Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Function   /fˈəŋkʃən/   Listen
Function

noun
1.
(mathematics) a mathematical relation such that each element of a given set (the domain of the function) is associated with an element of another set (the range of the function).  Synonyms: map, mapping, mathematical function, single-valued function.
2.
What something is used for.  Synonyms: purpose, role, use.  "Ballet is beautiful but what use is it?"
3.
The actions and activities assigned to or required or expected of a person or group.  Synonyms: office, part, role.  "The government must do its part" , "Play its role"
4.
A relation such that one thing is dependent on another.  "Price is a function of supply and demand"
5.
A formal or official social gathering or ceremony.
6.
A vaguely specified social event.  Synonyms: affair, occasion, social function, social occasion.  "An occasion arranged to honor the president" , "A seemingly endless round of social functions"
7.
A set sequence of steps, part of larger computer program.  Synonyms: procedure, routine, subprogram, subroutine.



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Function" Quotes from Famous Books



... up and down the provinces by means of respectably dressed "commission agents," at prices much in excess of their value, to an ingenuous, ignorant public that has never heard of Dent and Routledge. The books are found in houses where the sole function of literature is to flatter the eye. The ability of these subterranean firms to dispose of deplorable editions to persons who do not want them is in itself a sharp criticism of the commercial organization of ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... ourselves any more about her,' retorted Miss Motley, who hated to be plagued about abstract questions, being a young woman of an essentially concrete nature, born to consume and digest three meals a day, and having no views that go beyond that function. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... inflammatory harangues. At theatres and music halls, at pigeon matches and open-air fetes, the Claimant was perseveringly exhibited; and while the other side preserved a decorous silence, the public never ceased to hear the tale of his imaginary wrongs. The Tichborne Gazette, the sole function of which was to excite the public mind still further, appeared; and the newspapers contained long lists of subscribers to the Tichborne defence fund. This unexampled system of creating prejudice with regard to a great trial still pending was permitted ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... close on his heels: Dublin Castle has been attentive. The mayor, as chief magistrate, has privileges on which the Castle now silently closes. There are private and veiled remonstrances by secret officials: "The mayor is acting illegally; he must not do so-and-so; such is the function of a magistrate; he has not taken the oath," etc. All this renewing the fight of the first day, for the Castle, too, wants the mayor on the bench to brand him as its own and alienate him from the old ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... at Colby Hall, all of the old officers and those newly elected were invited to participate in a dinner given by Captain Dale. This was held in a private dining room of the school, and was usually a function looked forward to with much pleasure by those ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... for comfort, function, and minimal maintenance hassles rather than for appearance (some, perhaps unfortunately, take this to extremes and neglect personal hygiene). They have a very low tolerance of suits and other 'business' attire; in fact, it ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... remember that the inviolableness of the ambassador depends on his function, and not on his person; and that if we want to be kept from all evil, we must do the work for which we have been sent here. So let us understand the meaning of our difficulties and sorrows. Let ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Deadwood Creek and below Uncle Billy's mill. June knew that the "bean-stringing" was simply an excuse for them to be there, for she could not remember that so many had ever gathered there before—at that function in the spring, at corn-cutting in the autumn, or sorghum-making time or at log-raisings or quilting parties, and she well knew the motive of these many and the curiosity of all save, perhaps, Loretta and the old miller's wife: and June was prepared for them. She had borrowed a gown from her ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... chief function seems to be to make oneself and every one else uncomfortable.—Hark at the rain! I wish you joy ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... from these gardens, at present at least, interest in breeding experiments. That is more properly a function of agricultural experiment stations. These are so short manned and short funded, so absorbed in problems offering quicker results, that it is difficult to get them even to consider nut growing. I do not recall a single experiment station in the country where any nut breeding experiments ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... which has followed what we term National Baptism;—or rather this was the National Baptism, this furious one in torrent whirlwinds of fire; done three times over, till in gods or men there was no doubt left. That was Friedrich's function in the world; and a great and memorable one;—not to his own Prussian Nation only, but to Teutschland at ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... cared little, so that her children had their triumph. Wrapped in her dreams of amethyst, the exquisiteness of this new world kept her in ecstasy. Its smallest details seemed priceless. She performed each function as if it were the last of her life. While rebuffs were not lacking, she parried them easily, and even the refusal of the parish priest to accept her aid in his bazaar did not diminish the delight of her happy situation. She knew the meaning ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... defined the boundary line as 'an imaginary line' running from such and such a point to such and such a point, and that a minister who stands in a purely imaginative locality stands virtually nowhere, and hence cannot perform any function of ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... the same day the commission of claims was appointed for the King's and Queen's coronation. A week then sufficed for its business, and on Sunday, 24th June, the Abbey was the scene of a second State function within three months. Its splendour and display were emblematic of the coming reign. Warham placed the crown on the King's head; the people cried, "Yea, yea!" in a loud voice when asked if they would have Henry as King; Sir ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... having considered the subject under the same points of view as Turl had done, was strongly in favour of that profession. He foresaw in me a future Judge, whose integrity should benefit and whose wisdom should enlighten mankind. He conceived there could be no function more honourable, more sacred, or more beneficial. An upright judge, with his own passions and prejudices subdued, attentive to the principles of justice by which alone the happiness of the world can be promoted, and by the rectitude of his ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the visitor would probably see canes in the hands only of prosperous coloured gentlemen. And than this fact probably nothing throws more light on the winning nature of the coloured race, and on the character and function of canes. In San Francisco—but the adequate story, the Sartor Resartus—the World as ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday

... presently see turned into a sort of Elfin cupbearer or court butler; not without fairy grace of person and of mind assuredly; not without a due innate sense of the beautiful, as his perfumed name (SWEETFLOWER) at the outset warns you; and, as the proximity of his function to her Majesty's person—for we do not here fall in with any thing like mention of a king—would suggest, independently of the delicately responsible part borne by him in the action, the chief stress of which you will find incumbent upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... read somewhere that the function of present-day criticism is to befog the mind and blur the ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... capacities?—And D. Jerrold was very amusing and clever in his 'Country Gull'—And Mr. Leech superb in the Town Master Mathew. All were good, indeed, and were voted good, and called on, and cheered off, and praised heartily behind their backs and before the curtain. Stanfield's function had exercise solely in the touching up (very effectively) sundry 'Scenes'—painted scenes—and the dresses, which were perfect, had the advantage of Mr. Maclise's ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... forty-seven foot-pounds. Let E be the potential of the conductor from which the current is drawn, measured in volts, C the current in amperes, and E1 the E.M.F. of the dynamo. Then E1 is proportional to the product of the angular velocity, and a certain function of the current. For a velocity [omega], let this function be denoted by f(C). If the characteristic of the dynamo can be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... Bay. He was known as Bruiser Jake, could neither read nor write and was shaped very much like a log, his neck being as large as his head. It was said that the Australian authorities had tried to hang him several times, but failed because the noose slipped over his chin and ears, refusing its usual function. So he finally had been given a "ticket of leave" and had come to California. Curiously enough the Bruiser never drank. He prided himself on his sobriety and the great strength of his massive hands in which he could squeeze the water out of a potato. Ordinarily ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... of this when we meet. In the mean time, you are entreated to prevail upon Mrs. Esterre to engage herself. I believe she has been written to, but your influence, in person or proxy, would probably go further than our proposals. What they are, I know not; all my new function consists in listening to the despair of Cavendish Bradshaw, the hopes of Kinnaird, the wishes of Lord Essex, the complaints of Whitbread, and the calculations of Peter Moore,—all of which, and whom, seem totally at variance. C. Bradshaw wants to light ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... This measurement is taken from the points of the live and dead centers when the tail stock is drawn back the full extent of the lathe bed. Fig. 1 shows a turning lathe with sixteen principal parts named. The student should learn the names of these parts and familiarize himself with the particular function of each. ...
— A Course In Wood Turning • Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers

... Dr. Edward Bemis, who in a profoundly interesting essay[13] has called attention to this function of the school district as a stage in the evolution of the township, remarks also upon the fact that "it is in the local government of the school district that woman suffrage is being tried." In ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... political charges against him that would effect his ruin. His displacement before the end of the year must be prevented, therefore, at all hazards. To this task Curio addressed himself, and with surpassing adroitness. He did not come out at once as Caesar's champion. His function was to hold the scales true between Caesar and Pompey, to protect the Commonwealth against the overweening ambition and threatening policy of both men. He supported the proposal that Caesar should be called upon to surrender his army, but coupled with ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... landing of the Spaniards, perhaps," Kenwardine replied. "Anyhow, it's a popular function, and as everybody in the neighborhood takes part in it, I came with the object of meeting some people I do business with. In fact, I may have to leave you for a time with the wife of a ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... either that all these animals or plants have some common peculiarity of form or structure; or, we may mean that they possess some common functional character. That part of biological science which deals with form and structure is called Morphology—that which concerns itself with function, Physiology—so that we may conveniently speak of these two senses, or aspects, of "species"—the one as morphological, the other as physiological. Regarded from the former point of view, a species is nothing more than a kind of animal or plant, which is distinctly definable from all others, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... third, or deposited it in the archives. Such cases may be said to have been settled "out of court." At any rate they contain no reference to a judge, or court. But it is possible that the administration of the oath was a judicial, or perhaps a sacerdotal function. Further, the witnesses may have been drawn from a body of men held in readiness at court to perform that function. It is certain in some cases, that agreements arrived at independently were taken ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... returned. He heard squeakings. At first they were faint as the exhausted nerve ends in his ears only began to regain their function. He began to regain the sense of touch, though he felt ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... go: altogether for your own benefit, mind: you are to see with her eyes, that you may not disappoint your own appetites: which does not hurt the flesh, certainly; but does damage the conscience; and from the moment you have once succumbed, that function ceases to perform its office of moral strainer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... In the opening pages of that excellent book MANKIND IN THE MAKING, he dismisses the ideals of art, religion, abstract morality, and the rest, and says that he is going to consider men in their chief function, the function of parenthood. He is going to discuss life as a "tissue of births." He is not going to ask what will produce satisfactory saints or satisfactory heroes, but what will produce satisfactory fathers ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... naturally occurring soft fibrous mineral commonly used in fireproofing materials and considered to be highly carcinogenic in particulate form. biodiversity - also biological diversity; the relative number of species, diverse in form and function, at the genetic, organism, community, and ecosystem level; loss of biodiversity reduces an ecosystem's ability to recover from natural or man-induced disruption. bio-indicators - a plant or animal species whose presence, abundance, and health reveal the general condition of its habitat. biomass - ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... cut with ledges and catch-holes for a lid, like other sarcophagi.—More damaging details still remain in relation to the coffer as "a grand standard measure of capacity," and prove that its object or function was very different. In his first work Professor Smyth describes the coffer as showing no "symptoms" whatever of grooves, or catchpins or other fastenings or a lid. "More modern accounts," he re-observes, "have ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... morning Isabel went with Mrs. Carrington and the two girls to the round Templars' Church of Saint Sepulchre, for the Morning Prayer at eight o'clock, and then on to St. Peter's for the sermon. It was the latter function that was important in Puritan eyes; for the word preached was considered to have an almost sacramental force in the application of truth and grace to the soul; and crowds of people, with downcast eyes and in sombre dress, were pouring down the narrow streets ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... Chelsea School Board fees could but rarely be extracted from old Dicky Shields. But Robert Maitland, when still young in philanthropy, had seen the clever, merry, brown-eyed child at some school treat, or inspection, or other function; had covenanted in some sort with her shiftless parent; had rescued the child from the streets, and sent her as a pupil to Miss Marlett's. Like Mr. Day, the accomplished author of "Sandford and Merton," and creator ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... to the government as compared with the local system, which circulates notes in competition with those issued by the government, seems to me indispensably necessary. It is impossible to prevent the depreciation of the currency unless Congress will assume its constitutional function and control it; and it is idle to try to make loans unless Congress will give the necessary support to the public credit. I am now compelled to advertise for a loan of fifty millions, and, to avoid as far as practicable the evils of sales below par, must offer the long bonds of '81. Should the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... them, because, from the nature and spirit of the Government, they are necessarily excluded from the highest prerogatives of citizenship. Their education and whole training are to proceed with a view to their becoming ultimately a function in the government. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... must change to fit it. He is faced with the necessity of a continuous reconstruction of beliefs. This influence of Darwin has inspired the logical theories of Professor Dewey and the 'Chicago School' of Pragmatists. Thought in their writings is essentially the instrument of this readjustment. Its function is to effect the necessary changes in beliefs as economically and usefully as possible. It is an evolving process which keeps pace with the evolution of reality and the changing situations ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray

... there are a few things about this rocket that could fail to function under unusual circumstances." He snubbed out his cigarette. "After all, your watch stops ...
— If at First You Don't... • John Brudy

... taken from the barn; to do this he would be obliged to leave his wife and the deputy together. I do not know if Mrs. Beasley divined his perplexity, but she carelessly offered to perform that evening function herself. Ira's heart leaped and sank again as the deputy gallantly proposed to assist her. But here rustic simplicity seemed to be equal to the occasion. "Ef I propose to do Ira's work," said Mrs. Beasley, with provocative ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... check the islet was enormously overpopulated. Thousands of birds every year laid eggs for the maintenance of fat and pompous reptiles, without reflecting that there were other and lizardless isles on which the vital function of incubation might be performed without loss. Years after other men of science sought the isle. Birds seemed to be as numerous as ever, but the lizards had disappeared. Had the birds been wise enough to perceive that the plague of lizards had been sent as reproof for overcrowding, or did the lizards ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... all their power or influence over the hearts and actions of mortals works through the medium of dreams, or of such fancies as are most allied to dreams. So that their whole inner character is fashioned in harmony with their external function. Nor is it without rare felicity that the Poet assigns to them the dominion over the workings of sensuous and superficial love, this being but as one of the courts of the dream-land kingdom; a region ordered, as it were, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... was also a survival of galley warfare, and rapidly disappeared with the advance of the sailing man-of-war, never to be revived, unless perhaps it be returning in the immediate future, and we are to see torpedo craft of the latest devising taking the place and function of the barcas, with their axes and augers, and armoured cruisers those of the naos ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... almost misleading to speak of the lofty utterances of these early addresses as attacks upon society, but their reception explains them. The element of absolute courage is the same in all natures. Emerson himself was not unconscious of what function ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... atmosphere be clear we should ascend the spiral staircase, and from the summit, no great height indeed, we shall gain a view of the town with the encircling river, and the vale with the surrounding hills. The tower still performs its function, and every day the chimes play a different tune, all familiar airs that never tire, but with repetition seem rather to gain in ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New

... multitudinous destroyers would soon disintegrate his physical organism. Can the building forces be strengthened, stimulated, and made more harmonious and divine? Yes, through mind. The mind surely but unconsciously pervades every physical tissue with its vital influence, and is present in every function; throbbing in the heart, breathing in the lungs, and weaving its own quality into nutrition, assimilation, sensation, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... national policy." The national emergency which had been in existence since Germany began sinking American ships in pursuance of her unrestricted submarine policy was now acknowledged. It would be the function of Congress, if the President so advised, to declare that a state of war existed between the Government of the United States and that of the German Empire. And a waiting and willing nation was left in no doubt that war there would be. The ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... themselves were humanoid in physical form—if one allowed the term to cover a wide range of differences—but their minds just didn't function ...
— In Case of Fire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... consent were first obtained.[41] The Indian troops, however and wherever raised under the provisions of those treaties, were expected by Pike to constitute, primarily, a home guard and nothing more. If by chance it should happen that, in performing their function as a home guard, they should have to cross their own boundary in order to expel or to punish an intruder, well and good; but their intrinsic character as something resembling a police patrol could not be deemed thereby affected. Moreover, ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... of modern physiology and psychology, in a word, seems gradually coming to the truth that seemed intuitively to be revealed to that great woman, Olive Schreiner, who, in "Woman and Labor" wrote: "... Noble is the function of physical reproduction of humanity by the union of man and woman. Rightly viewed, that union has in it latent, other and even higher forms of creative energy and life-dispensing power, and... its history on earth has only begun; as ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... particularly in the diplomatic part, the regulars, the irregulars, down to the clerks in office, (a corps, without comparison, more numerous than the same amongst us,) co-operated in it. All the intriguers in foreign politics, all the spies, all the intelligencers, actually or late in function, all the candidates for that sort of employment, acted solely ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... sure, most of the guests are from your older Eastern states, but at that ball Lady Victoria took me to. It was magnificent in all its details, originality combined with the most perfect taste. Of course there were not as many jewels as one would see at a great London function, but the toilettes could not have been surpassed. And as for the women—stunning! Such beauty and style and breeding. I confess I didn't expect quite all that. Miss Bascom, Miss Thorndyke, and an exquisite young thing, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... lodged a little while after the declaration of my embassy: the Prince de Rohan, her son-in-law, had orders to go and make the exchange of the Princesses upon the frontier, with the people sent by the King of Spain to perform the same function. I had never had any intimacy with them, though we were not on bad terms. But these Spanish commissions caused us to visit each other with proper politeness. I forgot to say so earlier ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... sexual functions. Moreover, the doctrine of Gall was essentially unreasonable in itself. To suppose that so large a portion of the brain which is continually active, being well supplied with blood, could have a function which is but occasionally active, and which, through the greater part of human life, is unnoticed or inactive, is extremely unreasonable; and to suppose that the serious disturbances of animal life and muscular motion, caused by ablations of the cerebellum, were due to the disturbance of an organ ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various

... development of the time demanded not only new money and credit but new men. A new type of executive was wanted, and he soon appeared to satisfy the need. Neither a capitalist nor a merchant, he combined in some degree the functions of both, added to them the greater function of industrial manager, and received from great business concerns a high premium for his talent and foresight. This Captain of Industry, as he has been called, is the foremost figure of the period, the hero of ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... sense only, MY field, MY house, MY vineyard, MY capital,—precisely as the banker's clerk says MY cash-box. In short, THINE and MINE are signs and expressions of personal, but equal, rights; applied to things outside of us, they indicate possession, function, use, not property. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... volume of literature must always be traditional, and the secondary writers of the world do nevertheless perform a function of infinite consequence in the spread of thought. A very large amount of first-hand thinking is not comprehensible to the average man until it has been distilled and is fifty years old. The men who welcome new learning as it arrives are the picked men, the minor poets ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... something much deeper? Are the men really like the women? Such a conception opens up considerations of very great significance. So far as I understand the matter, it appears that, as well as the deep inherent differences between the two sexes, there are other differences due to divergence in function. It seems probable that changes in environment or in function (as when one sex, for some reason or other, performs the duties usually undertaken by the other sex), may alter or modify the differences which tend to thrust the sexes apart. I feel very sure that there can be changes in the secondary ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... phase of social education are mistakes so serious. Other changes, demanded by new ideas of the function of the school, have been made prematurely and clumsily, but without grave danger. We have adjusted ourselves readily enough to compulsory education, normal schools, higher education for women, expert supervision, the kindergartens, physical training, industrial schools, university ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... Moquegua, Pasco, Piura, Puno, San Martin, Tacna, Tumbes, Ucayali; note—the 1979 Constitution and legislation enacted from 1987 to 1990 mandate the creation of regions (regiones, singular—region) intended to function eventually as autonomous economic and administrative entities; so far, 12 regions have been constituted from 23 existing departments—Amazonas (from Loreto), Andres Avelino Caceres (from Huanuco, Pasco, Junin), Arequipa ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... What the special function of the resin is in this boil is not definitely known; but experience, both on a large and small scale, proves that it is essential to obtaining a good white for alizarine printing; without it, when the goods are dyed with alizarine after the mordants ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech

... blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... General, in consultation with the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, determines to be consistent with the mission of the Office. (b) Transfer of Personnel and Assets.—With respect to any function, power, or duty, or any program or activity, that is established in the Office, those employees and assets of the element of the Department of Justice from which the transfer is made that the Attorney ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... for the several kinds of perception indicated. Every man, in consequence of them, becomes conscious of three separate things in respect of those perceptions (viz., a material organ, its particular function, and the mind upon which that function acts). There are again (in respect of all perceptions of the mind) three classes, viz., those that appertain to Goodness, those that appertain to Passion, and those that appertain to Darkness. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, and Alexandria, upon the gloomy prospects of American trade, which led to a general debate upon the subject. In this, Mr. Madison, by a speech far exceeding in ability any other that was made, began that extended and memorable career of efforts for enlarged function in our central government which has earned him the title of ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... "If the function of painting and literature is to reflect reality, a mirror would do as well, wouldn't it? But to reflect what might be or what ought to be ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... the beaver which a naturalist tells us "busied himself as earnestly in constructing a dam in a room up three pair of stairs in London as if he had been laying his foundation in a lake in Upper Canada. It was his function to build, the absence of water or of possible progeny was an accident for which he was not accountable." In the same manner did Miss Dearborn lay what she fondly imagined to be foundations in ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the tendrils, like a gem When first it meets the sun. Or what are all The various charms to life and sense adjoin'd? Are they not pledges of a state entire, Where native order reigns, with every part 430 In health, and every function ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance or with diminution's menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating function ever ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... I demand of you deep regard and veneration for the great foolish boy who lay helplessly weeping because of that strange difference between men and flowers that with the former carries so much discord into their most important vital function. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... minds from the opinions and dogmas of others—as Kant said: "The chief, and perhaps the only, use of a philosophy of pure reason is a negative one. It is not an organon for extending, but a discipline for limiting! Instead of discovering truth, its modest function is to guard against error." Let us then listen to the report of the Intellect, as well as of the higher fields ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... period we must take particular notice of a new agency that now comes on the scene. The institution of monachism was one of considerable standing before the date at which we are now arrived, but it had never yet found any function of systematic usefulness. Benedict of Nursia is called the father of monks, not because he first instituted them, but because he organised and regulated the monastic life and converted it to a powerful agency for religion and civilisation. Benedict ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... produced as a more or less spontaneous act of play or passion, and achieving some small degree of respectability only when practiced by a respected poet and collected with his more serious verse.[2] Like modern "serial" graffiti, it could function as a form of communication since the first inscriptions often provoked those who followed to make ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)

... coming over him that revulsion that would make him look upon death as the goal of his desires, as happiness. Hitherto each individual desire, aroused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by some bodily function giving pleasure. But now no physical craving or suffering received relief, and the effort to relieve them only caused fresh suffering. And so all desires were merged in one—the desire to be rid of all his sufferings ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... sitting the other day at a function next a man of some eminence, and I was really amazed at the way in which he discoursed of himself and his habits, his diet, his hours of work, and the blank indifference with which he received similar confidences. He merely waited till the speaker had finished, and then ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... regulated their courses to a hand's-breadth, deposited their burdens carefully, then hurried back for more; the shuttle trains that dodged about so feverishly, untended and unguided, performed each some vital function. The great conglomerate body was dead, yet it pulsated with a life of its own. Its effect of being governed by a single indwelling mind ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... realism, which should also result in an increase of interest. As the series developed, however, I perceived that something more than a new short story form was involved; I perceived that the "read-aloud" play has a distinct character and function of its own. In the long run, everything human rises or falls to the level of speech. The culminating point, even of action the most poignant or emotion the most intimate, is where it finds the right word or phrase by which it is translated ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley

... hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde

... him to late Sunday breakfast at the Gilsons'—they made a function of it, and called it bruncheon. The hour was given as ten-thirty; most people came at noon; but Milt arrived at ten-thirty-one, and found only a sleepy butler ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... not a shadow of foundation save from the submission of her Anglo-Norman nobles, almost all of whom were his own vassals and owned estates in England, were just and righteous. Such is not the true function of history. Edward's sole claim to Scotland was that he was determined to unite under his rule England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and he failed because the people of Scotland, deserted as they ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... vast number, too, of the statesmen, generals, and naval heroes of the British empire have been admitted to the honor of having their remains deposited under its marble floor. Even literary genius has a little corner assigned it—the mighty aristocracy whose mortal remains it is the main function of the building to protect having so far condescended toward intellectual greatness as to allow to Milton, Addison, and Shakspeare modest monuments behind a door. The place is called the Poets' Corner; and so famed and celebrated ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... be appointed, who shall have command of all the troops in the State; or the department commander be authorized to assume, by virtue of his command, the function of military governor, which naturally ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... burghers had in his speech stated in passionate terms that no dictation on the part of Uitlanders could be tolerated; they must either obey the laws or leave the State. The function and prerogative of making laws belonged to the burghers. They had been ill-used enough by the English; it would be still worse, he said, if they were invested with legislative rights. "On the contrary, it is the Boer nation which is entitled to supremacy, not only ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas

... matter is a more difficult question, but here again I don't go with you. The position of the writers of "Essays and Reviews" is, that certain parts of the Old Testament have done their intended function in the education of the world as it was; but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the Almighty to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the machinery of its education must advance too. For example: inasmuch as ever since there was a sun and there ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... the good lady I have mentioned was, in the discharge of her function, showing the apartments to a cockney from London—not one of your quiet, dull, commonplace visitors, who gape, yawn, and listen with an acquiescent "umph" to the information doled out by the provincial cicerone. No such thing: this was the brisk, alert agent of a great house in the city, who missed ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. An article that is normally a part of a useful article ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... about 15 per cent. more gun- cotton—can be got into the same space, or less space will be occupied by a charge of a given weight. (2.) The metallic cases for solid charges may be much lighter than for those built-up, since with the former their function is merely to prevent the loss of moisture from wet gun-cotton, or to prevent the absorption of moisture by dry gun-cotton. They can thus be made lighter, as the solid charge inside will prevent deformation during transport. ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... through our propensities, fashions, and language. Our very plutocrats and monarchs are at ease only when they are vulgar. Even prelates and missionaries are hardly sincere or conscious of an honest function, save as they devote themselves to social work; for willy-nilly the new spirit has hold of our consciences as well. This spirit is amiable as well as disquieting, liberating as well as barbaric; and a philosopher in our day, conscious both of the old life and of ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... their late entrance would attract marked notice to them, and now he felt a desire to avoid such attention; but she would make of it a special event, a function. Despite Prescott's efforts, she marshaled himself and herself in such masterly fashion that every eye in the room was upon them as they entered, and none could help noticing that they came as an intimate pair—or at least the skilful ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... arose in our time, and was celebrated for its talents and its extravagance, proposed to concentrate all property into the hands of a central power, whose function it should afterwards be to parcel it out to individuals, according to their capacity. This would have been a method of escaping from that complete and eternal equality which seems to threaten democratic society. But it would be a simpler and less ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... chaotic fragments of humanity to be hewn into rough shape by coarse artists seeking only a petty profit, unhandy, immeasurably impudent; or dress them by your teaching—teaching which is the highest, noblest, purest, most efficient function of Government, which ought to be the most lofty ambition of statesmanship—to be civic corner-stones polished after ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... function of money, is of great antiquity. Asia was a commercial country when Europe was a wilderness; and as the East has not changed her habits since the remotest ages, silver alone is the money of that continent, inhabited by more than one-half of the human race, and among whom paper-money is ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... economist? I cry out against money, just because everybody confounds it, as you did just now, with riches, and that this confusion is the cause of errors and calamities without number. I cry out against it because its function in society is not understood, and very difficult to explain. I cry out against it, because it jumbles all ideas, causes the means to be taken for the end, the obstacle for the cause, the alpha for the omega; because its presence in the world, though in itself ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... common use, the miniature therein., however, continuing to hold for some time a subordinate place, as a decoration rather than as an illustrative feature. In course of time, with the growth of the border, the two-fold function of the miniature, as a means of illustration and also of decoration, is satisfied by allowing it to occupy part or even the whole of a page as an independent picture, but at the same time, set in the border, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... elaborate that they will cost quite as much as a more pretentious function, but they are more enjoyable when they are simply gotten up. One was given in a fashionable part of the city, and the aid of the caterer and the decorator had been utilized in such a manner as to produce the effect of a gorgeous al fresco reception. A gaily striped awning was stretched ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... the busiest and happiest of women amid her preparations, and it brought his wife and Lucy together in a sensible way after he had given up all hope of doing so. For when Lucy received her invitation she began at once to consider what she must wear at such an important social function. Harry had but a confused idea, Mrs. Stephen Hatton's favorite fashions were considerably behind the period, and Mr. Lugur's advice was after the strictest ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... work of government, but through its roots in the past to gain popular loyalty and support for the real government, which the masses would not obey if they realized its genuine nature; that "it raises the army though it does not win the battle." He showed that the function of the House of Peers is not as a co-ordinate power with the Commons (which is the real government), but as a revising body and an index of the strength of popular feeling. Constitutional governments he divides into Cabinet, where the people can change ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... that faction had concerted a scheme against the life of king William; that in prosecuting the conspirators, the court had countenanced informers; that the judges had strained the law, wrested circumstances, and even deviated from the function of their office, to convict the prisoners; in a word, that the administration had used the same arbitrary and unfair practices against those unhappy people, which they themselves had in the late reigns numbered among the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... satire, and the gentry buy! While my hard-labour'd poem pines Unsold upon the printer's lines. A genius in the reverend gown Must ever keep its owner down; 'Tis an unnatural conjunction, And spoils the credit of the function. Round all your brethren cast your eyes, Point out the surest men to rise; That club of candidates in black, The least deserving of the pack, Aspiring, factious, fierce, and loud, With grace and learning unendow'd, Can turn their hands to every job, The fittest tools to work for Bob;[2] ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... or action. Manifestly, therefore, all the powers of the soul are lodged in and exercised through the brain; and as all distinct nerve structures have essentially different functions, and every different function requires a different structure, it is obvious that the vast variety of our psychic faculties, intellectual, emotional, sensitive, passional, and physiological, requires a corresponding multiplicity in the nervous ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various

... Christian Andersen's immortal "Story of the Nightingale." The real Nightingale and the artificial Nightingale have been bidden by the Emperor to unite their forces and to sing a duet at a Court function. The duet turns out most disastrously, and while the artificial Nightingale is singing his one solo for the thirty-third time, the real Nightingale flies out of the window back to the green wood—a true artist, instinctively choosing his right atmosphere. But the bandmaster—symbol ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... timid about going about alone after dark. Only society of beautiful, accomplished, well-informed and agreeable lady of proved discretion can put me thoroughly at ease. If you can recommend one such to me by telegraph, stipulating her amiability must begin to function this evening, you may depend on my not hesitating to ask further favours as occasion may arise. Presume you have heard your old friend Duchemin, now missing, is suspected of looting jewels of Madame de Montalais, Chateau de Montalais, near Millau. He counts on your discretion to preserve secret ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... deeply, repels the blood toward the cavities of the head, chest, and abdomen; it causes, in the circulation of the lungs, and in that of the venous system of the head, an embarrassment that disturbs the function of the brain and concurs to produce somnolence. The probability of this explanation is strengthened by the flowing of the blood from the nose to the ears, spontaneous haemoptysis, also by preternatural redness of the viscera, engorgements ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... were united only by the ties of faith and charity. Independence and equality formed the basis of their internal constitution. The want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the prophets, [106] who were called to that function without distinction of age, of sex, [1061] or of natural abilities, and who, as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by the prophetic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon

... subject to any Limitations or Directions expressed or given by the Queen; but the Appointment of such a Deputy or Deputies shall not affect the Exercise by the Governor General himself of any Power, Authority, or Function. ...
— The British North America Act, 1867 • Anonymous

... committees, which shall include an explanation of the rationale for the action. (b) Limitations.— (1) In general.—Authority under subsection (a)(1) does not extend to the abolition of any agency, entity, organizational unit, program, or function established or required to be maintained by this Act. (2) Abolitions.—Authority under subsection (a)(2) does not extend to the abolition of any agency, entity, organizational unit, program, or function established or required to be maintained ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... trace the course of events at Kyoto. According to the theory of the government of Japan the emperor was the supreme and unlimited ruler and the shogun was his executive. The maintenance of the emperor and his court was a function of the shogun, and hence it was almost always possible for him to compel the emperor to pursue any policy ...
— Japan • David Murray

... pianists seem to comprehend the exact function and importance of the pedal. Many will be surprised to hear that the word "touch," which they suppose refers to the way the keys are struck by the fingers, has quite as much to do with the feet—that is, the use of the pedal—as with the fingers. No matter how thoroughly ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... great deal of consideration. It is an old formal name for what has been often an antiquated mechanical exercise. A great deal more trouble is expended now on the manner of questioning and "hearing" the lessons; but even yet it may be done too formally, as a mere function, or in a way that kills the interest, or in a manner that alarms—with a mysterious face as if setting traps, or with questions that are easy and obvious to ask, but for children almost impossible to answer. Children do not usually give direct ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... fellow and during the first years of his life his health was not very good. He never impressed anybody by his good looks and he remained to the end of his days very clumsy whenever he was obliged to appear at a social function. He did not enjoy a single advantage of breeding or birth or riches. For the greater part of his youth he was desperately poor and often he had to go without a meal or was obliged to make a few ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... description. On a front view it appeared to consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to each other as the earth and the moon: that is to say, the lower sphere might be said, at a rough guess, to be thirteen times larger than the upper which naturally performed the function of a mere satellite and tributary. But here the resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson's head was not at all a melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a "spotty globe," as Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... world; but she has a number of literary degrees of public interest or simple amusement, which are perfectly well filled. Few literati are without employ, and still fewer are beneath their functions. The place of member of the Institute is a real public function remunerated by the State. It is to this cause, and to a few others, which will occur to you beforehand, that we must attribute the character of gravity which literature begins to assume in this country. The prudery of the school of DORAT would ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... one great function of the literary artist, which is to mediate between nature and the reading public. Such a man is an eye specialist. Through his amiable offices people who have hitherto been blind are put into condition to see. Near-sighted persons have spectacles fitted to them—which ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... Adam's apple, regardless of the blows that smashed into his face. He hammered home one jolt hard to the jaw and, as Russell's body grew limp, dragged himself from the relaxing hold and crouched on hands and knees, wheezing, spent, gulping air to his flattened lower lungs that refused to function. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... possessed himself of the vacated post under another title, Montmorency found that he had resigned the substance to grasp a shadow; as, on his application for the sword so long wielded by the heads of his family, he was met by an assurance that thenceforward no such function would be recognized at the Court of France. The mortified noble then applied for the post of Marshal-General of the King's camps and armies, which, save in name, would not have differed from the rank to which ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... quite in accordance with, and even necessary deductions from, the law now developed, are those of rudimentary organs. That these really do exist, and in most cases have no special function in the animal oeconomy, is admitted by the first authorities in comparative anatomy. The minute limbs hidden beneath the skin in many of the snake-like lizards, the anal hooks of the boa constrictor, the complete series of jointed finger-bones in the paddle of the Manatus and whale, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace



Words linked to "Function" :   fundraiser, random number generator, party, multinomial, second fiddle, lieu, hat, program, place, ceremonial occasion, cut, sleepover, executive routine, Kronecker delta, supervisory routine, software, expansion, package, act as, do, observance, social event, programme, recursive routine, computer programme, roll, mathematics, math, transformation, computer software, capacity, prelude, software program, utility, service routine, answer, maths, suffice, isometry, library routine, position, usefulness, social affair, relation, service, computer program, tracing routine, mathematical relation, contingency procedure, operator, photo op, control function, social gathering, duty, exponential, celebration, jubilation, software package, reusable routine, exponential function, polynomial, software system, utility routine, metric, malfunction, raison d'etre, double, ceremony, cataloged procedure, portfolio, ceremonial, photo opportunity, stead



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com