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Impair   /ɪmpˈɛr/   Listen
Impair

verb
(past & past part. impaired; pres. part. impairing)  (Written also empair)
1.
Make worse or less effective.
2.
Make imperfect.  Synonyms: deflower, mar, spoil, vitiate.



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"Impair" Quotes from Famous Books



... compared with the most lovely and accomplished damsels whose praises were at that time sounded forth by the voice of fame. Neither sun, nor wind, nor all those vicissitudes of weather, to which the gipsies are more constantly exposed than any other people, could impair the bloom of her complexion or embrown her hands; and what is more remarkable, the rude manner in which she was reared only served to reveal that she must have sprung from something better than the Gitano stock; for she was extremely pleasing and courteous in conversation, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... very deplorable. Almost of necessity they impair a daughter's proper position of superiority and put her in a relation toward her mother which no self-respecting young woman would desire to occupy. It might be weeks before Janie Iver could really assert her dignity again. It was strong proof of her affection for Bob Broadley that, ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... territory furnishing food demand the organized attention of the group first of all; and the emotional demonstrations and social rewards following modes of behavior which have a protective or provident meaning for the group, and the public disapproval and disallowance of modes of behavior which impair the safety or force capacity, and consequent satisfactions of the group, become in the tribe the most powerful of all stimuli, and stimuli to which the male is peculiarly able to react. This is not like the case of hunger and other physiological stimuli which are conditioned ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... to believe that the economy of the plan, coupled with the spirit of curiosity which it is our aim to encourage,—have been the prime movers of our fortunes, as they have been the pivots upon which we have performed our half-yearly revolutions. In these we have allowed neither autumn nor winter to impair our exertions; and, however time may have worn otherwise with us, we still feel all the youth and freshness of spring-tide, warmed by the genial ray ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 12, No. 349, Supplement to Volume 12. • Various

... stage in a beneficent process. We are not to separate out the constituent elements therein, and judge them as facts in time and space. Society is one and indivisible; and the defects do not at any point impair the ultimate integrity of the ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... quiet scenes of his youth to the hollow and heartless society of cities; to the haunts of men who would court and flatter him while his name was new, and who, when they had contributed to distract his attention and impair his health, would cast him off unceremoniously to seek some other novelty.' These words of true advice proved almost prophetic in the life of ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... alike, Raoul; yet one may impair, if not destroy, the other. Oh! if thou would'st but believe that thy Saviour was thy God—if thou could'st but be dead to his love, and not active against him, I might hope for better things; but I dare not pledge all my earthly duties to one who is openly an enemy ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... and strength (since for the illustration of things which cannot be seen we must use those that can), for excessive training impairs the strength as well as deficient: meat and drink, in like manner, in too great or too small quantities, impair the health: while in due proportion they cause, ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... mine is "an inheritance incorruptible." It is not exposed to the gnawing tooth of time. Moth and rust can not impair the treasure. It will not grow less as I grow old. Its glories are as invulnerable as ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... incorruptible to be preferable to the corruptible, there ought I to seek for Thee, and there observe "wherein evil itself was"; that is, whence corruption comes, by which Thy substance can by no means be impaired. For corruption does no ways impair our God; by no will, by no necessity, by no unlooked-for chance: because He is God, and what He wills is good, and Himself is that good; but to be corrupted is not good. Nor art Thou against Thy will constrained to any ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... while as an insulating suspension it has all the virtues. If it is desired to render the threads conducting they may be lightly silvered, and will be found to conduct well enough for electrometer work before the silver coating is thick enough to sensibly impair their elastic properties. ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... Development of Moral Ideas, Theory of Ethics, History of Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Theory of Knowledge. It must be admitted, however, that a rigorous insistence upon this scheme in the American college, in which freedom of election is the rule, would impair the usefulness of the department of philosophy. Few students will be willing to take all these subjects, and there is no reason why an intelligent junior or senior should not be admitted to a course in ethics ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... beginner should be worrying about this. Just remember, that you must never try to learn to dance in a French, Cuban or military heel, as they act as a handicap or "brake." No one can learn with them because they pitch one forward at the wrong angle and impair the health. ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... and Shining again of the Royal Favour, upon this long Afflicted and distressed Church, could possibly Inspire: For as Your Majesties Concern for the Good of this Your Ancient Kingdom, hath indeed been such, as nothing can impair the Happy State whereunto You have Restored it, save the want of the due sense and understanding of so great a Mercy; So We doe most heartily acknowledge, that through Your Majesties Care and Kindness, the Church of Christ therein, doth equally partake of the same Blessing. It was the sad ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... who are cruel, Monsieur; it is you who are without pity. Do you not see what I suffer, and that it is impossible for me to endure further torture? No, I have nothing to tell you; there is nothing you can say to my father. Why do you seek to impair my courage when I require it all to struggle against my despair? Maurice must forget me; he must never see me again. This is fate; and he must not fight against it. It would be folly. We are parted forever. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... of war and the beautiful arts of peace. Concobar Mac Nessa was not only King of Ulster and captain of the Red Branch, but was also the head and chief of a great school. In this school the boys did not injure their eyesight and impair their health by poring over books; nor were compelled to learn what they could not understand; nor were instructed by persons whom they did not wish to resemble. They were taught to hurl spears at a mark; to train war-horses ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... there is no muscular vigor, and the tendency of which is toward indolence. Thus the vertical line separates the indolent from the energetic basilar functions, and all the enfeebling, sensitive, morbid faculties that impair our energies are in ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various

... coinage of silver and to pay the public debt with it. As far as our honour goes, the passing of such a resolution would affect us as deeply as if it were to become a law. We should stand before the world as willing and ready to violate the national honour, ignore our pledges and recklessly impair our credit. I don't think the resolution will pass the House, the Republican majority is too strong there, but I am afraid it will pass the Senate; although we are in the majority, a good many Republicans are Western men and Silverites. A certain ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... the English furniture, which has not left its first home; the spacious apartments, of which the outside gives no warning,—these impart a quiet dignity, a pleasant refinement, to the colonial houses which no distance of time or space can impair. There is a house at Kittery of which the planks were cut out there in the forest, were sent to England to be carved and shaped, and were then returned to their native woodland to be fashioned into a house. Thus ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... Elizabeth, by wisdom and prudence, not only managed to defend herself, but became one of the greatest rulers of any age. She devoted her energies to the government of her people, and, though courted by many princes, would never marry, for fear such a relation would impair her ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... replied the conjurer, with a sly smile. "Give me the piece of stuff to-day, that, when I come back in a month, I may have suitable garments when I amuse the guests at the feast given for your recovery. I'm no giant, and shall not greatly impair ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... 033) more apparent than when its powers stood highest. Even in the realm of legislation, the statute book has seldom been so barren. Its principal acts were to narrow the county electorate to an oligarchy, to restrict the choice of constituencies to resident knights and burgesses, and to impair its own influence as a focus of public opinion. It was not content with legislative authority; it interfered with an executive which it could hamper but could not control. It was possessed by the inveterate ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... doth he grieve, Nor enough strength of mind possessed To mention the foregoing eve, He mused: "I will her saviour be! With ardent sighs and flattery The vile seducer shall not dare The freshness of her heart impair, Nor shall the caterpillar come The lily's stem to eat away, Nor shall the bud of yesterday Perish when half disclosed its bloom!"— All this, my friends, translate aright: "I with ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... potations, late hours, and sustained dissipation. The large amount of foot-exercise I took during these few weeks, doubtless contributed also to restore tone and vigour to a constitution which my dissolute career, however mad and reckless, had not been long enough seriously to impair. When weary of my lonesome attic, I would start through the nearest barrier, avoiding the streets and districts where I might encounter former acquaintances, and take long walks in the environs of Paris, returning with an appetite that gave a relish even to the tough and unsavoury ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various

... discovery that friends have "failings"; as Lord Morley, who went to Lincoln in 1856, writes: "Companionship (at Oxford) was more than lectures"; a friend's failure later (he refers to his contemporary, Cotter Morison's /Service of Man/) "could not impair the captivating ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... disposition toward such a speedy and direct adjustment by the two sovereign States in interest as shall comport with equity and honor. It is gratifying to learn that the apprehensions at first displayed on the part of Japan lest the cessation of Hawaii's national life through annexation might impair privileges to which Japan honorably laid claim, have given place to confidence in the uprightness of this Government, and in the sincerity of its purpose to deal with all possible ulterior questions in the broadest spirit ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... Society, issued in an abridged and doubtless an emasculated form through the columns of a weekly newspaper. One final and unapproachable instance, one transcendant and pyramidal example of classical taste and of critical scholarship, I did not venture to impair by transference from those columns and transplantation into these pages among humbler specimens of minor monstrosity. Let it stand here once more on record as "a good jest for ever"—or rather as the best and therefore as the worst, as the worst and therefore as the best, of all possible bad ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... ancient times would not let a man do. His gens or his phratria required him to believe as they believed.' Toleration is of all ideas the most modern, because the notion that the bad religion of A cannot impair, here or hereafter, the welfare of B, is, strange to say, a modern idea. And the help of 'science,' at that stage of thought, is still more nugatory. Physical science, as we conceive it—that is, the systematic investigation of external ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... station might somewhat involve himself in the meshes he was weaving around others, the sagacious chairman, upon the first show of violence, roared out his resignation, and descended from his place. But this movement did not impair the industry of the regulators. A voice was heard proposing a bonfire of the merchandise, and no second suggestion was necessary. All hands but those of the pedler and the attorney were employed in building the pyre in front of the tavern ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... brightened up somewhat its brief course. Charlie was taciturn and curt, though not impolite. Mr. Prohack, whose private high spirits not even the amazing and inexcusable absence of his daughter could impair, pretended to a decent woe, and chatted as he might have done to a fellow-clubman on a wet Sunday ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... one degree to the southward of the Strait; in which height, and so many leagues to the westward, the 15th day of September, fell out the eclipse of the moon at the hour of six of the clock at night. But neither did the ecliptical conflict of the moon impair our state, nor her clearing again amend us a whit; but the accustomed eclipse of the sea continued in his force, we being darkened more ...
— Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World • Francis Pretty

... opinion, be left to a real judge—to some broad, keen critic of poetry with a clear, unbiased contemporary view of the whole domain of the art. It matters not whether he is professional or amateur, so he is untouched by academicism and has not done so much reading or writing as to impair his mental digestion and his clarity of vision. Care, of course, would have to be used in safeguarding the critic-judge against undue pressure in favor of this candidate or that; and in safeguarding the incumbent of the fellowship from yet ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... organization on the other do not coincide, and where the only solution is one which impairs sovereignty in the old sense. The second is that the League of Nations, if it is to mean anything at all, will have to impair the sovereignty of the states which join it without thereby constituting in itself a world state. Much of the opposition to the League of Nations is concerned with this implied impairment of sovereignty. Whether this opposition will weigh with us will ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... lens three feet in diameter is worth $60,000. Its adjustment is so delicate that the human hand is the only instrument thus far known suitable for giving the final polish, and one sweep of the hand more than is needed, Alvan Clark says, would impair the correctness of the glass. During the test of the great glass which he made for Russia, the workmen turned it a little with their hands. "Wait, boys, let it cool before making another trial," said Clark; "the poise is so delicate ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... had gone astray before he had learnt to control himself, but feeling that at least in an earthly father it is unjust to visit the faults of childhood on the matured man; feeling that he had long, long shaken them off from him, and they did not even impair the probity of his after-life. But now these doubts, too, pass away in the brave certainty that God is not less just than man. As the denouncings grow louder and darker, he appeals from his narrow judges to the Supreme Tribunal—calls on God to hear him and to try his cause—and then, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... bursting of the enemy's shells, the groans and moans of the wounded, and the vain attempts to get out the collision-mats on the starboard side—precautions that savored of preservation measures while at the same time causing a great loss of life—all this began to impair the crew's ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... myself to explain the meaning of all the combinations—of "rouge et noir," of "pair et impair," of "manque et passe," with, lastly, the different values in the system of numbers. The Grandmother listened attentively, took notes, put questions in various forms, and laid the whole thing to heart. Indeed, since an example of each system of stakes kept ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... hence! Rather, such speckled creatures, as thyself, Should be eschew'd, and shunn'd; such as will bite And gnaw their absent friends, not cure their fame; Catch at the loosest laughters, and affect To be thought jesters; such as can devise Things never seen, or head, t'impair men's names, And gratify their credulous adversaries; Will carry tales, do basest offices, Cherish divided fires, and still encrease New flames, out of old embers; will reveal Each secret that's committed to their ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... as you don't let fear of being propagandized blind you to the good we're doing here, or impair your ability to observe and draw accurate conclusions. Just stay scientific about it and I'll be satisfied. Now, let's take time out for lubrication," he said, filling her glass ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... course—payment out of our gold reserve, but that need only be stated to be discarded. We cannot impair the basis of the great system of credit which has made this City of London the financial centre and capital of ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... niche In Heaven, to hold our idols; and albeit He brake them to our faces, and denied That our close kisses should impair their white,— I know we shall behold them raised, complete, The dust swept from their beauty, glorified, New Memnons singing in the great God-light. Futurity with the Departed. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... canonical allegories. The more, in opposition to this, it is possessed with the charm of thinking, the more is it in danger of condemning the content of religion itself as a mere fictitious conception. As a transition-stage the religion of imagination is perfectly normal, and it does not in the least impair freedom if, for example, one has personified evil as a living Devil. The error does not lie in this, but in the making absolute these determinate, aesthetic forms of religion. The reaction of the thinking activity against ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... feeling drowsy. Its use is of great antiquity, preceding that of coffee. Its stimulating effects induced some Arabs to class it with intoxicating substances, the use of which is forbidden by the Koran, but a synod of learned Mussulmans decreed that, as it did not impair the health or impede the observance of religious duties, but only increased hilarity and good humor, it was lawful ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders

... allegiance you owe to him? You could wrong him no further than by setting your hearts and ways contrary to his heart and ways in loving what he hates and hating what he loves. For his own blessed being you could not impair it. Now, consider if that be not acted as really as if you did profess it. Can you say that cursing, swearing, lying, railing, anger, strife, envy, revenge, and such like works of darkness, are the things which his soul loves? Are these suitable to his holy will? And yet these are your ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... would rebuke some of our shoddy contractors occasionally, it might work much good. In the Hellespont we saw where Leander and Lord Byron swam across, the one to see her upon whom his soul's affections were fixed with a devotion that only death could impair, and the other merely for a flyer, as Jack says. We had two noted tombs near us, too. On one shore slept Ajax, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... specious distinctions Marie had convinced herself that she did not in any way impair her conjugal faith, she rushed into the happiness of loving Raoul. The least little things of her daily life acquired a charm. Her boudoir, where she thought of him, became a sanctuary. There was nothing ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... man only the appearance of himself) those laws apply to him directly and categorically, so that the incitements of inclinations and appetites (in other words the whole nature of the world of sense) cannot impair the laws of his volition as an intelligence. Nay, he does not even hold himself responsible for the former or ascribe them to his proper self, i. e., his will: he only ascribes to his will any indulgence which he might yield them if he allowed them to influence his maxims to the prejudice of ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... on railroad affairs, Commodore Vanderbilt said to me, "I was very glad you were defeated," which was his way of saying that he did not want me either to leave the railroad or to have other duties which would impair my efficiency. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... the American people gained an increase of freedom by their separation from England, as that they kept the freedom they had always enjoyed, that freedom which was the inalienable birthright of Englishmen, but which George III. had foolishly sought to impair. The American Revolution was therefore in no respect destructive. It was the most conservative revolution known to history, thoroughly English in conception from beginning to end. It had no likeness whatever to the terrible popular ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... should press hard after a complete performing their work that God hath allotted unto them is, because, so far forth as they fall short, in that they impair their own glory. For as the Lord hath commanded his people to work for him in this world, so also he of grace hath promised to reward whatever they Christianly do. For whatsoever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... slaves, into the common Territories belonging equally to all the States of the Confederacy, and to have it protected there under the Federal Constitution. Neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature nor any human power has any authority to annul or impair this vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the country, which is a coordinate branch of the Government, has sanctioned and affirmed these principles of constitutional law, so manifestly just in themselves and so well calculated to promote ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... with Maha Mongkut, and when I had become permanently installed in my double office of teacher and scribe, I was one day busy with a letter from his Majesty to the Earl of Clarendon, and finding that any attempt at partial correction would but render his meaning more ambiguous, and impair the striking originality of his style, I had abandoned the effort, and set about copying it with literal exactness, only venturing to alter here and there a word, such as "I hasten with wilful pleasure to write in ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... chaste and continent not to impair his strength or terrified by contagion will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not that virtue until those years when Cato could lend out his wife, and impotent satyrs write satires against lust, but be chaste in thy flaming days when Alexander dared not ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... was silent on this subject, because he believed himself in no danger of changing his opinion, and he was willing to save us from any uneasiness. The mere mention of such a scheme, and the possibility of his embracing it, he knew, would considerably impair our tranquillity. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... regrettingly. Our reciprocal Esteem is not lessen'd by this abruption of our official intercourse. And as every man who feels what Society is, ought to determine to be serviceable to the Public, my removal from this office neither weakens the determination, nor probably will be found to have impair'd the means of effecting it. I am therefore well content;—as I ought to be. I sought not the office. I have never sought any. It solicited my acceptance; unask'd and unexpected. I owe my appointment to the Duke of GRAFTON, very soon after I came to reside ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... there is so much stomach ache. In boys' camps the chief trouble is indigestion caused by this riot of eating. Such boys are laying up for themselves for the future some beautiful headaches and bilious attacks, which, when they become chronic later, will cry out against them and seriously impair their value. Don't eat when very tired; lie down a while and get rested. Don't eat heavily before exercising, or, better, put it the other way around, don't exercise immediately after eating. Never eat when excited or angry and very lightly when worried or when expecting to study ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... more popular, more passionately in earnest, more definite and intelligible than Yeast; and if I fail to hold it quite as the equal of Yeast in literary merit, it is because these very qualities necessarily impair it as a work of art. It was written, we well know, under violent excitement and by a terrible strain on the neuropathic organism of the poet-preacher. It is undoubtedly spasmodic, crude, and disorderly. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... of the most debasing of vices. It impairs the intellect and undermines the constitution. To the inhibition of Holy Writ is added the cumulative if inferential prohibition of the Law, which declines to consider inebriety, though extreme enough in degree to impair if not destroy the reasoning faculty, in mitigation of crime of the highest—— dignity. If you had no beloved family to whom your conduct would be an affliction, yet you have a duty to yourself and to the Commonwealth which you have flagrantly violated. To shocking inebriety you added ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... how we might be taxed if we should succeed in reaching the house, and a march of twenty-five miles in the heat of the day would greatly impair our energies, we decided to set off at once (this being Thursday), and spend the night in the forest at a spot not far distant from the road. The negroes by themselves would never have consented to this plan, so great was ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... denotes sorrow will follow some worldly pleasure, and some imprudence will impair the general health ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... the compromise measures settled by the last Congress, 'the act for reclaiming fugitives from service labor' included; which act, being designed to carry out an express provision of the constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... continued: "All the evils that can blight a young life, waste his property, corrupt his morals, blast his hopes, impair his health and wreck his soul, lurk in the purlieus of this abominated show life that is threatening some of the best beloved and most talented of our young people. Folly consists in drawing false conclusions from just principles; and that is what the theatre does. Men may live fools but ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... them retain in their bosom—in their ecclesiastical organizations, worship, doctrines, and observances—various relics of Popery. They are at best a reformation of Popery, and only reformations in part. The doctrines and traditions of men yet impair the power and progress of the gospel in their hands." ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... Path," as between self-indulgence on the one hand, and extreme bodily mortification as a thing of merit on the other. This middle ground still demanded abstinence as favorable to the highest mental and moral conditions, but it was not carried to such extremes as to weaken the body or the mind, or impair the ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... consecrate existence, not "to the unknown God" whom we "ignorantly worship," but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life 428:18 which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy. We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them 428:21 with the life ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... soda, and finally in pure water and dried, it feels rough to the fingers, owing to the separation of the scales. I have preserved a small quantity of wool thus treated for the last twelve years, my object being to ascertain whether the chemical action to which it was exposed would impair its strength. As far as I can observe, without the aid of the proper tests, it seems to have retained its original tenacity. Wool thus treated seems to possess the property of resisting the ravages of the larvae of the moth. This specimen, although openly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... The representation of injury, which is fear, being elicited by phylogenetic association, may be prevented by the exclusion of the noci-association or by the administration of drugs like morphin and scopolamin, which so impair the associational function of the brain-cells that immunity to fear is established. Animals whose natural defense is in muscular exertion, among which is man, may have their dischargeable nervous energy exhausted by fear alone, or by trauma alone, ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... of, as shown by the legend and by their identification with the mighty god Hanuman. And at the present time the forest tribes who live separately from the Hindus in the jungle tracts are, as a rule, not regarded as impure. But this does not impair the identification of the Sudras with those tribes who were reduced to subjection and serfdom in the Hindu villages, as shown by the evidence here given. The view has also been held that the Sudras might have been a servile class already subject to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... histrionic efforts to the drama as SHAKSPEARE wrote it, with an occasional excursion into the dramatic verse of BROWNING. A great many, however, of the most influential members of the Hebdomadal Council are said to view any such departure from SHAKSPEARE with alarm, as calculated to impair the discipline and sap the morality of the tender nurselings confided to their charge, and it is doubtful if the experiment will be repeated. Long live the legitimate drama, say I, and so say all of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 21, 1891 • Various

... this article, whether any, and what, intermediate operation may be necessary to prepare the way to this, what cautions must be observed for the security of his Majesty's revenue, which we do not wish to impair, will rest with the wisdom of his ministers, whose knowledge of the subject will enable them to devise the best plans, and whose patriotism and justice will dispose them to pursue them. To the friendly dispositions of your Excellency, of which we have had such early and multiplied proofs, ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... "This miserable fate Suffer the wretched souls of those, who liv'd Without or praise or blame, with that ill band Of angels mix'd, who nor rebellious prov'd Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth, Not to impair his lustre, nor the depth Of Hell receives them, lest th' accursed tribe Should glory thence with exultation vain." I then: "Master! what doth aggrieve them thus, That they lament so loud?" He straight replied: "That will I tell thee ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... book with a conscience in it, and its highest appeal is to the conscience. It is so very nearly a great book, so very nearly a true book, that it is with a kind of grief one recognizes its limitations, a kind of surprise at its shortcomings, which, nevertheless, are not shortcomings that impair its supreme effect. This, I take it, is the intimation of a mystical authority in marriage against which divorce sins in vain, which no recreancy can subvert, and by virtue of which it claims eternally its own the lovers united in it; though they seem to become ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the obstructions must be numerous and great that can prevent the possessor from rising. In Hodgkinson those requisites were united in an eminent degree. No adversity could crush his energies, no prosperity impair his industry. It was but a few months before his death that old Mr. Whitlock under whose management Hodgkinson had early in life played in the north of England, said to this writer, "John had as much work in him as any two players I ever knew—he's the same in that respect now, and will be the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... results heretofore given. The difficulties which attend the obtaining the ash in a proper condition, and the fact that the products of all the organs and parts of the plants have been analysed together, must necessarily impair the accuracy of the experiments, and render the inferences drawn from them of uncertain value. Much, indeed I may say almost everything, still remains to be done in this department of ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... the article on Goring by C.H. Firth in the Dictionary of National Biography and S.R. Gardiner's Civil War, 1893, vol. ii, pp. 13-17. Clarendon was misinformed; yet this error in detail does not impair the truth ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... that fill'd Pelides' breast, Nor dark Ulysses' wanderings o'er the brine, Nor Pelops' house unblest. Vast were the task, I feeble; inborn shame, And she, who makes the peaceful lyre submit, Forbid me to impair great Caesar's fame And yours by my weak wit. But who may fitly sing of Mars array'd In adamant mail, or Merion, black with dust Of Troy, or Tydeus' son by Pallas' aid Strong against gods to thrust? Feasts are my theme, my warriors maidens ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... found favour at court. If, with the brilliant whimsicality that characterizes all his work, Petronius has placed these utterances in the mouth of disreputable and broadly comic figures, that does not impair the value or sincerity of the criticism. Eumolpus' complaint of the decline of the arts and the baneful effect of the struggle for wealth is no doubt primarily inspired by the fact that he is poor and can find no patron nor praise for his verse, but must put up with execrations and showers of ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... bruised at the same time, as may occur in the deltoid, wasting and loss of function may be persistent. In exceptional cases the process of repair may be attended with the formation of bone in the substance of the muscle, and this may likewise impair its function. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... There was no less abandon than religion in our embrace. I besought you to yield to my frenzy and implored you to be insatiable. And yet with calm presence of mind I watched for the slightest sign of joy in you, so that not one should escape me to impair the harmony. I not only enjoyed, but I felt and enjoyed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Margate trippers now generally speak of Ma:geit instead of Ma:git: teachers in London elementary schools now often say eksept for iksept 'except', ekstr[e][o]:din[er]ri for ikstr[o]dnri 'extraordinary', often for [o]:fn 'often'. We feel that such artificialities cannot but impair the beauty of the language.' Dictionary, 1st edition, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... Parliament which hampered all his movements. It was foreign to his natural disposition to think of effecting a radical removal of the misunderstanding that had arisen. On the contrary he kept adding fresh fuel to it on account of the deficiencies of his government, which began to impair his former importance. The immediate consequence was that in foreign affairs he was no longer able to maintain the position which he had taken up as vigorously as might have been wished. His allies pressed him incessantly to bestow help on them: but if even he had wished it, this ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... referred to—the forefinger part of it—in a deprecating manner. I couldn't pole the lightest and most tractable punt ten yards in a straight line to save my own or anybody else's life. Then again, if I should impair the precision of my five fingers by any such violent exercise, my brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas as a recording needle across a steam-gauge. Poling a rudderless, keelless skiff up a crooked ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... delusion and reckless self-regard, the German people overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built. But the spokesmen of the French and British peoples have run the risk of completing the ruin, which Germany began, by a Peace which, if it is carried into effect, must impair yet further, when it might have restored, the delicate, complicated organization, already shaken and broken by war, through which alone the European peoples can employ ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... honour of our English wives that they have never given up that fundamental point, and that though in former ages they were muffled up in darkness and superstition, yet that notion seemed engraven on their minds, and the impression so strong that nothing could impair it. ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... with bland persistence, "but I must point out to you that what we call in law 'a consideration' is necessary to the legality of a conveyance, even though that consideration be frivolous and calculated to impair the ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... not change his way: it eases his conscience for a moment, and so injures him.' There would at the same time be allusion to what was believed concerning sighs: Dr. Johnson says, 'It is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... guarded and controlled as a Master is, by the sacred obligations of his office, and the supervision of the Grand Lodge, while the placing in the hands of the craft so powerful, and at times, and with bad spirits, so annoying a privilege as that of immediate appeal, would necessarily tend to impair the energies and lessen the dignity of the Master, while it would be subversive of that spirit of discipline which pervades every part of the institution, and to which it is mainly indebted for ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... O thou guide of my youth! that absence can impair my respect, or interposing trackless deserts blot your reverend figure from my memory. The further I travel I feel the pain of separation with stronger force; those ties that bind me to my native country and you are still unbroken. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... forgotten that, in solutions, the solid body is so minutely subdivided by the fluid as to become invisible, and therefore will not in the least degree impair the ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... well-defined plan, and attempting to develop and build up the immortal character of children, without a philosophical and generally accepted theory of the nature of the human mind. There are complaints that the duties and exactions of the schools injure the health and impair the constitutions of pupils; that the progress in intellectual attainments is not always what it should be; that the training given is sometimes determined by the wishes of committees against the better judgment of competent teachers; ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... demand to "extend beyond" the sex relations of either sex is a demand to touch those relations, and whether it is a demand to impair them depends upon the question whether it is true that disabilities and subordination have been foisted upon the sex conditions. In olden times they were. Men were subject to social disabilities, personal and social subordination, ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... ordain a constitution and State government upon their ruins, without the consent of Congress." Surely, then, a convention which the territorial legislature called into being could not abrogate or impair the authority of that territorial government established by Congress. Hence, he concluded, the Lecompton constitution, formed without the consent of Congress, must be considered as a memorial or petition, which Congress may accept or reject. The convention was the creature of the territorial legislature. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... reason for this, for in every affliction and persecution, the devil's design is to impair Christ's kingdom: wherefore no marvel, that God designeth in our deliverance, the impairing and lessening the kingdom of sin and Satan. Wherefore, O thou church of God in England, which art now upon the waves of affliction, and temptation, when thou comest out of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... restorer of his house had been an infant at the aera of his household catastrophe. And if, through such burning examples of patriotism, far remote collateral descendants entered upon the succession, was this a reproach? Was this held to vitiate or to impair the heraldic honours? A disturbance, a convulsion, that shook the house back into its primitive simplicities of standing, was that a shock to its hereditary grandeur? If it had been, there perished the efficient ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... generosity to the distressed, and taught us lessons in the wisdom of prevention. Minnesota has as much to be thankful for and as little to regret as any state in the West, and our troubles only prove that we have a very robust vitality, difficult to permanently impair. ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... intellectual indulgence, in a life the primary purpose of which is not meditation, but action, impair the individual as to his normal usefulness, and thus diffuse by example a deteriorating influence upon the young, and misleading influence upon all, but it actually leads to false views of life, and an unsound philosophy such as transcendental idealism, pessimism, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... melancholy tones, which were in accordance with the melancholy eyes, and in the Annandale accent, with which his playfellows must have been familiar long ago. So self-contained was he, so impregnable to outward influences, that all his years of Edinburgh and London life could not impair even in the slightest ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... pictures having been obtained of angels with wings, a still popular belief of some, as ridiculous in its conception as it is false in its anatomy, but still no less true in its photo-pictorial outcome. This does not in the slightest degree impair the genuineness and honesty of the medium, but it inspires me, a disbeliever in the wing notion, with the belief that spirit-photographs are not ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett

... execution of the Red Thrush, but hopelessly impair his organ, and you have the Cat-Bird. This accustomed visitor would seem a gifted vocalist, but for the inevitable comparison between his thinner note and the gushing melodies of the lordlier bird. Is it some hopeless consciousness of this disadvantage which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... reduced allowance (namely, two thirds of the established proportion of the navy), they would last until the 30th of November, 1821; and that an immediate reduction, to half allowance, which must, however, tend materially to impair the health and vigour of the officers and men, would only extend our resources to the 30th of April, 1822; it therefore became a matter of evident and imperious necessity, that the ships should be cleared from the ice before the close of the season of 1821, so as to reach some station ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... "next morning fried." While fried food is, as a rule, not good at breakfast for any save one who has hard manual labor or physical exercise to perform, an exception may be made of fried mush and fried eggs, because their base is so nutritious that the heated fat can do little to impair their digestibility, while it certainly whets the appetite before eating, and pleases the palate when the food is in the mouth. It should be borne in mind that those foods which require much mastication ought especially to be made palatable ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... grew evident. By God, if Fanny insisted on being, at any cost, herself, it would be unreasonable in her not to recognize the same need in him. But Lee was obliged to add the old and familiar and increasingly heavy provision: any individuality of being, of desire, must not be allowed to impair the validity of their common existence, their marriage. Fanny had an advantage over him there, for all her aspirations turned inward to their love, their home and children; and his ... but if he knew their goal he could have ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... you perceive you impair the estate as much by mortgaging as by selling, with ten times the ultimate danger. I tell you I won't mortgage, and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... previous year in a little cottage then situated in a quiet, open country, on which now stands the suburban village of Astoria. A severe illness attacked Cooper during its progress; but whatever effect it had upon his physical frame, it certainly did not impair in the slightest his intellectual force. The success of the work was both instantaneous and prodigious. Owing, perhaps, to the novelty of the scenes and characters, it was even greater in Europe than in America. ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... hen-bane, hemlock, thorn-apple, prussic acid, deadly night-shade, fox-glove and poison sumach, have an effect on the animal system scarcely to be distinguished from that of opium and tobacco. They impair the organs of digestion, and may bring on fatuity, palsy, delirium, or apoplexy," He says, "In those not accustomed to it, tobacco excites nausea, vomiting, dizziness, indigestion, mental dejection, and in short, the whole train of ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler

... that he thought he was going crazy and he knew he was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to the pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that a green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut country house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow does not make a summer; ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... those who sit others are standing looking on—not indifferently. Tokens—chips, as they are called—are being placed on various numbers, on the chance of a red number, or the chance of a black number, on the chance of an even or on the chance of uneven, pair or Impair, passe or manque. It is so elementary that even the dullest of Europeans can grasp the ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... admiral Hawke to make a vigorous impression on the French coast, and all the other measures projected, which, it was imagined, would make an effectual diversion, by obliging the enemy to employ a great part of their forces at home, disturb and shake the credit of their public loans, impair the strength and resources of their navy, disconcert their extensive and dangerous operations of war, and, finally, give life, strength, and lustre to the common cause and his majesty's arms. The board of inquiry took next into consideration the several letters and explanatory instructions ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... commanded the Ida, and Mr. Maurice Phillips, the first officer. She asked them both to dinner. Captain Wilson, a Scot, was taciturn and suspicious. He regarded the job before him as an objectionable kind of practical joke, likely, before it was over, to impair his natural dignity. Mr. Phillips was filled with delight at the prospect. He was a young man with curly fair hair ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... courts, and the case was finally carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. There it was decided, in 1819, that the charter of a college was a contract, the obligation of which a legislature could not impair. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... been intended that the right to declare war should include all the powers necessary to maintain war, it would follow that nothing would have been done to impair the right or to restrain Congress from the exercise of any power which the exigencies of war might require. The nature and extent of this exigency would mark the extent of the power granted, which should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... she felt it a duty and a pleasure to lead the way in hope of virtually healing the 'Great Schism' of Protestantism, is also definitely delineated by the following portraiture: 'The design to be aimed at shall be not to amalgamate the several denominations into one church, nor to impair in any degree the independent control of each denomination over its own affairs and interests, but to present to the world a more formal profession and practical proof of our mutual recognition of each other as integral parts of the visible Church of Christ ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... impressive as they flow. While with our faith our kindred bosoms glow, And love to God directs our life below, One view of things now seen, and things to come, But pilgrims here, a future state our home, Nor time, nor death, our friendship shall impair, Begun below, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... each other. On the west frontier, the Johnstones are at war with the Maxwells, the Jardines with the Bells, drawing with them the flower of the country, which should place their breasts as a bulwark against England, into private and bloody warfare, of which it is the only end to waste and impair the forces of the country, already divided in itself. Do not, my dear son Edward, permit this bloody prejudice to master your mind. I cannot ask you to think of the crime supposed as if the blood spilled had been less dear to you—Alas! I know that is impossible. But I do require ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... before whose lustre all, Parsee-like, bow down in worship. Preceding generations have read him with reverence and admiration: as one of the greatest masters of history, he must continue to be so read. But though neither praise nor censure can exalt or impair his fame, truth and justice call for a passionless inquiry into the nature and character of works presenting such difference in structure, and such contradictions in a variety of matters as the ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... effort to present your claims in person; but, after careful, and I may say prayerful, consideration of your case—with something too, I trust, of the large charitableness appropriate to the season—it was decided that we would not be justified in doing anything likely to impair the usefulness of the institution intrusted (under ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... hewing them out of the frozen mass with the axe. The young man had fished here the previous summer, had cached the fish caught too late to dry in the sun, and they had remained where he left them for four or five months. Most of them had begun to decay before they froze, but that did not impair their value as dog food, though it rendered the cooking of them a disagreeable proceeding to white nostrils. This caching of food is a common thing amongst both natives and whites, and it is rarely that a cache is violated except ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... nothing in it that he may not read with profit. These books, I repeat, make an universal appeal. The learned man may enjoy them, the unlearned may enjoy them also. They are, as Hamlet is, of universal interest. Devotion to science will not impair a taste for them, nor will zest for abstract speculations. Not even those who are "better skilled in grammar than in poetry" can fail to appreciate. These hundred books will in the main be the hundred best books of many of my readers ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter

... support it to the full extent of their power. If, therefore, the Chiefs of the Spanish Nation be men of wise and strong minds, they will bring both the forces, those of the Government and of the people, into their utmost action; tempering them in such a manner that neither shall impair or obstruct the other, but rather that they shall strengthen and direct each other ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... He acquainted the king that he was very desirous to take the air, and, if he pleased, would go and hunt two or three days with Marzavan. The king gave his consent, but bid him be sure not to be from home above one night, since too much exercise might impair his health, and too long absence create his majesty some uneasiness. He then ordered him the best horses in his stable, and took particular care that nothing should be wanting for his diversion. When all was ready, his majesty embraced the prince, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... a little work, which was for the district too. All this time she was admitting to herself that she had been much startled by this news about Rosa Elsworthy,—much startled. To be sure, it was not like Mr Wentworth, and very likely it would impair his influence; and it was natural that any friend taking an interest in him and the district, should be taken a little aback by such news. Accordingly, Lucy sat a little more upright than usual, and was conscious that when she smiled, as she had just done, the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... grave and thoughtful, and at the age of thirteen he studied history so perseveringly as to impair his health. His father died about this time, and a glimpse of his loving disposition can be obtained from the fact that notwithstanding that he greatly desired an education, still he would not leave the farm until assured of the means of prosecuting his studies without impairing his mother's ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... inhabitant from the rightful jurisdiction of the United States. But while thus impotent against the United States, it does not follow that they were equally impotent in the work of self-destruction. Clearly, the Rebels, by utmost efforts, could not impair the National jurisdiction; but it remains to be seen if their enmity did not act back with fatal rebound upon those very State Rights in behalf of which they commenced ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... enumerated.—There is usually a final statement that the enumeration of the above rights shall not be construed to deny or impair others ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... thee well, now let me counsel thee. Reclaim these idle humours; know thyself; Remember me, and think upon my lord; And let these thoughts bring forth those chaste effects, Which may declare thy change unto the world: And this assure thee—whilst I breathe this air, Earl Lacy's honour I will ne'er impair. [Exit HONOREA. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... said Juliet, "by any other name would smell as sweet." But of course she was wrong. If a rose were handed to a visitor in the garden, with the words, "Do see how wonderful this onion is!" such a prejudice would be set up as fatally to impair its fragrance. There is, in fact, much in a name; and therefore the attempt of a correspondent of The Daily Express to find a generic nomenclature for domestic servants should be given very serious attention; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various

... no office; I am blessed with high official rank. The old are often ill; I, at this day have not an ache or pain. They are often burdened with ties; But I have finished with marriage and giving in marriage. No changes happen to disturb the quiet of my mind; No business comes to impair the vigour of my limbs. Hence it is that now for ten years Body and soul have rested in hermit peace. And all the more, in the last lingering years What I shall need are very few things. A single rug to warm me through the winter; One meal to last me the whole day. It does ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various

... and persecution, the devil's design is to impair Christ's kingdom; wherefore, no marvel that God designs in our deliverance the impairing and lessening the kingdom of sin and Satan. Wherefore, O thou church of God, which art now upon the waves of affliction and temptation, when thou comest out of the furnace, if thou come out at the bidding of ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... universal law, by the compensating action of which the indefinite stability of their mutual relations was secured. The occasional incursion of a comet, or the periodical presence of a single such wanderer chained down from escape to outer space by planetary attraction, availed nothing to impair the symmetry ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... The traveler needs, at certain points and suitable stages, to turn and survey the ground over which he has passed. A condensation that would strike out such recapitulations and repetitions, might impair the effect of a work of any kind, particularly, of one ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... answered the President, excitedly, but without the least affectation. "I expect set-backs, defeats; we have had them and shall have them. They are common to all wars. But I have not the slightest fear of any result which shall fatally impair our military and naval strength, or give other powers any right to interfere in our quarrel. The destruction of the ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... the eye his function takes, The ear more quick of apprehension makes; Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense, It pays the hearing double recompense:— Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found; Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound. But why unkindly ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... succeeded in giving to the principle of self-dependence within him a new force and spring which, however it added to the vigour of his character, could not fail, by bringing Self so much into action, to impair a little its amiableness. Among the changes in his disposition, attributable mainly to this source, may be mentioned that diminished deference to the opinions and feelings of others which, after this compulsory rally of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... to Gower Woodseer. He displayed his contempt of fortune by letting his heap of bank-notes lie on Impair, and he won. Abrane bade him say 'Maximum' in a furious whisper. He did so, as one at home with the word; and winning repeatedly, observed to Fleetwood: 'Now I can understand what historians mean, in telling us of heroes rushing into the fray and vainly seeking death. I always thought ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the skin be too long continued, or exists in too great a degree, so as in some measure to impair the life of the part, no further accumulation of the sensorial power of irritation occurs; and in consequence the actions of the stomach become less than natural by the defect of the sensorial power of association; which has ceased to be excited by the want of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... be chaste, nor fair, (Such gifts malice may impair), Richly trimmed, to walk or ride, Or to wanton unespied, To preserve an honest name And so to give it up to fame— These are toys. In good or ill They desire to have their will: Yet, when they have it, they abuse it, For they know not ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various



Words linked to "Impair" :   impairer, disfigure, deface, cloud, defile, taint, damage, blemish, sully, corrupt



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