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Devoid   /dɪvˈɔɪd/   Listen
Devoid

adjective
1.
Completely wanting or lacking.  Synonyms: barren, destitute, free, innocent.  "Young recruits destitute of experience" , "Innocent of literary merit" , "The sentence was devoid of meaning"






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"Devoid" Quotes from Famous Books



... us that can fashion us to the image of the Lord set before us. Who is sufficient by external imitation of Christ to become {114} conformed to the likeness of Christ? Imagine one without genius and devoid of the artist's training sitting down before Raphael's famous picture of the Transfiguration and attempting to reproduce it. How crude and mechanical and lifeless his work would be! But if such a thing were possible that the spirit of ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... forced to go. When he showed the photograph, Mrs. Pritchard-Wallace looked at it with a curious expression. It was the work of a country photographer, awkward and ungainly, with the head stiffly poised, and the eyes hard and fixed; the general impression was ungraceful and devoid of charm, Mrs. Wallace noticed the country fashion ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... dinner to remember all one's days, commend me to a thoroughly relented duck; a mealy, ash-baked potato; an onion (yea, several of them) devoid of conceit, and well buttered and salted; and a salad of Slabsides celery and lettuce; with Riverby apples and pears, and beechnuts to complete the feast—beechnuts gathered in October up in the Catskills, gathered one by one as the chipmunk gathers ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... sitting down beside him, 'you are simply devoid of common sense, by invoking the hatred of the gods! You alone are the cause ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi

... country, and well-nigh the only means of living of the hardy men who cling like tufts of lichen to the arid cliffs. Here, through fourteen degrees of longitude, barely seven hundred thousand souls maintain existence. Thanks to perils devoid of glory, to year-long snows which clothe the Norway peaks and guard them from profaning foot of traveller, these sublime beauties are virgin still; they will be seen to harmonize with human phenomena, also virgin—at least to poetry—which here took place, the history of which it ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... a man devoid of honour, I shall not hesitate, for the Manor Cartier has been the home of domestic peace, and madame, who came to us a stranger, deserves well of the people of that ancient abode of chivalry- the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... float In a painted boat On a shimmering morning sea, Or to flirt with a maid In the afternoon shade Seems good enough sport to be; But the evening hour, With its subtle power, Is sweeter and better far, If joined to the joy, Devoid of alloy, That lurks in ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... This was the moment that Marcos had always anticipated. Sarrion wondered why he should have to meet it and not Marcos. Juanita sat motionless with steady eyes fixed on the distant mountains. He looked at her lips and saw there a faint smile not devoid of pity—as if she knew something of which he was ignorant. He pulled himself together; for he was a bold man who faced his fences with ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... is this Mr. Clapp?" asked Mrs. Stanley. "His manners and appearance, whenever I have accidentally seen him with the Hubbards, struck me as very unpleasant: but is it possible he can be so utterly devoid of all principle, as wilfully to countenance ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... always felt in the welfare of the very humblest of his brethren of the lyre, is highly creditable to him. But the extent to which he sacrificed his own interests to serve them, was often any thing but prudent. He was devoid of every sordid and avaricious feeling, and indeed carried his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... nature, is concrete, and has, in spite of universality, nevertheless, a particular and subjective character. By saying, for example, that God is simply One, the Supreme Being as such, we express thereby nothing but a lifeless abstraction of an understanding devoid of reason. Such a God, as indeed he is not conceived in his concrete truth, can furnish no content for art, least of all for plastic art. Thus the Jews and the Turks have not been able to represent their God, who is still more abstract, in the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... besides the general crisis, France experiences her own national crises, which, how-ever, are determined by and conditioned upon the general state of the world's market much more than by local French influences. It will not be devoid of interest to contrast the prejudgment of the French bourgeois with the judgment of the English bourgeois. One of the largest Liverpool firms writes in its yearly report of trade for 1851: "Few years ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx

... signify the Abode of Vacancy or the Abode of the Unsymmetrical. It is an Abode of Fancy inasmuch as it is an ephemeral structure built to house a poetic impulse. It is an Abode of Vacancy inasmuch as it is devoid of ornamentation except for what may be placed in it to satisfy some aesthetic need of the moment. It is an Abode of the Unsymmetrical inasmuch as it is consecrated to the worship of the Imperfect, purposely leaving some ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... impossibility of making any one believe that the American colonies could ever be separated from this country. It was always considered as an idle dream of discontented politicians, good enough to fill up the periods of a speech, but which no practical man, devoid of the spirit of party, considered to be within the limits of possibility. There was a period when the slightest concession would have satisfied the Americans; but all the world was in heroics; one set of gentlemen met at the Lamb, and another ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... are first, its unfaithfulness to its own announced and excellent plan, by subjecting to criticism works neither indecent nor immoral, yet of such trifling importance even in point of size and, according to the critic's own verdict, so devoid of all merit, as must excite in the most candid mind the suspicion, either that dislike or vindictive feelings were at work; or that there was a cold prudential pre-determination to increase the sale of the review by flattering the malignant passions of human nature. That I may not myself ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Administration "Serpent, bite a file!" As to your Eulogium on Lincoln I have not much to say. If he pleases you, well enough, you're easily satisfied. I take it that he is a disgrace to the Chair he occupies; and to judge from his conversations, he is devoid of all sense of refinement & etiquette; to look at his executive powers as displayed thus far, he had better be a Bey than helmsman of the "Old Ship"; and what of his efforts at speeches? In the language of Logan, "I appeal to any white man" ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... Espana. The latter was his only associate in that exile. A long illness preceded his death, although during it he continued to work as if he were healthy and alone. He died after a long life of glorious labor in the islands of the Moros, so devoid of human consolations, but so full of the consolations of heaven—as our blessed Father Francisco Javier certified, who was the first to sow there the seed of the gospel. His death caused great sorrow, because that field of Christendom remained without ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... opinions as a whole, I must own that the Erewhonians are superstitious, on account of the views which they hold of their professed gods, and their entirely anomalous and inexplicable worship of Ydgrun, a worship at once the most powerful, yet most devoid of formalism, that I ever met with; but in practice things worked better than might have been expected, and the conflicting claims of Ydgrun and the gods were arranged by unwritten compromises (for the most part in Ydgrun's favour), which in ninety-nine cases ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... fortunes, good or ill, the contests and exciting experiences interest his readers even partly as much as they did the boys who shared in the actual occurrences. I have tried to write a story filled with action, but devoid of sensationalism and false representations. If my boy friends enjoy the company of the Go Ahead boys I shall ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... conspiracy of silence," he declared. "This man could not have committed suicide. The pistol found on the desk was fully loaded. The clothing is devoid of powder stains. Moreover, a most careful search has failed to reveal any other weapon. Now, someone entered this room and fired the shot. Yet all those clerks maintain that no one has been in here and that they heard no shot, although the door stood open ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... something which, most of all, the young lady had hoped from this temporary acquaintance, viz., religious instruction, she found him indeed as learned on that as on other topics, but cold and devoid of unction. So much so, that one day she said to him, "I can hardly believe you have ever been a missionary." But at that he seemed so distressed that she was sorry for him, and said, sweetly, "Excuse me, Mr. Hazel, my remark was in rather ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... century, and (in Dr. Wright's words) "one of the most learned and versatile men that Syria ever produced." Perhaps no more industrious compiler of knowledge ever lived. Simple and uncritical in his modes of thought, and apparently devoid of any striking originality, he collected in his numerous and elaborate treatises the results of such research in theology, philosophy, science and history as was in his time possible in Syria. Most of his works were written ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... were simply put to death, without any additional torture. Others were imprisoned, scourged, and then put to death; while others again were tortured for days, weeks, and even months, with the most frightful torments. Again, some came to their martyrdom totally devoid of any previous virtue; some even loaded with sin, and unbaptized: but they received a baptism of blood—which made them pure, and deserved for them the high honors of heaven. Nevertheless, the glory that surrounds such is far inferior to that which surrounds those who, like St. John ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux

... also the Duchess protest against his turning to see her down. Mrs. Brookenham, listening to them, hoped Edward would accept the protest and think it sufficient to leave her with the footman. Their common consciousness that she was a kind of cousin, a consciousness not devoid of satisfaction, was quite consistent with a view, early arrived at, of the absurdity ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... excelled by none in lively, graphic fidelity of touch: whatever was present to his eye and manifest to his ear, he could paint with a life and a humour which Burns seems alone to excel."[41] In private life, Wilson was a model of benevolence and of the social virtues; he was devoid of selfishness, active in beneficence, and incapable of resentment. Before his departure for America, he waited on every one whom he conceived he had offended by his juvenile escapades, and begged their forgiveness; and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, also with woodcuts of a somewhat terrifying aspect, yet not devoid of lively ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... you call them, your suspicions as I call them, are cruel, unjust, wholly devoid of foundation in fact. I can declare no more; except that I have not acted for my own profit or my own pleasure. I have not in this proceeding considered myself. Once again, I think my heart is broken. ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens

... Vandenesse, by satisfying every need, had suppressed desire, that king of creation, which fills an enormous place in the moral forces. Extreme heat, extreme sorrow, complete happiness, are all despotic principles that reign over spaces devoid of production; they insist on being solitary; they stifle all that is not themselves. Vandenesse was not a woman, and none but women know the art of varying happiness; hence their coquetry, refusals, fears, quarrels, and the all-wise clever foolery with which ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... the merry sunshine, and sang loud. Victory was very near. Nevertheless, after a while the path grew steeper. He needed all his breath for climbing, and the singing died away. On the right and left rose huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the lava-like earth chasms yawned. Here and there he saw a sheen of white bones. Now too the path began to grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace, with a footmark here ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner

... a beautiful story. He had been taught to realize his need of her. It was a part of his constitution. The same is true now wherever woman is appreciated. The felt want is the recognition of the fact. A wife chosen by one's parents, not by himself, is devoid of all of those special characteristics which distinguish her where processes of love begin, go on, deepen and tighten, until the bond is woven ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... the women in this region are very pretty and characteristic, and many of the females are themselves not devoid of beauty, as beauty goes among the Mongols. Particularly do I notice one to-day, whose tiny, doll-like extremities are neatly bound with red, blue, and green ribbon; her face is a picture of refinement, her head-dress ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... revival of Belgian Arts and Letters which followed shortly after the 1830 Revolution is one of the most striking examples of the influence exercised by political events on intellectual activity. For over a century the nation had been devoid of self-expression, and during the fifteen years of Union with Holland scarcely any notable works were produced. No doubt this time, being one of economic recovery, was not favourable to the efflorescence of Art and Letters, but the intense activity of the period of independence ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... Hours, or Contes Tartares, have as little of the Tartar as those above mentioned of the Chinese, but if somewhat verbose, they are not wholly devoid of literary quality. The substance is, as in nearly all these cases, Arabian Nights rehashed; but the hashing is not seldom done secundum artem, and they have, with the Les Sultanes de Gujerate and Nouveaux Contes Orientaux, which follow ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... England was devoid of food, Men bade me breed the coney and I bought Timber and wire-entanglements and hewed Fair roomy palaces of pine-wood wrought, Wherein our first-bought sedulously gnawed And every night escaped and ran abroad; Yet she was lovely and we named her Maud, And if she ate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various

... man not devoid of wisdom. Fine clothes sometimes went with a long purse, and a long purge might do wonders to help the comfort of any prisoner in London, as well as the comfort of his keeper. Truly his eyes opened wide as he saw the contents of the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... conversational reserve arose, not from his having to deal with an unfamiliar language,—for he had picked up a picturesque and varied vocabulary with ease,—but from his natural temperament. He was devoid of curiosity, and utterly unimpressed by anything but the purely business concerns of those he served. Domestic secrets were safe with him; his indifference to your thoughts, actions, and feelings had all the contempt which ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... the design is not so ill-conceived; I note some progress; but your drawing's bad— Yes, bad, sir. Mark you how this leg hangs limp, As though devoid of life; these hands seem clenched, Not loosely clasped, as you intended them. [He takes his pencil and makes a few strokes. Thus should it stand—a single line will mend. And here, what's this? Why, 't is a sloven's work. You dance too many nights away, young gallant. You shirk close labor ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... and Tesreau for the Giants. Wood pitched for one inning and was hammered in every direction by the New York players, who ran riot on the field. They simply overwhelmed Boston and this contest, more than any other in the series, was so "one sided" as to be devoid of interest, except to the New York fans, who were eager to see the Giants win the championship. Devore, the first batter, hit safely to left field. Doyle rapped a single to center. Devore and Doyle made a double steal and that began the fireworks. Snodgrass ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster

... apology for the practices into which Defoe, gradually, we may reasonably believe, allowed himself to fall. The substance of the apology has been crystallized into an aphorism by the author of Becky Sharp, but it has been, no doubt, the consoling philosophy of dishonest persons not altogether devoid of ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... by small and slow increments, had grown at length to two hundred and fifty a year. Himself a small and slow person, he had every reason to be satisfied with this progress, and hoped for no further advance. He was of eminently sober mind, profoundly conscientious, and quite devoid of social ambition,—points of character which explained the long intimacy between him and Stephen Lord. Yet one habit he possessed which foreshadowed the intellectual composition of his son,—he loved to write letters to the newspapers. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... Bible characterizes the fool as a man "without a heart," and it is probably in the same sense that modern Arabs describe the brute creation as devoid of hearts. The fox in the narrative just given knew better. Not so, however, the lady who brought a curious question for her Rabbi to solve. The case to which I refer may be found in the Responsa Zebi Hirsch. Hirsch's credulous questioner asserted that she had purchased a live cock, but ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... a young lady who prided herself on her aristocratic appearance and position, that she played like a kitchen maid; or he would even write to her mother and say that he gave it up, that it would kill him if he went on long bothering about a girl so devoid of talent. All of which did not improve his position. His few pupils left him; he could not keep any of them more than a few months. His mother argued with him; he would argue with himself. Louisa made him promise that at least he would not break ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... that evolution may have developed a being who can withstand the rigors of the Martian climate, or that the race—if it ever did exist—has perished. In other words, the existence of intelligent life on Mars, where the rare atmosphere is nearly devoid of oxygen and water and where the nights are much colder than our Arctic winters, is not impossible but is completely unproven. The possibility of intelligent life also existing on the planet Venus ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... restrain his body by asceticism and the observance of vows. And, O king, free from guile and with a cheerful spirit, one should, according to his power, bestow gifts, after going down to the recipient and paying him homage. A truth-telling person attaineth a life devoid of trouble. A person void of anger attaineth sincerity, and one free from malice acquireth supreme contentment. A person who hath subdued his senses and his inner faculties, never knoweth tribulation; nor is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... of some dark street, and rush upon the first man that comes along, demanding, "Your money or your life," is but a poor business, devoid of all prestige, and long since given ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... and on each side four others, all arched and open. The structure is of a very ordinary kind, both in workmanship and material; the pavement within is similar to that used for streets in this country; and the walls are entirely devoid of sculpture or any other architectural ornament. But it derives no small interest from the popular belief that it is the very house which Peter inhabited at the time of his being called from his boat to follow the Messias. It is manifest, notwithstanding, that it must have ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... these truths for a clear understanding of the truths themselves! If the preceding disquisition, with all its subtlety and all its obscurity, should answer no other purpose, it will still have been neither purposeless, nor devoid of utility, should it only lead us to sympathize with the strivings of the human intellect, awakened to the infinite importance of the inward oracle [Greek: gnothi seauton]—and almost instinctively shaping its course of search in conformity with the Platonic intimation:—[Greek: ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... of comparison, arise, does insanity make its appearance. The untutored savage, living in a state of communism, is untroubled by the jealousies and heart-burnings of his civilized congener. He lives in the to-day and allows the to-morrow to take care of itself. Devoid of ambition, a mere animal, sensual and indolent, he cares only for the gratification of his physical desires. The mental attributes of a civilized ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... in its school matches has this peculiarity. However badly it may seem to stand, there is always something up its sleeve. In this case it was a professional, a man indecently devoid of anything in the shape of nerves. He played the bowling with a stolid confidence, amounting almost to contempt, which struck a chill to the hearts of the School bowlers. It did worse. It induced them to bowl with the sole object of getting ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... them to be not only the brave, self reliant, proud people who have from time to time withstood our nation's armies in defense of their rights, but also a people amiable, affectionate, truthful, and communicative. Nor are they devoid of a sense of humor. With only few exceptions, I found them genial. Indeed, the old chief, Tus-te-nug-ge, a man whose warwhoop and deadly hand, during the last half century, have often been heard and felt among the Florida swamps ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley

... be as devoid of brains as the empty cap you pelted, Philip, or you never would have engaged ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... was Greek or Roman: but a very splendid Polish Missal, in 8vo. which belonged to Sigismund, King of Poland, in the sixteenth century, seemed worthy of especial notice. The letters are graceful and elegant; but the style of art is heavy, although not devoid of effect. The binding is crimson velvet, with brass knobs, and a central metallic ornament—apparently more ancient than the book itself. This latter may have been ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... any hypothesis put forward must satisfactorily account for the phenomena sought to be explained and accounted for. The Aether was conceived in order to explain the phenomena of light, and one of the properties it was conceived to possess was elasticity, yet that very conception was devoid of the most fundamental property of matter, without which there is no elasticity, that is, that it ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... and that if he and the other head men announced that I had parted with her for a hundred dollars, the entire population of Utiroa would arise as one man and curse them as mean creatures; also they (the people) would refuse to use the boat, and he, Kaibuka, would be regarded as a hog—a man devoid of gratitude to the white man who had been kind to ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... interesting problem whether he was absolutely devoid of sense, or miserably wanting in spirit. Did he know his lady's ways and condone them, or was he a mere blind, doting fool? It was a point to be discussed over the teacups in snug little drawing-rooms, or with the aid ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... former step, too, will conduce to this, and be its natural consequence. I do not mean alone that loose and vagrant sentiment which commonly passes for patriotism, which is aroused at some particular occasion and slumbers the rest of the time; which is spasmodic, temporary, impulsive, and devoid of principle; but that love of country founded on knowledge and conviction; a living faith of the heart based upon duty and principle; and which is, therefore, all-pervading, abiding, intelligent, governing thought and action, and conforming the life to the inner spirit. That sort of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... devoid of interest. We arrived in Chicago without accident or delay, and apartments were secured for us at the Tremont House, where we remained one week. At the expiration of this time Mrs. Lincoln decided that living at the hotel was attended with ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley

... action, we shall find the mark of inferiority upon every thing which has sprung from ennui. In philosophy, it might produce the follies of Cynic oddity, but not the sublime lessons of Pythagoras or Socrates. In poetry, it may produce effusions from persons of quality, devoid of wit, but it never could have pointed the satire of Pope. In the mechanic arts it may contrive a balloon, but never could invent a steam-boat. In religion, it stumbles at a thousand knotty points in metaphysical theology, but it never led the soul to ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... full of trouble and apprehension. It was the full-length cabinet likeness of a plainly dressed young woman with a pretty, slack face. And the face's weakness was half redeemed by a stamp of settled sadness that was not devoid of a certain dignity. ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco

... House of Commons,—that chaste assembly, where the never-failing subject of reproach against Mr. Pitt was the not being of an amorous temperament; but they had not hitherto prevailed against the stout earl's celibacy. It is true that if he was devoid of a wife, he had secured to himself plenty of substitutes; his profession was that of a man of gallantry; and though he avoided the daughters, it was only to make love to the mothers. But his lordship had now attained a certain age, and it was at last ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his court to M. d'Orleans, by telling him that the prisoner had uttered nothing which concerned him, and by representing the services he did M. d'Orleans with the King. Like a sagacious man, D'Argenson saw the madness of popular anger devoid of all foundation, and which could not hinder M. d'Orleans from being a very considerable person in France, during a minority that—the age of the King showed to be pretty near. He took care, therefore, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... hygiene and sanitary science. However true this may be in regard to civic and rural life it certainly does not apply to prison and military existence. We were occupying the quarters normally assigned to recruits. Yet Sennelager was absolutely devoid of the most primitive features of a safe sanitary system. There was an open cesspool within a stone's throw of the barracks, the stench from which, during the heat of the summer, may be better imagined than described. No disinfectants whatever were used, and ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... 1830, to mingle in thought with those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to enter with them, jostled, elbowed, pulled about, into that immense hall of the palace, which was so cramped on that sixth of January, 1482, the spectacle would not be devoid of either interest or charm, and we should have about us only things that were so old that ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... and honest and pure in conduct and possessed of ascetic merit. They should be waited upon whose triple possessions, viz., knowledge (of the Vedas), origin and acts, are all pure, and association with them is even superior to (the study of the) scriptures. Devoid of the religious acts as we are, we shall yet reap religious merit by association with the righteous, as we should come by sin by waiting upon the sinful. The very sight and touch of the dishonest, and converse and ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... King! Infinite, Eternal Love—alone of all beings devoid of self-love! Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... to the enemy; some actually betrayed their trust; some even were found who undertook the trade of piracy themselves. It was in this condition, that Edric, Duke of Mercia, a man of some ability, but light, inconstant, and utterly devoid of all principle, proposed to buy a peace from the Danes. The general weakness and consternation disposed the king and people to take this pernicious advice. At first 10,000l. was given to the Danes, who retired with this money and the rest of their plunder. The English were now, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... trick of looking straight into any other eyes they met, not boldly, but with a kind of virginal fearlessness and enterprise that people often found embarrassing. Indeed she was extremely virginal and devoid of the usual fringe of feminine airs and graces, a nymph of the woods and waters, who although she was three and twenty, as yet recked little of men save as companions whom she liked or disliked according to her instincts. For the rest she was sweetly ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... range, thus defined, separates the valley of the Nerbudda from the valleys of the Tapti flowing west, and the Mahanadi flowing east. The Vindhyan sandstones certainly are a formation of immense antiquity, perhaps pre-Silurian. They are azoic, or devoid of fossils; and it is consequently impossible to determine exactly their geological age, or 'horizon' (ibid. p. xxiii). The cappings of basalt, in some cases with laterite superimposed, suggest many difficult problems, which will be ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... was the writer, and the merchant told me, in answer to my inquiry that it was a man covered with a red cloak, whom he had taken for a Frenchman. I knew enough to convince me that the Unknown was not entirely devoid of generous feeling. In my new house I found all arranged in the best style; a shop, moreover, full of wares, finer than any I had ever had. Ten years have elapsed since then; more in compliance with ancient custom, than because it is necessary, ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... the moment of incidence, would probably turn the stomach of even the most romantic man, and force him, in sheer self-respect, to renounce kissing as he has renounced leap-frog and walking on stilts. Only a woman (for women are quite devoid of aesthetic feeling) could survive so damning ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... with courtly grace stretched out his hand to the conquered youth, saying, "Thank the noble lady of Montfaucon for your life and liberty. But if you are so totally devoid of all goodness as to wish to resume the combat, here am I; let it be ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... Harold's face, and he saw the man start. He had not forgotten the name. Just for an instant his face was stark pale and devoid of expression. "Virginia!" he cried. "My God, what do ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... may be as devoid of reality as words, and most minds require something external to quicken thought and fill up the emptiness of their silences. So we have symbols, whose doctrine is here most eloquently expounded. Man is not ruled ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... years: but at fifty, alas! or still later, where would he be? From the great Sabbath where thronged the people of far villages, he would be bringing home a strange woman for his youthful mistress, a woman hard, heartless, devoid of ruth, who would rob her of her son, her seat by the fire, her bed, of the very house which she herself ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... instinctive effort of the poet's inspiration to soar above the limitations of time and to liberate itself from the transient accretions of a living, and therefore constantly changing, mode of speech. He strove after an enfranchisement of utterance, devoid of stratifying peculiarities, assignable to no age or epoch, and understood of all. A soul-shaking thought, prevalent throughout Christendom, was felt imaginatively by a highly endowed poet, and, like impetuous volcanic fires that fling heavenward mighty fragments and ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson

... that if any proof can be produced of the crimes which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability, than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel, which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful enjoyments, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... must see him," she said, as the door closed, "and, not being entirely devoid of curiosity, I can't help feeling awfully glad to think that now ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... at bottom. But he 's English, and he lives in the country. So, a true English country gentleman, he has perhaps an exaggerated passion for the pleasures of the chase—and when questions touching them arise, seems simply to be devoid of the ethical sense. He 's not a whit worse than his human neighbours—and he 's a hundred times handsomer ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... clearing, there was no doubt about that; soon it would be quite gone, but it would be a very dark night, the stars would hardly show, and the moon was now long down. He was not at all sure of being able to find his way across this undulating country, so entirely devoid of prominent features, in a very dark night. Rather he was nearly sure that he could not do it; and though he had a by no means low opinion of Julia's abilities, he did not think that she could either. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... no task before us but to follow General Lee into private life, and present a few details of his latter years, and his death. These notices will be brief, but will not, we hope, be devoid of interest. The soldier who had so long led the Confederate armies was to enter in his latter days upon a new field of labor; and, if in this field he won no new glories, he at least displayed the loftiest virtues, and exhibited that rare combination of greatness and gentleness which makes up ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... Jupiter slew Caecius, and the cows are recovered. The language of the myth is so significant, that the Hindu commentators of the Veda have themselves given explanations of it similar to those proposed by modern philologists. To them the legend never became devoid of sense, as the myth of Geryon appeared to Greek scholars like ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... continued my course straight for Perth, travelling in a south by east direction. The next two and a half miles led us to the top of a low range. The whole tract of country between this point and the river was arid and barren in the extreme, being devoid of all vegetation but a stunted prickly scrub, and on it we saw no signs either of animal life or water. We here for the first time since quitting Moresby's Flat-topped Range saw that the one to the east of us became well wooded, the interval ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... the kitten cuddled between them, they rapidly made each other's acquaintance, and soon became good friends. They were not at all alike, for Stella Martin was a thin, pale child with a long braid of straight, light hair, and light blue eyes. She was timid, too, and absolutely devoid of Marjorie's impetuosity and daring. But they were both pleased at the discovery that they were to be near neighbors throughout the summer. Stella's home was next-door to Grandma Sherwood's, although, as both country places were ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... his funds in the new town. He was a prudent man, and when the proposal was made him by the two proprietors to join them in the enterprise, he was disinclined to do so. They were irreligious men, stirring, energetic workers, but devoid of interest in "things unseen," and therefore could not be expected to care for the present and future moral condition of the settlement. Yet we should do them the justice to say that they were not indifferent to the religious welfare of their village, only that, not being ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... for their use. The reader must bear in mind, however, that it is upon the tasteful use of phrases and cadences, that is, upon the tasteful employment of variation in radical pitch, that the melody of uttered language depends; and that if it be devoid of this melody, it is both wearisome and unimpressive to ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... said Lingard, without looking at him, "when I come to see Lakamba, or any of Lakamba's servants, I am never hungry and never thirsty. Tau! Savee! Never! Do you think I am devoid of reason? ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... our dear governor; upon no special mental train did he go careering through life. Eminently he preferred the parliamentary pace: and I am bound to say the life-journey so performed was beautiful exceedingly, with waits not devoid of interest at little stations utterly outside his profession, with kindly talk to little children, and timid women, and feeble men; with a pleasant smile for most with whom he came in contact, and time for words of kindly advice which did not fall perpetually ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... graceful young woman. Her face, of a fine oval shape, was devoid of ruddy hues; yet it was more white than pale; the clear dark grey eyes shining with health, and the mouth being red and beautiful. The hair was dark, abundant, and devoid of gloss, and she had the advantage of a graceful and cordial manner, and a ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... at Newport, and not be able to afford the wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home circle for the sake of fine clothes to be shown abroad; ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... and, as he watched him replacing the chain, he saw that he wore a peculiar black gown like a priest's cassock reaching to the feet. It was altogether a lugubrious figure of a man, sinister and funereal, yet it seemed in perfect harmony with the general character of its surroundings. The hall was devoid of furniture of any kind, and against the dingy walls stood rows of old picture frames, empty and disordered, and odd-looking bits of wood-work that appeared doubly fantastic as their shadows danced queerly over the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... devoid of beauty. No attempt at decoration has been made. It seems a shapeless pile of towers and machicolated and battlemented curtains, falling into almost complete ruin. But on passing through the single entrance, one finds ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... there was a general stir and a cessation of chatter, I remember throwing a scornful glance at him, as also that he began his discourse with a sentence which I thought devoid of meaning. I had expected the lecture to be, from first to last, so clever that not a word ought to be taken from or added to it. Disappointed in this, I at once proceeded to draw beneath the heading "First Lecture" with which I had adorned my beautifully-bound notebook no less ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... remarks by stating that I regard you as a lovable fat-head devoid of sufficient mental energy to pound the proverbial sand into the proverbial rat-hole. Now, then, what do you want me to do to save ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... the poet—had as yet denied him, in love, the "baptism of sorrow" which has wrung immortal verse from the lips of frailer men. It may even be questioned whether all Browning's poetry of love's tragedy will live as long as a few stanzas of Musset's Nuits,—bare, unadorned verses, devoid of fancy or wit, but intense and ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... was the same with architecture, for it was necessary to build, and as form and good methods were lost by the death of good artists and the destruction of good buildings, those who devoted themselves to this profession built erections devoid of order or measure, and totally deficient in grace, proportion or principle. Then new architects arose who created that style of building, for their barbarous nations, which we call German, and produced some works which are ridiculous to our modern eyes, but appeared ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... being blind and insensible, or for having too little penetration and understanding to perceive the force of those natural proofs on which the existence of the Deity has been founded. A God full of equity cannot punish men for having been blind or devoid of reason. The Freethinkers, as foolish as they are supposed, are beings less insensible than those who make professions of believing in a God full of qualities that destroy one another; they are less ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... enjoyed life to its very dregs. He gives dinners, plays at dice, he keeps women, but his heart remains cold and empty, he disbelieves in love, and only cares for absolute freedom in all his actions, but withal his life seems shallow and devoid of interest. Every month he engages a new female slave, with whom he idles away his days, but at the end of this time she is discarded. His antipathy for love partly arises from the knowledge of his ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... commenced, and was carried on in such a manner as to shock the feelings of any one not entirely devoid of the milk of ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... my experiment is easily explained. The Cetonia-larva is alive in every sense. True, I have, by means of bonds, suppressed its outward movements, in order to provide the nurseling with a quiet meal, devoid of danger; but it was not in my power to subdue its internal movements, the quivering of the viscera and muscles irritated by its forced immobility and by the Scolia's bites. The victim is in possession of its full power of sensation; and it expresses the pain experienced as best ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... short laugh failed to hide his annoyance. "You will find nothing in this direction," said he, "to account for the condition I have mentioned to you. Mrs. Packard is utterly devoid of superstition. That I made sure of before signing the lease of this old house. But I forgot; you are doubtless ignorant of its reputation. It has, or rather has had, the name of being haunted. Ridiculous, of course, but a fact with which Mrs. Packard has had to contend ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... appeared to be insolent, as well as narrow-minded. For if you came to that, why might not men, as well as women, be divided into the same three classes, and be pronounced upon by women, as beings even more devoid than their gentle judges of reason? Moreover, I knew, both from my own sense, and from the greatest of all great poets, that there are, and always have been, plenty of women, good, and gentle, warm-hearted, loving, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... though the proud should pass thee by, And curl their haughty lips with scorn; Like thee, they soon must droop and die, For all of woman born, Are journeying to a shadowy land, Where each devoid of pride must stand, By hovering wings of angels' fanned; There sorrow can assail thee never— Hope ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... the Young Fogey, "Plato was a great thinker. In truth, the only incorrigible rogue is he who is devoid of ideals, who has allowed his ethical nature to disintegrate. Such a one ceases to be a person. He has lost the integrating factor—the moral—which binds human personality together. He is a mere aggregation of random impulses. The last stage of moral decay is ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... the habit of saying. The older and more solid things,—articles of household stuff that stand the wear of half a century,—had been in the Small House when they came to it. There was, therefore, a question of buying new furniture for a house in Guestwick,—a question not devoid of importance to the possessor of so moderate an income as that owned by Mrs Dale. In the first month or two they were to live in lodgings, and their goods were to be stored in some friendly warehouse. Under such ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... are minute vegetable organisms devoid of chlorophyll and multiplying by repeated bipartitions. They consist of single cells, which may be spherical, oblong or cylindrical in shape, or of filamentous or other aggregates of cells. They ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... God, but the very contrary. Nor is it any consolation to be told that this totality, though not personal, is "super-personal." Such a super-personal Absolute or Whole, to quote Dr. Ballard's penetrating criticism, "is devoid of just those elements which for human experience constitute personality. To our power of vision it matters nothing whether we say that the ultra-violet rays of the spectrum are super-visible or invisible. The pertinent truth is that they are not visible. So, too, that which ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... was harassed by burdensome debts. He was a gambler, too, and, of course, devoid of moral principle. His object was to pay his debts with ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... which alone in ordinary cases at least the poet had to make his choice, further favoured a stock-model treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical element in the older comedy—the chorus—and confined itself from the first to conversation, or at most recitation; it was devoid not of the political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical elevation. The pieces judiciously made no pretence to any grand or really poetical effect: their charm resided primarily in furnishing occupation for the intellect, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... was not so devoid of common sense as to give credit to what the priests said, though they affirmed in the most solemn manner the truth of their assertions. He, however, sent twelve very learned and sensible gentlemen into the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... that the upper classes of impersonal France practise this method of marital selection, their conseils de famille furnishing in some sort a parallel. But, as is well known, matrimony among these same upper classes is largely form devoid of substance. It begins impressively with a dual ceremony, the civil contract, which amounts to a contract of civility between the parties, and a religious rite to render the same perpetual, and there it is ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... importance to life, require an early initiation. Collegiate education, with its preference for the classic languages, Greek and Latin, looks upon the natural sciences as subordinate and neglects them. Hence, the students are frequently devoid of the necessary and preparatory knowledge in natural science that are of decided importance in certain studies, medicine, for instance. Against such a one-sided system of education opposition begins to spring up even in the circles ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... out by these debates. Consult yourselves in the calm and stillness of your souls. If it is not proved to you that Helene Jegado is responsible for her actions you will acquit her. If you think that, without being devoid of free will and moral sense, she is not, according to the evidence, as well gifted as the average in humanity, you will give her the benefit ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... have said, was stern and uncompromising, but his nature was not entirely devoid of feeling, and as he heard the brave admission, his eye lighted up with ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... of the great Emperor was unreserved in everything but expression. Like the religion of earnest men, it was too profound a sentiment to be displayed before a world of little faith. Apart from that he seemed as completely devoid of military anecdotes as though he had hardly ever seen a soldier in his life. Proud of his decorations earned before he was twenty-five, he refused to wear the ribbons at the buttonhole in the manner practised to this day in Europe and even was unwilling to display ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... course of my judicial duties, onerous and often painful as they are and have been, I must say that, although it has fallen to my lot to pronounce the awful sentence of death upon many an unfeeling felon, I am bound to say that a public malefactor so utterly devoid of all the feelings which belong to man, and so strongly impregnated with those of the savage animal as you are, has never stood in a dock before me, nor probably before any other judge, living or dead. Would it be ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... provided the other desirable qualities are equal. Those who attempt to cultivate mushrooms, and depend on commercial or manufactured spawn, should see to it that the spawn purchased possesses these desirable qualities of texture, and the presence of an abundance of the mycelium. That which appears devoid of an abundance of mycelium should be rejected, and good spawn should be called for. There is no more reason why a grower should accept a worthless spawn from his seedsman than that he should accept "addled" eggs from his grocer. In this business, ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... Set-on low; short, 10 TAIL: Set-on low, short, fine and tapering; fine and tapering, straight or screw; devoid of fringe or devoid of fringe or coarse hair, and not coarse hair, and not carried above ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell

... not make room, he had with some tact taken a chair at the far end of the table and vis-a-vis with his host, protesting that he chose it as the better vantage-ground for delivering a small speech. His speech, too, had been neat, happy in phrase, and not devoid of good feeling. Having delivered it, he had slipped away early, on an excuse ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... therefore, without such sympathy? Powerless, amoral desolation! We read in God's Word, of men losing natural affection, and of mothers forgetting their sucking children. But these were worse than brutes. What shall we then say of Christian parents being devoid of spiritual sympathy,—shedding no tear of anguish over their moral ruin, nor showing the least concern about their salvation? Such parents do not rejoice even over the return of their children to God. They are a disgrace ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... something mysterious or occult. He uses much psychotherapy himself but it is nearly always applied unconsciously and indirectly through some form of physical or chemical therapy that he believes will cure. He is usually quite devoid of insight into the effect of his own expressed beliefs and bodily attitudes upon the adjusting mechanisms of his patients. Conscious and direct psychotherapy is left by the average practitioner to New ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... the pose and structure of the natural body, a delicate tact in the definition of muscle and articulation, an acute feeling for the qualities of flesh and texture. None of the creations of this period, moreover, are devoid of intense ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... the governorship, was a man of harsher temperament. But although his anxiety for the loyalty of the French province was much increased by the intrigues of revolutionary agents, he soon perceived their plans to be fatuous and their enterprise devoid of importance. While the forward spirits in Quebec were leavening the mass of the habitants with specious reports of a French fleet ready to co-operate with them, a force composed for the most part of ill-disposed Americans was to percolate into Canada from Vermont. This so-called fleet ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... filth, where gorged buzzards, reeking of the tomb, flapped upward under his nose from the garbage and offal of their feast. Simpson paused for a moment at the market-stalls, where negroes of all shades looked out at him in a silence that seemed devoid of curiosity. The cripple beckoned him and he hurried on. On the steps of the cathedral he saw Father Antoine, but, although the priest must have seen him, he gave no sign as he passed. He kept to what shade there was. Presently his guide turned down ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... has long been applied to the territory of Mexico. Dr. E. Seler, of Berlin, published an article asserting that this was an error, and devoid of native authority. In (43) I pointed out that in this he was wrong, as early Nahuatl records use ...
— A Record of Study in Aboriginal American Languages • Daniel G. Brinton

... which in 1787 framed the Federal Constitution, despite its firmness and patriotism, was, like all public bodies, evidently not entirely devoid of a spirit of compromise. A majority of its members were desirous of freeing the institutions of the young nation from the burden of slavery, and yet they consented to engraft the following provision upon the body of our ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... room, turned and paced back and forth again some half-dozen times, before he emerged from the chapel door. In her present humour she did not want him, yet she resented his abstraction. The physician of the soul, like the physician of the body, appeared to her lamentably devoid of power to sustain and give comfort at the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... point, so fundamental in his thought, Bergson turns to music. "Let us listen," he says, "to a melody, letting ourselves be swayed by it; do we not have the clear perception of a movement which is not attached to any mobility—of a change devoid of anything which changes? The change is self-sufficient, it is the thing itself. It avails nothing to say that it takes time, for it is indivisible; if the melody were to stop sooner, it would not be any longer ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... bright sneering Invective against Women, have been put down to him on no other ground than that they cannot be traced to a different source. He might have been the author of the graceful Praise of his Sacred Diana. He might have sighed for a land devoid of envy, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... at her. In his egotism he had not thought of his timid little wife, whom all this might well have made ill; but that he was not devoid of regard for her Sarah ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... second and much larger chamber ten marble sarcophagi were discovered, precious as works of art, but devoid of historical interest, because no name is engraved upon them. Perhaps the experience of their ancestors warned the Calpurnii of later generations not to tempt obnoxious fate again, but to adhere to obscurity and retirement, even ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... young men back, and to stop the holes by which they might slip through to the front. I've heard my father say so a score of times. He had the largest practice in Scotland, and yet he was absolutely devoid of brains. He slipped into it through seniority and decorum. No pushing, but take your turn. Very well, laddie, when you're at the top of the line, but how about it when you've just taken your place at the tail? When I'm on the top rung I shall look down and say, 'Now, you youngsters, we are going ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... cells, created in immense numbers, decay almost as rapidly as they are produced because the abnormal growths are devoid of normal organization. They have no established, regular blood and nerve supply, nor are they provided with adequate venous drainage. They are, therefore, cut off from the orderly life of the organism and doomed to ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... regard plants as devoid of the power to conduct true excitation. Dr. Bose had already shown that this view was incorrect. He now showed, by experiment, that the response of the isolated vegetal nerve is indistinguishable from that of animal nerve, throughout a large series ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... its accomplishment.... With regard to the rank which Daniel's prayer occupied among the various means or agencies that were to be employed in bringing about the object of it, he had good reason to believe that it was neither without a definite place, nor in itself devoid of efficacy.... He had been honored to vindicate the power and assert the supremacy of the Lord God of Israel; by the wisdom of his counsels and the weight of his personal character, he had paved the way for that decision ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... virtue, he stood fast by that which he knew to be just; free from illusions; never dejected by the apprehension of the difficulties and perils that went before him, and drawing the promise of success from the justice of his cause. Hence he was persevering, leaving nothing unfinished; devoid of all taint of obstinacy in his firmness; seeking and gladly receiving advice, but immovable ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... capable of realizing them. Evidently she had no inconsiderable pleasure in display; but she made on the whole a very good wife, only one to be protected by him from every care, and not one to share Scott's deeper anxieties, or to participate in his dreams. Yet Mrs. Scott was not devoid of spirit and self-control. For instance, when Mr. Jeffrey, having reviewed Marmion in the Edinburgh in that depreciating and omniscient tone which was then considered the evidence of critical acumen, dined with Scott on the very day on which the review ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... her thoughts are gone, She nothing sees—no sight but one! The maid, devoid of guile and sin, I know not how, in fearful wise, So deeply had she drunken in That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, That all her features were resigned To this sole image in her mind: And passively did imitate That look of dull and ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford



Words linked to "Devoid" :   nonexistent, free, barren, destitute



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