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Exceptional   /ɪksˈɛpʃənəl/   Listen
Exceptional

adjective
1.
Far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree.  Synonyms: exceeding, olympian, prodigious, surpassing.  "An exceptional memory" , "Olympian efforts to save the city from bankruptcy" , "The young Mozart's prodigious talents"
2.
Surpassing what is common or usual or expected.  Synonyms: especial, particular, special.  "Exceptional kindness" , "A matter of particular and unusual importance" , "A special occasion" , "A special reason to confide in her" , "What's so special about the year 2000?"
3.
Deviating widely from a norm of physical or mental ability; used especially of children below normal in intelligence.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Exceptional" Quotes from Famous Books



... foliage. Shady and well-cover'd in, the middle walk at the top was, Which was ascended by steps of rough flat pieces constructed. And within it were hanging fine chasselas and muscatels also, And a reddish-blue grape, of quite an exceptional bigness, All with carefulness planted, to give to their guests after dinner. But with separate stems the rest of the vineyard was planted, Smaller grapes producing, from which the finest wine made is. So she constantly mounted, enjoying in prospect the autumn. And the festal day, when ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... and the year of his reign; and, in the second place, these constitute no record of any excellent policy, adopted by any high worthies or high loyal statesmen, in the government of the state, or in the rule of public morals. The contents simply treat of a certain number of maidens, of exceptional character; either of their love affairs or infatuations, or of their small deserts or insignificant talents; and were I to transcribe the whole collection of them, they would, nevertheless, not be estimated as a book of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... co-ordination of means abroad. The methods of the Allies were drawn from a limited range of experience which was no longer applicable to the new conditions, and their hopes rested on a series of isolated exertions put forth temporarily under stress of exceptional pressure. ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the necessity of any appeal to the president. An anxious consultation was, however, held in his room after closing time. Naturally, owing to the exceptional rush, the accounts were a little out, but as they happened to be on the right side this was a matter for congratulation rather than distress. Nearly two pounds had been taken, and the stock left on hand was valued ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... for many years on the arduous path of empirical research before we can attain to an adequate dictionary. There is indeed an exceptional reward which beckons us on to the same goal, namely, that we shall then be able to assign to Egyptian its place among the languages of Western Asia and of Africa. At present we do well to let this great question alone. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... and surfeited companions felt inclined to rush to the treadmill immediately, or get chosen on the Board of Selectmen, or plunge into any conceivable drudgery, in order to feel that there was still work enough in the universe to keep it sound and healthy. But this, after all, was exceptional and transitory, and our American life still needs, beyond all things else, the more habitual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... Thomas discusses is whether one ought to give alms out of what one needs. He distinguishes between two kinds of 'necessaries.' The first is that without which existence is impossible, out of which kind of necessary things one is not bound to give alms save in exceptional cases, when, by doing so, one would be helping a great personage or supporting the Church or the State, since 'the common good is to be preferred to one's own.' The second kind of necessaries are those things without which a man cannot live in keeping with his social station. St. Thomas ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... Aldington. They command high prices, up to 15s. and 20s. a hundred for special stuff, and this year (1919) I see that L21 was realized for the champion hundred at the Badsey Asparagus Show. That, of course, must be regarded as quite exceptional, and possibly there were special considerations which made it worth the money ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... order of things that are often the result of qualities which, unhappily for society, have no vent. Deeds of heroism performed upon the battle-field ought to teach us that the worst scoundrels may become heroes. But here in this place you are living under exceptional circumstances; and if your benevolence is not controlled by reflection and judgment you run the risk ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... quarters of the globe, to say nothing of the frayed and faded flags of silk or bunting that had been taken from the enemy at various times by one or another of the Saint Legers— each one of which represented some especially hard-fought fight or deed of exceptional daring, a complete romance in itself—and the ponderous pistols with inlaid barrels and elaborately carved stocks, the bell-mouthed blunderbusses, and the business-like hangers, notched and dinted of edge, and discoloured to the hilt with dark, sinister stains, that hung here and ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... fifty-second anniversary of the American Missionary Association to be held at Concord, N. H., October 25-27, with exceptional interest. The sermon will be preached by Rev. Doctor George A. Gordon. Distinguished speakers add to the interest of the meetings. Missionaries from the field will present the varied features of their ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various

... of consonants that one needs to have exceptional control of the tongue and lips to give their ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini

... exclaimed. "You say you have not had an hour's training, and never saw a play. Such versatility. Your fortune would be made on the stage. It is a sin to have such exceptional talent wasting in the bush. I must take her to Sydney and put her ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... be crushed or be mutilated, before or after putrefaction, in such a manner that perhaps only a part will be left in the form in which it reaches us. It is, indeed, a most remarkable fact, that it is quite an exceptional case to find a skeleton of any one of all the thousands of wild land animals that we know are constantly being killed, or dying in the course of nature: they are preyed on and devoured by other animals, or die ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... Although I used these aneroids principally for differential heights along my route, as aneroids cannot always be relied upon for great accuracy, I found on checking these particular instruments with the boiling-point thermometers that they were always extremely accurate. This was, however, exceptional, and it would not do for any one to rely on aneroids alone for the exact measurement of mountain heights. There were in my outfit three artificial horizons—one with mercury, the others constructed with a plate glass. The latter had a special arrangement by which they ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... than burden their children and hinder their success by relying on them for pecuniary aid. It may have escaped my observation, but, so far as I know, it is not the custom for young people to provide for their parents. There was, however, one exceptional case which came to my knowledge. Some years ago a young Senator in Washington, who was famous for his eloquence, had his father living with him. His father was eighty years of age, and though in robust health was a cripple, and so had to depend on him for support. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... striking its mark, thus inflicting so terrible a wound as usually to prove instantly fatal. This last was intended for use in the shooting of elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and other animals with exceptionally thick hides, and for any case of exceptional emergency. It was, of course, the Numbers 2 and 3 cartridges with which the sportsmen provided ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... Hamilton. "I thought nearly all the mountaineers in Kentucky fought for the North—I know you were with Lee, of course, but I thought that was exceptional." ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... poor luck that had held all week, so the dockman said, the colonel's good luck was exceptional. Shag had a goodly string of snappers of large size to carry ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... five of whom were boys, Anton being the third son. The family was an ordinary patriarchal household of the kind common at that time. The father was severe, and in exceptional cases even went so far as to chastise his children, but they all lived on warm and affectionate terms. Everyone got up early, the boys went to the high school, and when they returned learned their lessons. All of them had their hobbies. The eldest, Alexandr, would construct an ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... for all time. Every soldier, indeed every man in the army, except the chaplain, now draws the pay of his grade without regard to color, hair or race. By the time these lines reach the public eye it is to be hoped that even the chaplain will be lifted from his exceptional position and given the pay belonging to ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... merely specimen cases. Cases A, B, and C illustrate my assertions that parents are wonderfully blind; Cases B and E, that quite exceptional refinement in a boy gives no protection from temptation to impurity; Case D, that a boy, even in an extreme case, does not know that the habit is injurious. In respect of their severity, C, D, and E are not normal but extreme cases. The reader must not imagine that ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly

... old nobility of France came unmistakably under one or other of these extreme descriptions, there were to be found, in the country districts, some who were free alike from such boundless extravagance and such abject poverty. Of this small and exceptional class the Marquis de Beaujardin was a striking example. His naturally calm and unexcitable temperament had been still further disciplined by early habits of self-command, first as a scholar and subsequently as a soldier. ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... nature, and if possible the cause, of a special lucidity, a sensitiveness of perception, or accessibility to ideas appearing to arrive through channels other than usual organs of sense, which is sometimes met with among simple people[1] in a rudimentary form, and in a more developed form in certain exceptional individuals. This lucidity may perhaps be regarded as a modification or an exaggeration of the clearness of apprehension occasionally experienced by ordinary persons while immersed in a brown study, or while in the act of waking out of sleep, or when self-consciousness is for ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... if the neighborhood itself pleased her much better, though it was homogeneous (in its way), and dignified, and enjoyed an exceptional measure of quietude. Perhaps it was too quiet, after some years of a balcony on a boulevard. And it is true that some of the big houses were vacant, and that some of the families roundabout went away too often and stayed away too long. An empty house is a dead house, and when doors and windows ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller

... excess profit tax which it is now proposed to augment largely does not accomplish that. It taxes not merely the exceptional profit, i.e., the war profit. It lays a burden not on business due to war, but ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn

... a player who has led his partner on to their mutual destruction to murmur, "I could have made my bid." An early bid being allowed to become the final declaration is exceptional. Whether or not it could be made is, therefore, immaterial, but the result it may produce ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... "a gentleman by birth, and I should imagine a moderate athlete. You have an exceptional degree, and I presume a fair knowledge of the world. Yet you appear to be deliberately settling down ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... berth of the unfortunate Cross; George thus finding his crew reduced to three men, the officers included, and one lad in each watch, the cook and steward of course being "idlers," and their services in the working of the ship only to be demanded on occasions of exceptional urgency. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... another human being? I do not know that I should consider you worth it, my good friend, to be quite frank, but in my own case I venture to think that I am. Having made my mind clear on this point, I go ahead, merely observing certain precautions which will be necessary as long as the exceptional individual is so far in advance of the mass. I do not hesitate to declare that the work I can do for science is worth many hundreds—or shall I say thousands?—of Cliffords, young and old. To think for one moment of putting my labours for ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... But they are records of actual things—striking things, as a matter of fact—for a murder which so lifts itself above the thousands of homicides that are yearly occurring, as to gain a place outside the court records and newspapers, must have been one of exceptional execution." ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... permitted to have access to the War Department records under certain conditions, but the Revolutionary War records have become so worn and dilapidated by reason of lapse of time and long use thereof that access thereto is permitted only under exceptional circumstances. Inasmuch as those records are very incomplete and afford scarcely any information bearing upon the subject in question it is not seen that any useful purpose can be served by granting permission to search those records for the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... tropical countries are credited with power to remain under water for long periods—some claim five minutes—but the records give about three minutes as the average, though it is possible that some exceptional individual may equal five minutes. But they have to work hard while under water, and, of course, divers go deeper than the ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum

... still remained men and women of larger minds and hearts who fully appreciated that Mary's case was exceptional, and not to be judged by ordinary standards. The majority of her acquaintances, knowing that her intentions were pure, though her actions were opposed to accepted ideals of purity, were brave enough ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... of the state of St. James's chin, proceeded to inform him that it had been decided, at a meeting of the clergy, to entrust the shaving of the saint to him, Pedro Moreno; but that, as this growth of hair was most exceptional, seeing that the image was of wood, it was probable that the usual process of shaving might not ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others

... man of exceptional gifts as a writer, but he failed to take advantage of them, and they were utterly dissipated. He lacked what most Spaniards of the 19th Century lacked with ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... Africa such specific differences are to be found, not only in the features of the country, which are more than usually exceptional, or in the contrast of characteristics between the two races engaged, which from the military point of view is very marked, but notably in the uncertainties and impediments attending the lines of communication by which the British army must be sustained ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan

... Litany dragged its slow length along; but what balm or what solace could be found for the sermon? Naturally the eye, wandering here and there among the serried ranks, made bold, untrammelled choice among our fair fellow-supplicants. It was in this way that, some months earlier, under the exceptional strain of the Athanasian Creed, my roving fancy had settled upon the baker's wife as a fit object for a life-long devotion. Her riper charms had conquered a heart which none of her be-muslined, tittering juniors had been able to subdue; and that she was already wedded had never ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... a brilliant Commem.; for an ex-Viceroy of India, a retired Ambassador, England's best General, and five or six foreign men of science and letters, of rather exceptional eminence, were coming to get their honorary degrees. When Mrs. Hooper, Times in hand, read out at the breakfast-table the names of Oxford's expected guests, Constance Bledlow looked up in surprised ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... at Aldington, and it was very exceptional for a man to be seen in what were called his "crooked stockings." Fortunately, we had no public-house in the village, and if the men had a moderate allowance during a hard day's work, there was not much temptation to tramp a mile and back at night to the nearest licensed ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... CIRCLES (q. v.) of Britain, situated in Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, 7 m. N. of Salisbury; "consists of two concentric circles, enclosing two ellipses"; the diameter of the space enclosed is 100 ft.; the stones are from 13 ft. to 28 ft. high; is generally regarded as an exceptional development of the ordinary stone circle, but the special purpose of its unusual construction is still a matter ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... confiding, and affectionate; and the master of a soft and genial nature, with a large amount of buoyant humour about him, and so equable of temper, that, during six years of wedded life, his wife never saw him angry but once. I have heard her speak of the exceptional instance, however, as too terrible to ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... a novel," she said impressively. "The great American novel has yet to be written. I do not want you to think me conceited, Jock, but I have had exceptional advantages—I may be the chosen one ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... war had brought to light no military genius among the Russians; and all his past experience of the "old coalition machines" warranted the belief that their rusty cogwheels, even if oiled by English subsidies, would clank slowly along and break down at the first exceptional strain. Such had been the case at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Friedland. Why should ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... one is approaching the Orient appears in the semi-Oriental costumes. of the peasantry and roving gypsy bands, as we gradually near the Servian capital. An Oriental costume in Eszek is sufficiently exceptional to be a novelty, and so it is until one gets south of Peterwardein, when the national costumes of Slavonia and Croatia are gradually merged into the tasselled fez, the many-folded waistband, and the loose, flowing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... only ten examples of it left in Europe.' Willems, however, in his bibliography of the Elzeviers published in 1880, enumerates some thirty copies, and states that the highest price yet paid for the Pastissier was 10,000 francs. But that was for a quite exceptional copy. From 4,500 francs to 5,500 francs seems to have been the average value of the book in Willems' time, and, enthusiast as he is, he hesitates not to describe it as a 'bouquin ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... may perhaps be due to a large admixture of Hindu blood through their women, during a social contact with the Hindus extending over many centuries, and also to the fact that they eat flesh when they can obtain it, including carrion. Such types are, however, exceptional among the impure castes, and there is no reason to doubt their general origin from the non-Aryan tribes, which in a few instances can be directly traced. Thus it seems likely that the Kanjars, Berias, Sansias and other gipsy groups, as well as the Mirasis, the vagrant ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... drunk as a medicine. With this I should venture to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine. And for this reason, If a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, something he does not expect every hour of the day, something which, unless he is a little insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... pull up? I've seen so many of these affairs go wrong. It really is not for nothing that law and conventions are what they are—believe me! Really, Bryan, experience does show that the pressure's too great. It's only once in a way—very exceptional people, very exceptional circumstances. You mayn't think now it'll hamper you, but you'll find it will—most fearfully. It's not as if you were a writer or an artist, who can take his work where he likes and live in a desert if he wants. You've got ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... banks: they are petty rascals, with occasional big game. But somewhere, behind this sinister machine, is a guiding hand on the throttle, a brain which is profound, an eye which is all-seeing and a heart as cold as an Antartic mountain. There is the exceptional type of criminal who is greedy—for money and its luxurious possibilities; selfish—with regard for no other heart in the world; crafty—with the cunning of an Apache, enjoying the thrill of crime and cruelty; refined and vainglorious—with pride in his skill to thwart justice ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... of the unmixed evil wrought by these practices in the case of the Olynthians an exceptional one, or without parallel elsewhere. For in Eretria,[n] when Plutarchus and the mercenaries had been got rid of, and the people had control of the city and of Porthmus, one party wished to entrust the State to you, the other to ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... Yet she could not hear a human sound, even the slightest. There was something unnatural, but also tremendously impressive to her in their silence. She felt as if it signified something unusual, something of high vitality. She felt as if it had succeeded some speech that was exceptional, and that had laid its spell, of joy or sorrow, upon ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... icebound Norway and the frozen Baltic, caused everything, animal and vegetable, to be cut and chilled, so that frequently both man and plant succumbed to its penetrating rigour; but here the north or east wind is not nearly such a dreaded visitor, and it is only on exceptional days that its biting power ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... into the other, both Life and Poetry, as revealed in their lives, is something as exceptional as it is ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... injury or caused pain to no one, among the living or among the dead. I mistake, they have done injury to me, but to me alone. I have depicted myself such as I was: one of those natures, alas! so common among the children of women, wrought not of one clay only, not of that purified and exceptional substance which forms heroes, saints, and sages, but moulded of every earth which enters into the formation of the weak and passionate man; of lofty aspirations, and narrow wings; of great desires, and short hands to reach whither they are extended; sublime in ideal, vulgar ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... fellow! did his very uttermost,—he chirruped, he could do no more. The Butterfly, who could not raise a single note, came out in his best plush court-dress of gold, vermilion, and blue, dainty little silent outrider that he is, waking up any exceptional sleepers. He carried, truth to say, his zeal sometimes too far; as when I saw him unjustly reproaching the Foxglove for having bells and not ringing them, a thing they were never meant to do. Even the Spider hung his silver-tissued ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff

... Spanish prisoners taken in Boyac. Bolvar had proposed to the viceroy an exchange of prisoners, but the viceroy had not even answered Bolvar's communication. The Liberator had never agreed that the cause of freedom should be stained by the blood of prisoners, except in those very exceptional cases, already mentioned, when the War to Death decree was in effect. On some occasions, individual chieftains had not hesitated to commit crimes as heinous as those of the royalists. Though at times Bolvar had to ignore such actions, lest he be left alone by his followers, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... statistics amply confirm and corroborate the evidence of this prosperity, which is known to every man with the smallest direct acquaintance of Ireland in recent years. The figures of savings, bank deposits, external trade, all alike show the exceptional advances in ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... amuse herself with his baby prattle. She did not lose sight of him when she removed to the Rue Vivienne. Pierre had entered the elementary school of the neighborhood, and by his precocious intelligence and exceptional application, had not been long in getting to the top of his class. The boy had left school after gaining an exhibition admitting him to the Chaptal College. This hard worker, who was in a fair way of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... with the request of the Senate conveyed in their resolution of the 16th of December, 1863, desiring any information in my possession relative to the alleged exceptional treatment of Kansas troops when captured by those in rebellion, I have the honor to transmit a communication from the Secretary of War, accompanied by reports from the General in Chief of the Army and the Commissary-General of Prisoners relative to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... property of the coarse "rowdy" as of the refined gentleman. You are startled by the apparition of a rough horse-skin boot elevated along the edge of the shining mahogany; and a dash of brown nicotian juice may have somewhat altered the pattern of the carpet! But these things are exceptional—more exceptional now than in the times ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... at an exceptional time. Generally the icy barrier stops all progress. This year that storm has broken it up in masses, and it is quite possible that we may be able ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... is perfectly plain that government ought to have, and must have, the same sort of right to use exceptional methods occasionally that the private householder has to have a picnic or to sit up all night on New Year's Eve. The State, like the householder, is sane if it can treat such exceptions as exceptions. Such desperate ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... it is only right to say that Colonel de Rochas is a savant who seeks nothing but objective truth and does so with a scientific strictness and integrity that have never been questioned. He puts certain exceptional subjects into a hypnotic sleep and, by means of downward passes, makes them trace back the whole course of their existence. He thus takes them successively to their youth, their adolescence and down to the extreme limits ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... failed to define it with sufficient distinctness, and hence he became doubtful as to its real nature. The object was found to be in motion, and subsequent observations led him to the assumption that it must be a comet of rather exceptional type. This appeared to be the best explanation of the strange body, for history contained many records of curious comets, some of which were observed as nearly circular patches of nebulous light, and probably of similar aspect to the object then visible; and apart from this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... the sordid accompaniments of such places. Its commercial activities—pottery and tile-making, breweries and flour mills, linen and silk manufacture, are mostly modern and have been fostered by the exceptional railway facilities. In its Grammar school, founded in 1526 by John Grice, it still has a first-rate educational establishment with the added value of a notable past, for here was educated Clarendon, the historian of the Great Rebellion, ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... 'Paradise Lost'), in that case he insists upon the rule in its rigor— the rule, and nothing but the rule. Where, on the contrary, the rule does really and obviously take effect (as in the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'), there he insists upon an exceptional case. There is a moral, in his opinion, hanging like a tassel of gold bullion from the 'Iliad;'—and what is it? Something so fantastic, that I decline to repeat it. As well might he have said, that the moral of 'Othello' ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... in addition that he was a promising bat, public opinion recognized that here was a youth out of the common run of new boys, and the Lower Fourth—the form in which he had been placed on arrival—took him to its bosom as an equal. Farnie's case was exceptional. A career at Harrow, Clifton, and Wellington, however short and abruptly terminated, gives one some sort of grip on the way public school life is conducted. At an early date, moreover, he gave signs of what almost amounted to genius in the Indoor Game department. Now, success in ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse

... activity of the "elements" has a great effect upon country folk especially; and it is a more wholesome excitement than that caused by a great conflagration. The abatement of a snow-storm that grows to exceptional magnitude is regretted, for there is always the half-hope that this will be, since it has gone so far, the largest fall of snow ever known in the region, burying out of sight the great fall of 1808, the account of which is circumstantially and aggravatingly thrown ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... to keep the man, and force him to tell us what we wanted to know, then I must make use of something other than physical means. Moreover, I gave him credit for an exceptional amount of insight. Call it super-instinct, or what you will, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... of this case, I presume that this murderer—who was not good enough to live on earth, and whom you have sent to live for ever in heaven—is the only Atheist you have ever converted; so that in every way the case is one of exceptional interest. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... little rooster was for the fight to begin, and how he struggled to get off his gaff and go into the fray unarmed, the weight on his legs seeming an impediment to action, and how insolently he strutted and crowed before his antagonist, an equally well groomed gentleman of exceptional manners, attired in a gorgeous suit of green and gold. But handsome as the darker rooster was, the white one seemed to be the universal choice, and heavy were the stakes in his favour, so heavy that when, after ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... that she was reading a letter, which, at his entrance, she thrust—somewhat ostentatiously—beneath her pillow. He took no notice. He was tired of taking notice. As a rule, he let her go her own way. He had been married for three years, and he had learned that, save in exceptional circumstances, it was better not to interfere. He was relieved, and somewhat surprised, when she suddenly declared herself better, and wishful to leave her bed. Before long she was sitting at an open window, with a cup of black coffee and a flask of cognac on a table before her, while Alan fanned ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... slept upon them, in his own phrase, and gave answers which the God was supposed to send him in dreams. These were generally not lucid, but ambiguous and confused, especially when he came to packets sealed with exceptional care. He did not risk tampering with these, but wrote down any words that came into his head, the results obtained corresponding well enough to his conception of the oracular. There were regular interpreters ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... capallarity. The iceberg floats on the top because it is lighter, hence no tons are below the water line. Another reason is that an iceberg cannot exceed 1,000,000 tons in weight: hence if this much is above water, none is below. Ice is exceptional to all other bodies except bismuth. All other bodies have 1090 feet below the surface and 2 feet extra for every degree centigrade. If it were not for this, all fish would die, and the earth be held in ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley

... such an inferior strategic position as that occupied by Hungary or Poland or Spain, if her territory had been liable once or twice in a century to be overrun by fanatical Saracens or beastly Mongols, no such remarkable and quite exceptional result could have been achieved. Having duly fathomed the significance of this strategic position of the English race while confined within the limits of the British islands, we are now prepared to consider the significance of the stupendous ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... in a definition, supplying additional words if necessary, to make the sense complete. In exceptional cases, however, the exact literal meanings of the parts cannot be put together in a good definition. One or more of the parts must then be omitted entirely, or represented by words which are not ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins

... Affairs. It consists of 160 documents, classified into seven chapters, each dealing with different periods of time in the great controversy. The delay in its presentation is somewhat compensated by the exceptional fullness of the data which is thus submitted to the ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... dozen brace of lovers. The name of this dog was Jerusalem, but it might more properly have been Dan-to-Beersheba. He was not a fascinating dog to look at; you can buy a handsomer dog in any shop than this one. He had neither a graceful exterior nor an engaging address. On the contrary, his exceptional plainness had passed into a local proverb; and such was the inbred coarseness of his demeanour, that in the dark you might have thought ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... about the propositions they have in hand—and that is why the great bulk of the letters that are opened in the morning pause at the desk only momentarily before continuing their way to the furnace room. It is the exceptional correspondent who stops to analyze his letters, looking at them from every viewpoint, and then tests out his conclusions, trying one appeal after another until he evolves certain principles that pull letter writing out of the class of uncertainties and ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... sonnet, where the thought divisions of quatrains and tercets are marked with exceptional clearness, Eugene ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... disinclination of the directors of a bank to change the form of an issue to which the public is accustomed, partly because of the difficulty of deciding what is really a secure note, and in certain cases because, owing to exceptional circumstances, an issue may be practically immune from forgery although the notes themselves present little or no difficulty in imitation. The features essential to the security of an issue are (1) absolute identity in appearance of all notes of the issue; (2) adequate protection by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... piles of driftwood found on the rocks in the Canyon reveal a difference of upwards of two hundred feet between high and low water. This, however, does not refer to the general condition of high water, but to exceptional cases. As, for instance, I myself once saw a mass of rock, the whole face of the cliff, containing doubtless millions of tons, fall into the trough of the stream. The whole course was at once dammed up, and the river rose sixty feet ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... and suggest better things to him; but owing to the inequality which exists in most things, one invariably captured a drowsy hen, while the more active offender eluded one with ease. Lighting matches to differentiate species under such exceptional circumstances in the pursuit of knowledge was ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... his deductions, and consequent self-regard, be anything but fair. He may think himself a fine fellow, when he is but an ordinarily reasonable youth, trying to do but the first thing necessary to the name or honour of a man. Doubtless such a youth is exceptional among youths; but the number of fools not yet acknowledging the first condition of manhood nowise alters the fact that he who has begun to recognize duty, and acknowledge the facts of his being, is but a tottering child on the path of life. He is on the path; he is as wise ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... himself gave in his volume on the Social Order a chart somewhat more discriminating. In any case, however, the eugenists must depend upon the mass of the mediocre for a supply of geniuses and those of exceptional talent and depend upon the process of reproduction for securing that supply. Doctor Ward, on the contrary, looks to education, controlled and improved environment, and the stimulus for all people to be gained from more scientific knowledge ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... practically ALL master records are made at one convenient place, while the essential interest in SOME motion pictures lies in the fact that they are taken in various parts of the world, often under exceptional circumstances. The "silent drama," however, calls also for many representations which employ conventional acting, staging, and the varied appliances of stagecraft. Hence, Edison saw early the necessity of providing a place especially devised and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... town is coming to realize that its reputation as well as its progress is determined by this grade of citizen. No exceptional success on the part of one or more families and no substantial goodness by a whole grade of the population can compensate for the lowering of the standard of the whole town by these people. The life and death, the reputation and the progress of the town are dependent upon the ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... deeply enough to show what he was, or, at least, of what he was capable? What was Strahan before his manhood was awakened? A little gossiping exquisite. Even Mr. Lane, who was always better than any of us, has changed wonderfully since he has had exceptional motives for noble action. What was I, myself, last June, when I was amusing myself at the expense of a man whom I knew to be so good and true? In view of all this, instead of having a little charity for Mr. Merwyn, who, no doubt, is only the natural product of the influences ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... exhaust such a reserve might not occur, but, if events should force it, the fact would be known and could be declared, and would justify a temporary suspension of specie payments. Some such expedient could, no doubt, be provided by Congress for an exceptional emergency. In other times the general confidence in these notes would maintain them at par in coin, and justify their use as reserves of banks and for the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... afflicted with modesty," the colonel went on; "and so I will tell it for him, for I think you ought to know that he is not only able to speak half a dozen languages, but that he is capable of doing deeds of exceptional gallantry. ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... men, not as exceptional in bravery, but to illustrate the rule of heroism, and because they were among the patients under my immediate care that night. It was a strange night picture—a picture that could never be dimmed by time but live through all ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... see some exceptional opportunity, I do not think I shall lead them out beyond the walls again. The time will come, as the siege goes on, when you will need a body of men to hold a breach, or arrest the advance of a Roman column; men who will die, rather than give way a foot. When that time comes, my band ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... aspect was exceptional. There the inornate beauty of its finish, the quiet abundance of its delicate woodwork, and the high spaciousness and continuity of its rooms for entertainment won admiration and fame. A worthy setting, it was called, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... that there are certain exceptional complexions to which the purple tinge, above alluded to, is natural. Nature is fertile in variety. I saw an albiness in London once, for sixpence, (including the inspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor,) who looked as if she ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... the entire work. For Elihu declares Job's sufferings to be a just punishment for his sins; whereas the poet and Jahveh Himself proclaim him to be the type of the just man, and describe his misery as a short, unmerited and exceptional probation. Evidently then Elihu is the elaborate production of some second-rate writer and first-class theologian awkwardly wedged into the poem perhaps a century or more after it had been composed, and certainly before the work was first translated ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... Gordon; I have the right ... my years, Pompey's associate. The fact is—you're hurting the County, you're hurting the people and me; you're hurting yourself. Everybody is suffering from your—your mistaken generosity. We have all become out of sorts, unbalanced, from the exceptional condition you have brought about. It won't do, Gordon; credit has been upset, we don't know where we stand, or ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... '80's, when Alec MacDonald was far from having attained the national fame which he has now achieved. He was a young but trusted member of the detective force, who had distinguished himself in several cases which had been intrusted to him. His tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional physical strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled out from behind his bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... has not come within the category of the professional gamester, and respectability does not repel him. His dissipated habits are far from exceptional, and his father's good name still continues to throw its aegis over him. Under it he is eligible to Californian society of the most select kind, and has the entree of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... did know. I am, perhaps, the only confidant of Captain Lewis, and I repose in him confidences that I would venture to no other man; but he is not the sort to speak of such matters. It is only by virtue of exceptional circumstances, my dear, that I know the story ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... misrepresented. Finally, for the closer study of individual events and the impressions they made at the time of their happening, the daily press can be consulted. For the Bismarck period the biography of Hans Blum is of exceptional value. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... "Nothing exceptional." Lanko shrugged. "This area's getting so peaceful it's monotonous." He unsnapped his accumulator and crossed to ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... a man who is a victim of our laws," he said, in beginning. "This is not an exceptional case. Men are being ruthlessly murdered every day from the same cause; this is not the only home that it has darkened. It is going on all over this land and all the time because we are willing, for the sake of a few dollars' ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... a person about to undergo a necessary operation would submit to a surgeon. It is a mistake to suppose that the Germans, a highly intelligent and educated people, are being cowed into submission by brutal non-commissioned officers. Brutality, when it occurs, is looked upon as exceptional and incidental to a system on the whole approved. The Germans would never tolerate the severe discipline to which they are subjected did they not willingly submit to it. They regard a highly efficient army as necessary to the safety of the Fatherland, and they are willing ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... pamphlets, it was not merely to voice his sufferings that he wrote those pamphlets. Most men in Milton's position, married to "a nothing, a desertrice, an adversary," would have recognised that theirs was one of those exceptional cases for which the law cannot provide, and would have sat down under their unhappy chance, to bear it or mitigate it as best they might. Some poets of the time of the Romantic Revival would have claimed the privilege ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... few in the fleet who could have enlightened him of their own experience. The keelmen kept their ranks as far as possible intact. In this they were materially aided by the Mayor and Corporation of Newcastle, who held a "Grand Protection" of the Admiralty, and in return for this exceptional mark of their Lordships' favour did all they could to further the pressing of persons less essential to the trade of the town and river than ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... collection; it has a pitch C string 14-1/16" in length and an apparent compass of C/E to c'''. The other, with the same apparent compass and a 7-1/2" pitch C string, is at Yale University. Whether these instruments are exceptional in terms of the pitch to which they were tuned, the tension which was applied to the strings, or the thickness and weight of the strings themselves, ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge

... Cabet had no less than four hundred thousand adherents among the workers of France. The numerical strength of revolutionary movements is almost invariably greatly exaggerated, however, and it is not likely that the figures cited are exceptional in this regard. It is possible, cum grano salis, to accept the figures only by remembering that a very infinitesimal proportion of these were adherents in the sense of being ready to follow Cabet's leadership, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... observers as to the quantity of food an Eskimo might consume. From some acquaintance with the subject I therefore venture to say that the popular notion regarding the great appetite of the Eskimo is one of the current fallacies. The reported cases were probably exceptional ones, happening in subjects who had been exercising and living on little else than frozen air for perhaps a week. Any vigorous man in the prime of life who has been shooting all day in the sharp, crisp air of the Arctic will be surprised at his gastronomic capabilities; and personal ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse

... exceptions to this premature end; sometimes the two eggs develop equally well; but such cases are exceptional, so that the Bruchid family would be reduced to about half its dimensions if the binary system were the rule. To the detriment of our peas and to the advantage of the beetle, the eggs are commonly laid one by ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent



Words linked to "Exceptional" :   psychological science, extraordinary, abnormal, psychology, exception, uncommon



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