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Engaged   /ɛngˈeɪdʒd/   Listen
Engaged

adjective
1.
Having ones attention or mind or energy engaged.  Synonym: occupied.  "Deeply engaged in conversation"
2.
Involved in military hostilities.
3.
Reserved in advance.  Synonyms: booked, set-aside.
4.
(of facilities such as telephones or lavatories) unavailable for use by anyone else or indicating unavailability; ('engaged' is a British term for a busy telephone line).  Synonyms: busy, in use.  "Receptionists' telephones are always engaged" , "The lavatory is in use" , "Kept getting a busy signal"
5.
(used of toothed parts or gears) interlocked and interacting.  Synonyms: intermeshed, meshed.  "Meshed gears" , "Intermeshed twin rotors"
6.
Having services contracted for.
7.
Built against or attached to a wall.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Engaged" Quotes from Famous Books



... her son with hundreds of other young men whom she saw around her, steadily, and no doubt happily, engaged in the process of transforming themselves from nice boys into useful citizens. Most of them had occupations, or were industriously engaged in qualifying for such; in their leisure moments they smoked reasonably-priced cigarettes, went ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... so calm that a stranger would have thought him engaged with routine business. Many of the sheets he simply lifted, glanced at, laid down again. They did not seem to interest. So through half the roll, but the outlaw, watching patiently, at last saw he eyebrows of the son of Neocles pressing ever closer,—sign that the inscrutable brain ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... permitting the willing horse to do all the work. The lover can moon and rhapsodise at a safe distance, and it makes not a pennyworth of difference to him whether the mistress moons and rhapsodises also, or whether she is engaged in a flirtation through another telepathic line, or whether she has a score of different lines converging ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... necessary to observe, that the accounts we have of the inhabitants of Guinea, are chiefly given by persons engaged in the trade, who, from self-interested views, have described them in such colours as were least likely to excite compassion and respect, and endeavoured to reconcile so manifest a violation of the rights of mankind to the minds of the purchasers; yet they cannot but allow the Negroes to be possessed ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet

... be reported. All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... for the mouth of the Mississippi, where, and at the head of the passes, the rest of the fleet was assembled, and Flag-Officer Farragut busily engaged in completing the preparations for the attack ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various

... Andrew glanced at his card. There were two dances for which he was still engaged, and he made his way slowly back to the ballroom. There was a slight block at the entrance, and he had to stand aside to let several couples pass out. One of the last of these was Jeanne, on the arm of young Bellamy Smith. Andrew stood ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... to; show; put a mark &c. (sign) 550 upon; call soldiers to " attention "; bring forward &c. (make manifest) 525. Adj. attentive, mindful, observant, regardful; alive to, awake to; observing &c. v.; alert, open-eyed; intent on, taken up with, occupied with, engaged in; engrossed in, wrapped in, absorbed, rapt, transfixed, riveted, mesmerized, hypnotized; glued to (the TV); breathless; preoccupied &c. (inattentive) 458; watchful &c. (careful) 459;. breathless, undistracted, upon the stretch; on the watch &c. (expectant) 507. steadfast. [compelling ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... I was still young, had a very good effect in strengthening my resolution to do nothing which could get me into trouble. The janitor of the college to which I went directed me to a boarding-house, where I engaged a small third-story room, which I afterwards shared with Mr. Chaucer of Georgia. He pronounced it, as ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell

... enthusiasm, so different from the present, France could find men of war and men of science wherever and whenever she had need of them. Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire was twenty-one years old, and was engaged in the study of mineralogy under Hauey. Daubenton said to him, 'I will undertake the responsibility for your inexperience. I have a father's authority over you. Take this professorship, and let us ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... whinings, meanings, screeches, clangings of pails and rattlings of chains, were heard, whilst something, no one could ever see distinctly, but which they all felt to be indescribably nasty, rushed up the cellar steps and flew past, as if engaged in a desperate chase. Indeed, the disturbances were of so constant and harrowing a nature, that the wing had to be vacated and was eventually ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... last is a great happening that we have seen with our own eyes!" they told each other, as they settled down at a safe distance to watch Leif and the merchant turning over the bales of goods which the sailors were engaged in bringing to shore. "This will be something to relate in time to come,—a great event ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... Britain, for example, alone;—and was able to reduce the army, before he died, to a mere handful of 140,000 men.—Varus and his lost legions? Well; there is something to be said about that. Augustus was old, and the generals of the imperial family, who knew their business, were engaged elsewhere. And Germany was being governed by a good amiable soul by the name of Quintilius Varus, who persisted in treating the Germans as if they had been civilized Italians. And there was a young Cheruscan who had become a Roman citizen, spoke Latin fluently, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... all have a greater or less economic or commercial value. The 26 varieties needed to complete the collection will arrive before winter sets in, a number of specimens being now on their way to this city from the groves of California. Mr. S. D. Dill and a number of assistants are engaged in preparing the specimens for exhibition. The logs as they reach the workroom are wrapped in bagging and inclosed in cases, this method being used so that the bark, with its growth of lichens and delicate ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... the work; consequently at half-past ten a.m. they ceased firing, one of their magazines also having blown up, and killed or wounded 100 men. This undoubtedly was one of the main causes of the failure of the attempt. The fleets at the mouth of the harbour were warmly engaged, and suffered considerably. ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... we were well protected, and the question came uppermost in my mind whether it was not time to retaliate with a charge of shot upon the cowardly assailants, who had attacked us when we were so peacefully engaged. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... never seen a male, collarless, bellowing about the house for his laundry. She had never beheld that soul-searing sight—a man in his trousers and shirt, his suspenders dangling, his face lathered, engaged in the unbecoming ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... silenced by the Brooklyn and the Texas. Estrella Fort was soon on fire; the Catalina battery gave up the struggle in less than an hour, and the Vixen and Suwanee engaged with some light inshore works, speedily reducing them to ruins. Until nine o'clock the bombardment continued without interruption, and then the American fire ceased until the ships could be turned, in order that their port batteries might be brought ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... fact, with sixteen Gods to entertain, was a single cock—an old bird afflicted with catarrh—and half a dozen grains of frankincense; these were all mildewed, so that they at once fizzled out on the embers, hardly giving enough smoke to tickle the olfactories. Engaged in these thoughts I reached the Poecile, and there found a great crowd gathered; there were some inside the Portico, a large number outside, and a few seated on the benches vociferating as loud as they could. Guessing correctly that these were ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... sacrifice of the October horse, as it was called, carries us back to the early days when the Subura, afterwards a low and squalid quarter of the great metropolis, was still a separate village, whose inhabitants engaged in a friendly contest on the harvest-field with their neighbours of Rome, then a little rural town. The Field of Mars on which the ceremony took place lay beside the Tiber, and formed part of the king's domain down to the abolition of the monarchy. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... a solution of the problem which I obtained came a week or two later. Sebastian was engaged in observing a case where certain unusual symptoms had suddenly supervened. It was a case of some obscure affection of the heart. I will not trouble you here with the particular details. We all suspected a tendency to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... greatly stimulated by the decline in character and influence of the Jesuit schools. Unwilling to change their instruction to meet the needs of a changing society, their schools had become formal in character (R. 146), and were now engaged chiefly in stilling thinking rather than in promoting it. In consequence the schools had fallen into disrepute throughout all France. The Society, too, in the eighteenth century, came to be a powerful political organization which strove to dominate ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... the assertion of the Franciscans, and I heard the governor of the province where they were cut, which is Lacuna de Bay, say that to haul them seven leagues over very broken mountains 6,000 natives were engaged three months, without furnishing them food, which the wretched native had ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal

... and friendship shall, from henceforth, take place and subsist between the contracting parties aforesaid, through all succeeding generations: and if either of the parties are engaged in a just and necessary war, with any other nation or nations, that then each shall assist the other, in due proportion to their abilities, till their enemies are brought to reasonable terms of ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall

... like an act of insanity; and, therefore, I will turn the matter over on his hands, deliver him the letter, receive what they list to give me by way of guerdon, and then show the Castle of Kenilworth a pair of light heels; for, after the work I have been engaged in, it will be, I fear, neither a safe nor wholesome place of residence, and I would rather shoe colts an the coldest common in England than ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... science can only be welcome in so far as it fits in with the petty scale upon which their theologies and theosophies have constructed the universe. At first, everything is passionately denied, a cry of horror goes up in the land that science is engaged in an attempt to dethrone the God of their theology. And then a few years elapse, and for very shame's sake they set about explaining how that the "God of knowledge" [1] has much in common with their theosophical Deity, and that by a dexterous manipulation of infallible texts and articles ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... disposed of as Secretary of State. He left a splendid record. I made it a point to keep in constant touch with him by visiting at his office frequently, and he always talked with me frankly and freely concerning the important negotiations in which he was engaged. The only criticism I have to make of him as Secretary of State is, that he was disposed, wherever he could possibly do so, to make international agreements and settle differences without consulting the Senate. And, in addition, I never could induce him to come before the Committee ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... later each member of the ranch party was busily engaged in doing "just as she liked." Mrs. Clyde, deep in a book, sat under the fragrant magnolia; Kitty reclined on a Navajo blanket near her, lazily watching the gay-plumaged birds that made the tree a rendezvous. From the open windows of the living-room ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... best endowed University has, like Oxford, lately engaged in the erection of a Museum, which, though more limited in its general object, has yet a scope of such large and generous proportion as to make it a work of even more than national interest. It is undertaken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... his vessel sighted a large merchantman, off the coast of Spain, and engaged it in a terrible conflict. The merchantman carried twice as many people and heavier guns than the Sea Rover; but by the skilful management of his ship Captain Lane continued to rake her fore and aft until she was forced to strike her colors. When the conqueror went aboard, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... kindly to the sperm whale fishery as the hardy "down Easters," who first taught them the business; carried it on with increasing success, in spite of their competition and the depredations of the ALABAMA; flourished long after the English fishery was dead; and even now muster a fleet of ships engaged in the same bold and hazardous calling. Therefore, it is the more pleasant to me to be able to chronicle some of the doings of Captain Gilroy, familiarly known as "Paddy," the master of the CHANCE, who was unsurpassed as a whale-fisher or a seaman ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... a rather pitiable attempt at dignity, 'I can permit no one to call me by my Christian name who speaks ill of the man to whom I am engaged!' ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald

... number about 5,000. They are mostly pedlars by profession, or engaged in making silk thread (Abreesham Kar, Charkhtabee, etc.). There are a few merchants of comparative influence. Jewellers and traders in precious stones, brokers and wine-sellers are frequent, but the majority consists almost entirely ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... its fruits and frank of its streams, after turning the stallions loose to pasture: then they sat talking and recalling their past and all that had befallen them and complaining one to other of the pangs of parting and of the hardships suffered for estrangement and love-longing. As they were thus engaged, behold, there arose in the distance a dust-cloud which spread till it walled the world, and they heard the neighing of horses and clank of arms and armour. Now the reason of this was, that after the Princess had been bestowed in wedlock upon ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... 16th the reindeer-Chukch Yettugin came on board, and, talking of the collection of whale-bones in which we had been engaged some days before, informed us that there was a mammoth bone at his tent, and that a mammoth tusk stuck out at a place where the spring floods had cut into the bank of a river which flows from Table Mount to Riraitinop, I therefore ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... the community is a big wholesome family and the school is the shrine about which they assemble for educational and cultural communion. It is quite a common practice for mothers to sit in the classrooms engaged in knitting or sewing while their children are busy with their lessons. For, in their conception of life, geography and sewing are cooerdinate elements, and so blend in perfect harmony in the school regime. At the luncheon period these mothers go to the ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... to be really Christ's means also to be a Christ; that to be His, one must seek for the lost sheep for whom He died. And so Rhoda—I call her Rhoda, though that was not her name—when she found to what sort of people she had, in her ignorance of the great city, engaged herself, had set to work to seek ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... themselves, and Sheffield was pouring out coffee, and a plate of muffins was going round, and Bateman was engaged, saucepan in hand, in the operation of landing his eggs, now boiled, upon the table, when our flighty youth, whose name was White, observed how beautiful the Catholic custom was of making eggs the emblem of the Easter-festival. "It is truly Catholic," ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... have heard is, that Count Nobili is engaged to marry the Marchesa Guinigi's little niece. Dear little thing, they say—like an English ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... similarly engaged, "all I know is that she has added him to her collection of ghosts. It's not an over-braw company for a ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... resistance against the foremost troops of Murat; but as the army closely followed the latter, every moment gave increased energy to the attack, and diminished that of the defence; presently the advanced-guard of the viceroy engaged on the right of the Russians, where a charge by the Italian chasseurs was withstood for a moment by the cossacks, which excited ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... and he dared not spoil his opportunity to learn something really worth while by seeming to spy about. He was rewarded before long for his patience, for just as he was beginning to despair, an officer spied him in a moment when he was not actively engaged ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... and the labors of the intellect, is there swayed by no impulse but the pursuit of wealth. Not only are manufacturing and commercial classes to be found in the United States, as they are in all other countries; but what never occurred elsewhere, the whole community is simultaneously engaged in productive industry and commerce. I am convinced that, if the Americans had been alone in the world, with the freedom and the knowledge acquired by their forefathers, and the passions which are their own, they would not have been slow to discover that progress cannot long be made ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... spent his money lavishly, and had squandered two or three fortunes in wild business ventures in the Indian Seas instead of saving one. Latterly, however, he had been more careful, and when Corwell had made his acquaintance he had two vessels—a barque and a brig—both of which were very profitably engaged in the Manila-China trade, and he was now sanguine or ...
— John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish - 1901 • Louis Becke

... official, but so unreliable in the matter of honesty as to be nearly reliable to swindle any employer. Lagos turns out a large quantity of educated natives, but owing to the growing prosperity of the colony, these are nearly all engaged in ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... Peter had been tranquilly engaged to Gooch for years untold. They were to be transformed into Mr. and Mrs. Robson, with some small appointment about the Law Courts for him, and a lodging-house for her, where Clarence was to abide, my mother feeling secure that neither his health, his morals, nor his ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was quite uncalled for. It is remarkable, however, how much may be done by mere action and intonation to impress the listener with the idea that the speaker must be a person of uncommon intelligence. But when half a dozen such talkers are engaged in discussion upon some trivial topic, and each employs the same means to enforce his views upon the rest (this occurs nightly in the cafes at Cahors), the Northerner is inclined to think that they are all mad. The wiry old man explained to me, in order to account for the ease ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... confidence into Fortemani and Valentina, so, too, did it breathe it into Fortemani's wretched followers. They grew zestful in the reflection of his zest, and out of admiration for him they came to admire the business on which they were engaged, and, finally, to take a pride in the part he assigned to each of them. Within an hour there was such diligent bustle in Roccaleone, such an air of grim gaiety and high spirits, that Valentina, observing it, wondered what manner ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... oiling, or greasing. The rite of extreme unction consists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts of the body of one engaged in dying. Marbury relates that after the rite had been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it was discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no other could be obtained. When informed of this the sick man said in anger: "Then ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... says, "think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and affection, and freedom, and justice" (ii. 5); and again, "Let the Deity which is in thee be the guardian of a living being, manly and of ripe age, and engaged in matters political, and a Roman, and a ruler, who has taken his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life" (iii. 5). But he did not think it necessary to accept the fulsome honours ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... interest mainly from their bearing upon his practical application of the Malthusian problem. His interest in the problem of pauperism had been stimulated by his residence in Glasgow, where from 1815 to 1823 he had been actively engaged in parochial duties. In 1819 he had set up an organised system of charity in a poor district, which both reduced the expenditure and improved the condition of the poor. The experiment, though dropped some years later, became famous, and in later years Chalmers successfully started a similar ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... to its foundations by the news of the attempted arrest, and Donna Tullia found some slight compensation in becoming for a time the centre of interest. She felt, indeed, great anxiety for the man she was engaged to marry; but for the first time in her life she felt also that she was living in an element of real romance, of which she had long dreamed, but of which she had never found the smallest realisation. Society saw, and speculated, and gossiped, ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... character, he had sent her a small volume, which he described as the fruits of his leisure and which was as a matter of fact rather carefully finished verse. It dealt with fine aspects of Mr. Manning's feelings, and as Ann Veronica's mind was still largely engaged with fundamentals and found no pleasure in metrical forms, she had not as yet cut its pages. So that as she saw him she remarked to herself very faintly but definitely, "Oh, golly!" and set up a campaign of avoidance that Mr. Manning at last broke down by coming directly ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... moments had fallen upon their talk, and Adeline—who decidedly had improved—appeared also to feel the charm of it, not to wish to break it. Basil Ransom was conscious of all this, and at the same time he was vaguely engaged in a speculation. If it gave one time, if it gave one leisure, was not that in itself a high motive? Thorough study of the question he cared for most—was not the chance for that an infinitely ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... that you and Mother don't like the idea. Fleur says that Mother was engaged to her father before you married her. Of course I don't know what happened, but it must be ages ago. I'm devoted to her, Dad, and she says ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... this: Mr. Edward Cossey is engaged to Miss de la Molle. He has just been here to obtain my consent, which, of course, I have not withheld, as I know nothing against the young man—nothing at all. The only stipulation that he made is, ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard

... the drama of the Greeks, is to give a vast impression of bustle, of people who, like most people in real life, are in a hurry about things; and our actors, when they are not making irrelevant speeches, are engaged in frantically trying to make us see that they are feeling acute emotion, by I know not what restlessness, contortion, and ineffectual excitement. If it were once realised how infinitely more important are the ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... but his wife saw at once that it was with an effort that he did so. She put down the work upon which she was engaged, and moved her chair nearer to his by the fire. "It is a serious question, Frank, about the boys. Charley is fifteen now, and Hubert fourteen. I wonder myself sometimes what we shall ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... be the meaning of "Dissertatio de Bibliothecarum ac Librorum Fatis, imprimis libris comestis." This is nearly as tantalising as the wooden-legged Britisher's explanation to the inquisitive Yankee, who solemnly engaged to ask not another question were he told how that leg was lost, and was accordingly told that ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... some six months later; I have forgotten precisely in what locality, though I have a faint impression that his then habitat was some canon or ravine, deriving its name from certain osseous deposits. Here he had engaged in the business of gold-mining, without, perhaps, sufficient grounds for any confident hope of ultimate success. I have his I.O.U. for the amount of my fee for assaying several specimens from his claim, said ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various

... To have regular hours, to attend to the details of a traffic that was to the last degree prosaic, in short, to settle down to hard work, was a very different thing from the "business" about which Jack and his fellows at the club used to talk so much, and to fancy they were engaged in. When the news came to the Union that Delancy had gone into the house of Fletcher & Co. as a clerk, there was a general smile, and a languid curiosity expressed as to how long ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... seat that was indicated by him. Then, O monarch, that foremost of virtuous men, viz., Tanu, began to discourse in the midst of the Rishis dwelling in that asylum upon topics connected with Righteousness and Profit. While engaged in discourse, a king, possessed of eyes like lotus petals and accompanied by his forces and the ladies of his household, came to that spot on a car drawn by fleet steeds. The name of that king was ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... declared, was Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae. George admitted he was not a sailor, but professed a willingness to learn, and looked so capable, as he squared his bulky shoulders and twisted his fine black mustache, that Cleggett engaged him, taking him immediately from the dairy lunch room in which he had been employed. George's idea was to work his way back to Greece, he said, on the Jasper B. If she did not sail for Greece for some time, George was willing to wait; he was patient; sometime, no doubt, she would touch ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... his escape from Bristol, as had been reported, and as had indeed been proposed; but the master of the vessel prepared for the King's passage had taken the alarm, and sailed without his royal freight. His departure, however, and the suspicion of the service in which he was engaged, served to make the belief general, that the King had gone off ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... consummated my first labour by a short preface, which is dated Feb. 3, 1759. Yet I still shrunk from the press with the terrors of virgin modesty: the manuscript was safely deposited in my desk; and as my attention was engaged by new objects, the delay might have been prolonged till I had fulfilled the precept of Horace, "nonumque prematur in annum." Father Sirmond, a learned jesuit, was still more rigid, since he advised a young friend to expect the mature age of fifty, before he gave himself or his ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... tenfold more business than the cost of the original outlay. These commercial agents travel through all sections of the country to solicit business; they call upon those who can give them orders; they look up those who are engaged in similar businesses to their own, and, if they are retailers, they invite their orders, or ask them to become sub-agents. These gentlemen practically live on the trains: they eat, sleep, and do their business while travelling. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... to Ireland ought to thank God that so far few indeed, if any, of her children have ever joined in the plots and conspiracies of modern times, and that in this last scheme just referred to, not one of them, probably, has fully engaged himself. In the late horrors of the Paris Commune, no Irish name could be shown to have been implicated, and, when the contrary was asserted, a simple denial was sufficient to set the question at rest. Let them so continue to refrain from sullying their national honor by following ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... the rapturous Crowe, more cautious Cavalcasella [Footnote: I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real confidence in his judgment. But it was impossible for any man, engaged as he is, to go over all the ground covered by so extensive a piece of critical work as these three volumes contain, with effective attention.] appends a refrigerating note, saying, "The St. Francis ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... care in the world. If there had been a stranger in the carriage listening to us, he would, I think, have found it impossible to believe that I was Neil Lyndon, the much-wanted convict, and that Tommy and Joyce were engaged in the criminal pursuit of helping me avoid the police. No doubt, as I said before, the very danger and excitement of our position accounted to some extent for our high spirits, but in my case they were due even more to a natural reaction from the misery of the last three years. Ever since I had ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... of making her understand once for all that he would not forget the number, that he would never forget Gashwiler's address, that he had been coming to this studio too often to forget its location. But someone engaged her at the window, so he was obliged to go on without enlightening the woman. She ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... to France. But that frigate was ordered round to the Mediterranean; and as at that time the war was over, and the British cruisers called in, I could come any way. I then agreed to come with Commodore Barney in a vessel he had engaged. It was again fortunate I did not, for the vessel sank at sea, and the people were ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... engaged in issuing international guidelines for financial sector oversight have found gaps in Liechtenstein's financial services controls that make it vulnerable to ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... think you're very nice, Leslie Cloud, speaking in that way before my friends; but of course you don't understand; I'll have to tell you. Bart Laws and I are engaged, and we're going to a town down in the next State to get married. Bart has the license and the minister, and it's all arranged nicely. His aunt will be there for a chaperon. If you behave yourself and do as we tell you, the whole thing will go off quietly and no one will know ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... not find them retaining that ferocious character which they displayed in their own country; they shewed no hostility, nor even hostile recollection towards the whites. Unquestionably these natives assembled on the island were the same who had been engaged in the outrages I have spoken of; many of them, before they were removed, pointed out to me the spots where murders and other acts of violence had been committed; they made no secret of acknowledging their participation in such acts, and only considered them a just retaliation ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... now Evan had been engaged. The cashier, Phillips, told him he was going to be a good man for the firm. Phillips did not ask him where he had received his training: New Yorkers have no time for life-stories or autobiographies. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... well known, even in Europe, for their freebooting propensities. They lie between the Oulimad and the Azgher tribes surrounding Tuat, and are some of them engaged in commerce. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... of Lord Exmouth was written at the desire and under the eye of his eldest brother; in youth his second father, and through life his confidential friend. Every incident relating to points of service was supplied or corrected by officers personally engaged; and the whole was finally revised by four officers who were the most constantly and intimately acquainted with the Admiral—Mr. Gaze, master of the fleet in the Mediterranean and at Algiers, and who sailed with him in every ship from ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... The boy was engaged in building himself up, in accordance with invisible laws. He assumed an attitude toward his surroundings at all points, but he did not imitate them. The farm men, for instance, were not kind to the animals. They often lashed the horses only as a vent for ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... books with other worldly vanities. He offers excuses for the plain appearance of a volume of 'St. Augustine' which he was sending as a present. 'One must not,' said he, 'expect perfect manuscripts from scholars who are engaged on better things. A general does not sharpen the soldiers' swords. Apelles did not cut out his own boards, or Polycletus his sheets of ivory; some humble person always prepares the material on which a higher mind is to be engaged. So is it with books: some polish the parchment, ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... he found many young men of the leading Roman families— Bibulus, Messalla, Corvinus, the younger Cicero, and others—engaged in the same pursuits with himself, and he contracted among them many enduring friendships. In the political lull which ensued between the battle of Pharsalia (B.C. 48) and the death of Julius Caesar (B.C. 44), ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... freedom of the decks when I leave them on the perilous adventure of dinner! So this relish of hemp and tar must be a legacy from a far-off time—a dim atavism, to put it as hard as possible—for I seem to remember being told that my ancestors were once engaged in buccaneering or ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... Gray, Carpenter, Callender, and Duane himself, was a British subject. He was a hatter in his native land; but a turn for politics ruined his business and made expatriation convenient. In the United States, he had become the editor of the "American Citizen," and was at that time busily engaged in attacking the Federalists and Burr's "Little Band," for their supposed attempt to elect Mr. Burr in the place of Mr. Jefferson. To Cheetham, accordingly, Paine wrote, requesting him to engage lodgings at Lovett's, afterwards the City Hotel. He sent for Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... admiral, as if despising his adversary, engaged in siege of the fortified island of Lissa, near the Dalmatian coast, leaving the Austrians to do what they pleased. What they pleased was to attack him with a fury such as has been rarely seen. Early on July 20, 1866, when the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... of Dunbar. While the nobles and their followers, that crowd of bravi that the statutes against maintenance had vainly tried to suppress, strewed the fields of Wakefield, Towton, and Tewkesbury with their corpses, the real nation, the mass of the people, stood apart and was engaged in a far different occupation. It strove to enrich itself, and was advancing by degrees towards equality between citizens. A perusal of the innumerable documents of that epoch, which have been preserved ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... himself as a revolutionary and visionary leader. He used oil funds during the 1970s and 1980s to promote his ideology outside Libya, supporting subversives and terrorists abroad to hasten the end of Marxism and capitalism. In addition, beginning in 1973, he engaged in military operations in northern Chad's Aozou Strip - to gain access to minerals and to use as a base of influence in Chadian politics - but was forced to retreat in 1987. UN sanctions in 1992 isolated QADHAFI politically following ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... Petrarch, Mary Magdalen, Abelard, and, oftenest of all, Shelley, proclaimed mystic truths from my lips. They usually spoke in inspired monologues, without announcing themselves beforehand, and often without giving any clue to their personality. A practised stenographer, engaged by Mr. Stilton, took down many of these communications as they were spoken, and they were afterwards published in the "Revelations." It was also remarked, that, while Miss Fetters employed violent gestures and seemed to possess a superhuman strength, I, on the contrary, sat motionless, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... downstairs dormitory is a dining and sitting-room for the use of those who have taken bed tickets. In this room, when I visited it, several men were engaged in various occupations. One of them was painting flowers. Another, a watch repairer, was apparently making up his accounts, which, perhaps, were of an imaginary nature. A third was eating a dinner which he had purchased at the food bar. A fourth smoked a cigarette and watched the flower artist at ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... dinner our soup poured into our laps and seemed engaged in reconstructing the laws of gravitation. The table furniture was very uneasy, and it was no uncommon occurrence for a tea cup or a tumbler to jump from its proper place and turn a somersault before stopping. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... consolatory power predestination must be presented in proper relation to the revealed order of salvation. We read: "With this revealed will of God [His universal, gracious promises in the Gospel] we should concern ourselves, follow and be diligently engaged upon it, because through the Word, whereby He calls us, the Holy Ghost bestows grace, power, and ability to this end [to begin and complete our salvation], and should not [attempt to] sound the abyss of God's ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... servant and spokeswoman told Colonel Newcome when that gentleman arrived shortly after Ethel's departure, to see his old nurse. "Indeed! he was very sorry." The maid told many stories about Miss Newcome's goodness and charity; how she was constantly visiting the poor now; how she was for ever engaged in good works for the young, the sick, and the aged. She had had a dreadful misfortune in love; she was going to be married to a young marquis; richer even than Prince de Moncontour down at Rosebury; but ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... more in length, extended farther westward, and by climbing over the dwarf pines for some time, we saw a little wooden house above us. It stood near the highest part of the peak, and two or three men were engaged in repairing it, as a shelter for travelers. They pointed out the path which went down on the side toward St. Gilgen, and we began descending. The mountain on this side is much less steep, but the descent ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... you laughing at, sir?" asked the grandmother, who was sitting upon her doorsteps engaged in mending sixteen ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum

... an unpublished diary of the same period it is recorded that Mrs. Shelley was engaged in the task of copying on January 17, 1822, and the eight following days, and that on January ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... kingdom; they even send for them abroad, in Germany, in Belgium, in Savoy, in Geneva. On reaching Paris they are given leaders and organized. September 11 and 12 they began to meet publicly in groups and to use threats. I have proof of emissaries being engaged in recruiting them in the places I have mentioned and in paying their expenses to the capital." (Letter of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... inframacroscopical. In other words, there must be some type of correlation between the projection in the cerebral structure of the organ itself which is cerebrally represented and certain mental signs. If I see what Dr. Southard has been thinking about, we are certainly engaged in a very fascinating topic. It is well known from the standpoint of topographical cerebral correlation that the brain is nothing but a series of body symbols, as it were. Adler has entered this field ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... and slowly left the room, feeling, as she did so, that she was again engaged to him for ever and ever. She hated herself because she had been so fickle. But how could she have done otherwise? She asked herself, as she went back to her room, at what period during the interview, which was now over, she could have declared ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... twelve miles off, where Leicester had some attraction beside the horses, in the shape of a pretty cousin; (two, he told me, and bribed me with the promise of an introduction to "the other," but she did not answer to sample at all.) We had engaged a very nice mare and stanhope, which we knew we could depend upon, when, the day before the race, the chestnut was declared lame, and not a presentable four-legged animal was to be hired in Oxford. Hurst ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... is still borne by their descendants in various countries, shows that they were not from Egypt, but from a much more distant land, Hindostan; for Zingaro is Sanscrit, and signifies a man of mixed race, a mongrel; whilst their conduct was evidently not that of people engaged in expiatory pilgrimage; for the women told the kosko bokht, the good luck, the buena ventura; kaured, that is, filched money and valuables from shop-boards and counters by a curious motion of the hands, and poisoned pigs and hogs by means of a certain drug, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... savage Scythian, that, if he kills a brother villain, he is, ipso facto, absolved of all his own offences. The Tartarian doctrine is the most tenable opinion. The murderers of Robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by being engaged in the same tontine of infamy, are his representatives, have inherited all his murderous qualities in addition to their own private stock. But it seems we are always to be of a party with the last and victorious assassins. I confess ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... the gods, sitting on the golden floor[163] with Jove, were engaged in consultation, and amidst them venerable Hebe poured out the nectar: but they pledged[164] one another with golden cups, looking towards the city of the Trojans. Forthwith the son of Saturn attempted to irritate Juno, speaking with a ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular branch ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... volume could be written on the forms of flirtation, which is the indispensable expression of all sexual desire. Among engaged couples it assumes a legal character and even a conventional form. The way in which barmaids flirt with their customers is also somewhat conventional, although in quite a different way. In society, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... friendly allusion to his failures. "But allow me to inform you definitely, that those unfortunate speculations are not to be revived. Like the lightning, I don't strike twice in the same place. No; the project upon which I am now engaged is one so eminently practical, so free from all that is visionary, that you will wonder how I thought of it. That project is ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... inestimable advantage of a sorrow; not the natural grief at the loss of her aged father and mother, for she had been content to let them go; but something far deeper. She was engaged to marry young Tom Carter, who had nothing to marry on, it is true, but who was sure to have, some time or other. Then the war broke out. Tom enlisted at the first call. Up to that time Jane had loved him with a quiet, friendly sort of affection, and had given her ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... a small house with a garden in a pleasant city, and engaged a waiting-maid. The world did not appear to be such a wonderful place as I had expected, but the old woman and my former home dropped more and more out of my memory, so that, upon the whole, I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... sent him the first invitation he'd ever had. He opened his hard fists and closed them tighter than ever. Curtis Park was now at the head of the stairs. Having decided, he was bolting off. Little Porter Knapp was engaged in kicking Gibson, who was detaining him by the end of his jacket, and screaming wrathfully and slapping her hands. The other boys, most of them making up their minds to ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney

... on talking the round of the garden, which was long, and then arranged with the Innocent that, night come, he should sally forth from his room and get into hers, where she engaged to render him more learned than ever was his father. And the husband was well content, and thanked Madame d'Amboise, begging her to say nothing ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... Grey," she said, with a tone of relief. "I am Beulah Harris. And I've just been getting myself engaged to your prisoner here. Oh, it's not so awful as you think. You see, we knew each other in Manitoba, and we've really been engaged for quite a while, but he ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... the presence of veldt fires all over the place, long lines of dry grass blazing. Possibly the Boers start them to hide their movements. The Boers evidently want this convoy; they are right round our rear and on both flanks; all our troops are engaged. The convoy is being moved on, and my section is left as rear-guard. The smoke of burning grass has blotted out the sun, and it is cold. The sun is a red ball, as on a foggy day in London. Shells have ceased to fall here, but a hill on the left is being heavily ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... undertaking in which Pyrrhus now engaged, as indicated in the last chapter, the one in which he acquired such great renown, was an expedition into Italy against the Romans. The immediate occasion of his embarking in this enterprise was an invitation which he received from the inhabitants ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott



Words linked to "Engaged" :   geared, connected, involved, employed, architecture, reserved



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