive—he was breathing, but dazed and shocked; for a large-caliber bullet glancing upon the skull has somewhat the same effect as the blow of a cudgel. He opened his eyes as the men examined them, and ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... would be equally painful to both. But this friendship and love is for an equal, a year younger than myself, and does not preclude other and less creditable liaisons, physical constancy being impossible to men of our caliber." ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... congestion, which may develop into inflammation. Under these conditions the uterus gradually becomes displaced, falling backward, forward or downward as the case may be. The blood vessels by which the uterus is supplied thus have their caliber diminished by bending; the circulation through them is retarded just as the flow of water in a rubber tube is obstructed by a kink. A very good idea of what occurs in the uterus under the conditions just described may be obtained by winding a string around ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... plates of which the turret consists weighs 19 tons. The cupolas that we have examined in this article have been constructed on the hypothesis than an enemy will not be able to bring into the field guns of much greater caliber ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... washed-out city youth. Is it any wonder that the country-bred boy is nearly always the leader; that he heads the banks, the great mercantile houses? It is this peculiar, indescribable something; this superior stamina and mental caliber, that makes the stuff that rises to the top ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... his son-in-law, Edward Skeete, "one shorte Cloake, called the Dutch cloke, of Black Damaske furred with squirrell, faced with caliber, and ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... eating was an aesthetic function. It was an intellectual function, too. His mind was stirred. He heard words spoken that were meaningless to him, and other words that he had seen only in books and that no man or woman he had known was of large enough mental caliber to pronounce. When he heard such words dropping carelessly from the lips of the members of this marvellous family, her family, he thrilled with delight. The romance, and beauty, and high vigor of the books were ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... World War II we had just dumped a load of bombs on a target when a "night fighter" started to make a pass at us. Everyone in the cockpit saw the fighter's red-hot exhaust stack as he bore down on us. I cut loose with six caliber-.50 machine guns. Fortunately I missed the "night fighter"—if I'd have shot it I'd have fouled up the astronomers but good because ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... The next morning, long before it was time to sail, she was safely hidden away on board the steamer. The mother, in response to the telegram, was on hand when the ship reached the San Francisco wharf, and unless she is different from other women of that caliber, she can not, I think, ever forget that registered letter, in which some good wholesome advice was given and such motherhood as she represented was so scathingly denounced as to upset her honeymoon. Furthermore, I did not hesitate to inform her that her little daughter was both physically ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... have known better. Their lessons had been many and vivid; but not a man of them all was of the caliber to learn from a slave. Milo kept hold of his man's hand, and at the scrape of steel leaving scabbard, he brought up his free hand and grasped the fellow's left wrist. Then, springing aside with the resistless impulse ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... worked on patiently, never losing faith or hope, because he never lost the love of his Art, or the enjoyment of pursuing it, irrespective of results, however disheartening. Like most other men of his slight intellectual caliber, the works he produced were various, if nothing else. He tried the florid style, and the severe style; he was by turns devotional, allegorical, historical, sentimental, humorous. At one time, he abandoned figure-painting altogether, and took to landscape; ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... a blamed fool to have anything to do with critters of his caliber," was Ephraim's decision. "I feel like I'd kinder lowered myself somehow. Thutteration! what if ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... second place, the muscular coat serves the purpose of regulating the amount of blood which any given organ or part of the body receives. This it does by varying the caliber of the arteries going to the organ in question. To increase the blood supply, the muscular coat relaxes. The arteries are then dilated by the blood pressure from within so as to let through a larger ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... of slavery had been agitated for more than thirty years, the nation, which was ruled by politicians of the usual mental caliber, was startled at the defiant shot upon Fort Sumter—the shot that echoed the downfall of the foulest institution which has sapped the vitality of any modern government, and that aroused the people to a sorrowful realization ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... you've guessed most of it already," said Berg. "We needed a scientist of your caliber for our project. One thing we're desperately short of is technical personnel, since the only real education in such lines is to be had on Earth and most graduates find comfortable berths in the existing society. Like you, for instance. So we played ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson

... livid with rage and fear. And in that moment the mask was off. The nature of the Spaniard stood forth. Another manifest fact was that Durade had not before matched himself against a gambler of Hough's caliber. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... so?" Marion asked, a gleam of fun in her keen eyes. "I should like to see you try it, provided you have no better mental caliber to assist you than some of the volunteers have. Why, there is a right and wrong way of teaching even a Bible verse. Do you know, sir, that you may repeat over words to children like a list from a spelling lesson, and they will get no more idea from it than if it were a French sentence, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... secret, not scrupulous. He was a good patriot; he had good patriot friends, plenty of ambition, a subtle, cat-like courage, nothing to dread—and he went to Paris. There were plenty of small chances there for men of his caliber. He waited for one of them. It came; he made the most of it; attracted favorably the notice of the terrible Fouquier-Tinville; and won his way to a place in the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... 10-inch caliber naval gun on a railroad mount at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, where, after official testing, it was destined for the advance into Germany. Railroad artillery played a very important part in the late war because of its great mobility and range. This gun ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... of the valley, on any canal connecting the Mississippi river and Lake Pontchartrain. Changes are constantly occurring in the details of work of defense due to development of armament, munitions and transport. The never-ending development of range and caliber has assumed vast importance, particularly with reference to the effect on the protection of cities from bombardment. Naval guns are now capable of hurling projectiles to distances of over 50,000 yards, 28 to 30 miles. For the protection of the valley we should have at New Orleans armament mounted ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney

... again, Sally opened a door, and Joe was almost surprised out of his lethargy. Here was a watching post on the outside of the monstrous half-globe. There were two guards here, with fifty-caliber machine guns under canvas hoods. Their duties were tedious but necessary. They watched the desert. From this height it stretched out for miles, and Bootstrap could be seen as a series of white specks far away with hills ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster

... caliber take similar advantage of the law in the same way, but on a smaller scale. In every community there are certain persons who seem to draw to themselves the patronage and custom of the community, in some peculiar ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... Confederacy. Such Northerners as Douglas and Stanton, and many more, had gone over to the Republicans. Suddenly the control of the party organization had fallen into the hands of second-rate men. As by the stroke of an enchanter's wand, men of small caliber who, had the old conditions remained, would have lived and died of little consequence saw opening before them the role of leadership. It was too much for their mental poise. Again the subjective element ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... the first to engage the enemy. A one-pounder rapid-fire gun was attached to every company and was operated by the lieutenant assisted by the company clerk. In the artillery regiment there were twelve batteries, six three-inch caliber guns and one one-pounder rapid-fire gun to each battery, and as they were under the direct control of the general commanding the division he could mass them to fire on any point of attack. The privates were paid fifteen dollars a month, the corporals twenty dollars, the sergeants twenty-five ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans

... well-nigh pass from each other's recollection. One thing, however, on the other hand, might conduce to a mutual and permanent impression on their memories; during the year at the Lycee, young Servadac, never of a very studious turn of mind, had contrived, as the ringleader of a set of like caliber as himself, to lead the poor professor a life of perpetual torment. On the discovery of each delinquency he would fume and rage in a manner that was a source of unbounded ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... Returning from a masquerade, a domino over his arm, stood Falconer. Civilly enough he returned Billy's greeting, with no apparent awareness of the little lady in pongee, but Billy was conscious that her flaunting caliber had been promptly registered. And to his annoyance the actress raised big eyes ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... Atlantic from Germany, operating off our shores and returning to Germany without being obliged to put into port; which, also, sees it capable of navigating under water at a speed of from seven to nine knots, with torpedoes ready for use in the tubes and guns of effective caliber mounted on deck. It has, indeed, been asserted that the airplane and the submarine have relegated the battleship to the limbo of desuetude: but as to that the continued control of the seas by Great Britain with her immense battle-fleet, supplemented by our tremendous ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... down from my somewhat exposed position a soldier standing a few feet farther along the line raised his head above the parapet, as though to relieve his cramped muscles. Just then a star-shell burst above us, turning the trench into day. Ping!!! There was a ringing metallic sound, as when a 22-caliber bullet strikes the target in a shooting-gallery, and the big soldier who had incautiously exposed himself crumpled up in the bottom of the trench with a bullet through his helmet and through his ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... You talk as if a thousand were nothing! Hang me if I ever saw a youngster of your caliber! Perhaps you think I'm fooling? Perhaps you think I won't pay? Look here! I'll make it two thousand dollars, and I'll give you a thousand in advance. That is a square ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... crater of one of the 42-centimetre shells which have been talked about oftener than they have been used. The Austrian "thirty-point-fives" have done much of the smashing ascribed to the "forty-twos," and ordinary work, like that of bombarding a city or infantry trenches, by cannon of smaller caliber. A genuine forty-two had been dropped here, however, we were told, on a building used by the Russians to store ammunition, and the building had simply disappeared. There was nothing left but a crater sixty or seventy feet across and eighteen to ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... a gunman," said Sautee in derision. "How do I know anybody stopped you and robbed you? Maybe you've come back here with that story to cover up the theft of the money. I guess I made a mistake in ever thinking of trusting a man of your caliber." ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts

... two .256 Mannlichers. What we really got were three .475 cordites, two nine-millimeter Mannlichers, one eight-millimeter Mauser, and two .256 Mannlichers. We were switched off the .450s because a government regulation forbids the use of that caliber in Uganda, although it is permitted in British East Africa, and so we played safe by getting the .475s. This rifle is a heavy gun that carries a bullet large enough to jolt a fixed star and recoil enough to put ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon

... paper! John Kelly, a wandering minstrel with a violin, became celebrated among the camps, and was greeted with enthusiasm wherever he appeared. He probably made more with his fiddle than he could have made with his shovel. The influence of the "forty-two caliber whiskey" was dire, and towards the end of Sunday ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... without reason began to report his speeches. Of course there was a little unkind comment, too, but this became less frequent, and was mostly the work of insignificant journals. One semi-religious paper of very small caliber, in a suburb of London, where he lived, published a "roast" that is worth repeating. It ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... of Diablo's transition from Porter's to Langdon's stable. This information caused him little interest at first; indeed, he marveled somewhat at two such clever men as Crane and Langdon acquiring a horse of Diablo's caliber. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... us secret copies of the fortifications on both the east and west coasts, including the number and caliber of guns, amounts of munitions stored and other details. Also he obtained copies of the secret telegraph and naval codes and the complete armaments of all war vessels, both in service and in process of construction. A part of this information ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)

... closely examined the Terror, as the stage was named, and although he saw where each of the heavy caliber bullets had struck the machine, he failed to ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"

... to do, most of all, is to test the guns, and see if the recoil check will work as well when we are aloft as it did down on the ground. You know a balloon isn't a very stable base for a gun, even one of light caliber." ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... which was almost empty, Pembroke removed an automatic pistol fitted with a silencer. Pointing it at the amazed customer, he fired four .22 caliber longs into the narrow chest. Then he made a telephone call and sat down to wait. He wondered how long it would be before his ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle

... not wrong any one, and he believes it policy to keep this to himself. At the same time he realizes that the game is taking on a desperate phase, when a gentleman of Sir Lionel's caliber descends to such treachery, in order to make himself a favorite with ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne

... didn't like it—nobody would. I see there was a hen on, I knew the lay of the ground from looking after my horse. So I clomped off to bed, got my good old Excalibur gun—full name X.L.V. Caliber—slipped off my boots, tippytoed down the back stairs like a Barred Rock cat, oozed in by the side door—and here I be! I overheard their pleasant little plan to do you. I meant to do the big rescue act, but you mobilize too quick for me. All the same, maybe it's ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... he discovered the Visconti's treason. But it was too late for anything but impotent hatred. The infernal device had been successful; the Marquis of Mantua was no less discredited than the Marquis of Ferrara by his crime. It would seem that these men were not of the stamp and caliber to be successful villans, and that Gian Galeazzo had reckoned upon this defect in their character. Their violence caused them to be rather loathed than feared. The whole of Lombardy was now prostrate before the Milanese tyrant. His next move was to set foot in Tuscany. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... which are equipped with this subtarget gun machine have organized rifle clubs, and are holding interscholastic contests in the armories of the different regiments of the National Guard, shooting with .22-caliber ammunition, and are ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate

... Rae Malgregor's natural timidity stood battling the almost fanatic professional fervor in Helene Churchill's frankly open face, the raw, scientific passion, of very different caliber, but no less intensity, hidden so craftily behind Zillah Forsyth's plastic features. Then suddenly her own hands went clutching back at the bureau for support, and all the flaming, raging red went ebbing out of ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... analyze ax boulder caliber catalog center check criticize develop development dulness endorse envelop esthetic gaiety gild gipsy glamor goodby gray inquire medieval meter mold mustache odor program ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever

... failed higher up in the industrial structure. Such a worker, conscious that he has failed, conscious from the hard fact that he cannot obtain work in the higher employments, finds several courses open to him. He may come down and be a beast in the social pit, for instance; but if he be of a certain caliber, the effect of the social pit will be to discourage him from work. In his blood a rebellion will quicken, and he will elect to become either a felon or ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London

... floor holding the letter, "it seems to me he would have to be some grand esprit; a man with lofty aims and ability to reach them; one who stood high enough to attract the notice of his fellow-men. It seems to me if I were young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... assembled on the barrack square at Aldershot for the last time. Every man was in full marching order. His rifle was the "Short Lee Enfield, Mark IV," his bayonet, the long single-edged blade in general use throughout the British Army. In addition to his arms he carried 120 rounds of ".303" caliber ammunition, an intrenching-tool, water-bottle, haversack, containing both emergency and the day's rations, and his pack, strapped to shoulders and waist in such a way that the weight of it was equally distributed. His pack contained the ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... report of the national woman's rights convention held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in October 1850. Better informed now through her antislavery friends about this new movement for woman's rights, she was ready to consider it seriously and she read all the stirring speeches, noting the caliber of the men and women taking part. Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and Lucretia Mott were there, as well as Lucy Stone, that appealing young woman of whose eloquence on the antislavery platform Susan had heard so much, and Abby Kelley Foster, whose appointment to office ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... doesn't? But they grow fat and enjoy themselves under his tyranny, so they would never consent to leaving him unguarded, as happened to Nero, for instance, or to replacing him with any one of the caliber of Aurelius, if such a man could ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... a bullet can floor a man an' then not do any damage," said Ladd. "I felt a zip of wind an' somethin' like a pat on my chest an' down I went. Well, so much for the small caliber with their steel bullets. Supposin' I'd connected with ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... nine, Poncelet bought a watch that was out of order in order to study it, then took it apart and put it together correctly. Arago tells that at the same age Fresnel was called by his comrades a "man of genius," because he had determined by correct experiments "the length and caliber of children's elder-wood toy cannon giving the longest range; also, which green or dry woods used in the manufacture of bows have most strength and lasting power." In general, the average of mechanical invention is later, and scarcely comes earlier than that ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... gone, and I'm cutting down this bullet to fit my gun." (The soldier's musket was a "54-caliber," and the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... wanted to know, but the news was anything but reassuring. I heard the cannon distinctly: so distinctly that I was a trifle unnerved. Not only had my ears caught the long ever-steady rolling (already observed three days since) but I had been able to make out a difference in the caliber of each piece that fired, and added to it all was a funny clattering sound, as when one drags a wooden stick along an iron barred fence. La Fere is putting up a heroic defense, I thought, blissfully ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... champions of the faith worked with tied hands. Baronio knew no Greek; Latini knew hardly any; Bellarmino is thought to have known but little. And yet these were the apostles of Catholic enlightenment, the defenders of the infallible Church against students of the caliber of Erasmus, Casaubon, Sarpi! An insuperable obstacle to sacred studies of a permanently useful kind was the Tridentine decree which had declared the Vulgate inviolable. No codex of age or authority which displayed a reading at variance ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... through one of the heavy glass windows of the second floor, embedding itself in the ceiling. The bullet grazed past the head of Mrs. Ella Morton Dean of Montana. Captain Flather of the 1st Precinct, with two detectives, later examined the holes and declared they had been made by a 38 caliber revolver, but no attempt was ever made to find the man who ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... This was written and originally printed long before the death of Mr. Morgan, but there is a general feeling that he has left no successor of his caliber.] ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams

... gentlemen," said de Galisonniere blithely. "Although no blood was shed it was a hot battle and I hope when you two meet again it will be in friendship and not in enmity. You are a fine swordsman, Lennox, and it was honorable of you, de Mezy, when you didn't know his caliber, to offer to take on, because of his youth, the older ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... and a piece of excellent work. In the act a real 32-caliber revolver was used loaded with a real cartridge. Helen Grimes, who is a Western girl of decidedly Buffalo Billish skill and daring, is tempestuously in love with Frank Desmond, the private secretary and confidential prospective son-in-law of her father, "Arapahoe" Grimes, quarter-million-dollar ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... that being born and brought up in Turkey and being born, let us say, in New York City, would make in two children of exactly the same disposition, mental caliber and physical structure. One would grow up a Turk and the other a New Yorker, and the mere fact that they had the same original capacity for thought, feeling and action would not alter the result that in character ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... is made in the image of everything that ever was, that is, or that ever shall be. He holds within his caliber everything that exists, that ever has existed, or that ever will exist. Now, God is included in this. If he exists at all, he exists everywhere (and we have taken in everything), every place, every name, every condition. I believe that the human stands above all things else, ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... event of this caliber, Bridewell called down all his men from the building, and they started for the corral. Hal Dunbar and his two men already were standing close to the bars, and Diablo stood quivering, high-headed, in the center of the inclosure. But, of ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... reason that a person of this caliber would have sniffed at a paltry remuneration of five thousand francs offered by an obscure country priest. But Don Giustino was a good son of the Church. He had never forgotten the recommendation of his old patron to succour ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... half suspected, what indeed was ample cause for the quarrelsome stranger's apprehension. Held close to the owner's body was what in the inelegant jargon of the West is known as a "dog leg." The weapon, a frontier Colt's of heavy caliber, was full cocked under the old man's thumb; the hand holding it was as steady as the blazing ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... never before turned so quickly; but he shrank from a wicked looking muzzle pointed straight between his eyes. In such circumstances, the caliber of a revolver seems to become magnified to absurdly large proportions, and behind the fearsome weapon Bosko's immovable face was that ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... in Forrest's right hand, which had seemed empty, which had seemed not to move or to perform in any celeritous and magic manner, a very small, stubby, nickel pistol, with a caliber much too great for it, and down whose rifled muzzle the earl found himself gazing. The earl was startled. But he said, "I was mistaken, sir; you are not a horse thief." As mysteriously as it had come, the wicked little derringer disappeared. Forrest's hands ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... said De Launay, idly. "I can remember when you couldn't introduce a new gun with an odd caliber because a man couldn't afford to take a chance on being unable to get the shells to fit it. Still, I'll stick to the Colt. Let me have this and a couple of boxes of shells. And a left-hand ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... any still doubted, they had only to open their eyes, fix them on the local authorities, watch them as soon as born, and follow them throughout the exercise of their functions.—Naturally, in filling each office, the electors had chosen a man of their own species and caliber; their fixed and dominant disposition was accordingly well known; they were indifferent to public matters and therefore their candidate was as indifferent as themselves. Had they shown too great a concern for the nation this would have prevented their election; the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... pearl-handled revolver, thirty-eight caliber. He looked at it closer, then stared blankly at the floor. He had seen ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... younger days, Sir Thomas had been a floor-walker of no mean caliber. A touch of the professional still lingered in his brisk movements. He preceded Jimmy upstairs with the restrained suavity that can be learned ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... involving all the coats, the larger arteries often developing calcareous deposits or thickened cartilaginous plates—an atheroma. If the thickening of the walls of the smaller vessels advances, their caliber is diminished, and there may even be complete obstruction (endarteritis obliterans). On the other hand, some arteries, especially if the calcareous deposits are considerable, may become weakened in spots and dilation may occur, causing either ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... then at each other. There was little save reflection in their several glances. Men of this caliber do not hesitate over a risk of life or ship. Cautious as Tunis Latham was, his agreement with those he had contracted with called for a prompt fulfillment of the details of the pact. Nor did the prospect of the ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... Stevinus, not unnaturally, to consider the allied subject of the pressure of liquids. He is to be credited with the explanation of the so-called hydrostatic paradox. The familiar modern experiment which illustrates this paradox is made by inserting a long perpendicular tube of small caliber into the top of a tight barrel. On filling the barrel and tube with water, it is possible to produce a pressure which will burst the barrel, though it be a strong one, and though the actual weight of water in the tube is comparatively insignificant. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... their appearance was greeted by a storm of shot and shell. Guns of all caliber belched their deadly missiles at the charging French. The attackers quickened their pace and breaking into a run, raced ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay

... the caliber and number of guns, and to other weapons such as torpedoes, mines, depth-charges and aircraft (with their own weapons). It also includes chemical agents and other instrumentalities, together with the types, potentialities as to range, and the number or amount ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... day the true story of a little East Side tailor who could not earn enough to support himself and his wife. He became half-crazed from lack of food and together they resolved to commit suicide. Somehow he secured a small 22-caliber rook rifle and a couple of cartridges. The wife knelt down on the bed in her nightgown, with her face to the wall, and repeated a prayer while he shot her in the back. When he saw her sink to the floor dead he became so unnerved that, instead of turning the rifle on himself, he ran out ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... had begun, shall we say, in 94 B.C., and would end in 36 A.D.; —for convenience one must give figures, though one means only approximations by them;—and not until after that latter date would souls of any caliber cease to be incarnate in Roman bodies. Before that time, then, the madness had to be cured and Rome's mission had ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... spiritual sight has been developed is often sadly impressed when he sees the subtle influences to which those who frequent such places are exposed. It is a fact of course that a man must be of a low caliber to be influenced by low thoughts, and that it is as impossible to incite a person of benevolent character to do murder—unless we put him into a hypnotic sleep—as to make a tuning fork which vibrates ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... spring driving one hammer was too weak to discharge a percussion cap, that of the other was just strong enough to cause detonation on an average twice out of three attempts. We could get no bullet mould the gun being of an unusual caliber so we used to chop off chunks of lead and roll them between flat stones until the requisite degrees of size and rotundity had been attained. By using stones with the surface slightly roughened we could always reduce the size of the bullet, but the ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... "this bird is of championship caliber, I might be a champion myself." For, though Young Brophy was not a champion, the newspapers had been pointing to him for time as a likely possibility for these ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... made no reply in words. He merely leaned his shotgun against his thigh, reached around beneath his coat and produced a forty-five caliber revolver. This he held ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... courteously and gave them liberty. Those gentlemen declared to me, in writing, in Malaca that the fleet of the people of Achen consisted of three hundred and fifty craft, among which were sixty large galleys, each with three pieces of artillery at the bow, while that of the midship gangway had the caliber of sixty libras; that the royal galley carried one thousand six hundred men, with one hundred and twenty falcons and half-falcons; and that they lost ten large galleys in the fight, besides twenty other lesser craft. They also stated that after returning to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... two days out from Sandy Hook I got a taste of the skipper's caliber. A man aloft—a big, red-headed fellow, gave me an insolent answer from the cro'-jack yard, and I called him down. When he reached the deck I was ready, and sent him reeling over the break of the poop with one smash on the ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... awakened by sense of something unusual going on. Far away among the wooded heights to the south, echoing from the rocky palisades to the west, could be heard the pop, pop of distant musketry, punctuated sometimes with louder bang as of large caliber rifles closer at hand. Little time was there in which to hazard opinion as to the cause. One or two men, faint-hearted at the thought of the peril of Indian battle and hopeful of influencing the judgment of their superiors, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... of mingled passions of jealousy, rage and humiliation. That this girl whom for four years he had loved with the full strength of his intense nature should have given herself to another was grief enough; but the fact that this other should have been a man of Smith's caliber seemed to add insult to his grief. He felt that not only had she humiliated him but ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... until they were in line with the main air-lock, then reduced the power of the repellers. As he approached the lock various controls were actuated, and soon the stranger stood in the control room, held immovable against one wall, while Crane, with a 0.50-caliber elephant gun, ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... 42 centimeter howitzer is more moral than a gun of smaller caliber and that the justice of God depends upon the superiority of Krupp to other ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... It is no necessary part of the conception that the mind should be either purposely irreligious, or directly vicious. The mind of the flesh, {phronema tes sarkos}, by its very nature, limited capacity, and time-ward tendency, is {thanatos}, Death. This earthly mind may be of noble caliber, enriched by culture, high toned, virtuous and pure. But if it know not God? What though its correspondences reach to the stars of heaven or grasp the magnitudes of Time and Space? The stars of heaven are not heaven. Space is not God. This mind certainly, has life, life up to ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... of the seventeen mortars in the rebel batteries, Anderson could reply only with a vertical fire from the guns of small caliber in his casemates, which was of no effect against the rebel bomb-proofs of sand and roofs of sloping railroad iron; but, refraining from exposing his men to serve his barbette guns, his garrison was also safe in its protecting casemates. It happened, therefore, that although the attack was ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay



Words linked to "Caliber" :   degree, inferior, grade, inferiority, calibrate, diameter, superiority, diam, level, superior, low quality, high quality, quality



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