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Less   /lɛs/   Listen
Less

adjective
1.
(comparative of 'little' usually used with mass nouns) a quantifier meaning not as great in amount or degree.  "Less time to spend with the family" , "A shower uses less water" , "Less than three years old"
2.
(usually preceded by 'no') lower in quality.
3.
(nonstandard in some uses but often idiomatic with measure phrases) fewer.  "No less than 50 people attended" , "In 25 words or less"



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"Less" Quotes from Famous Books



... at the hat-shops fell off after the spring orders, and did not revive till the beginning of August. If there was less money among the hands and their families who remained than there was in time of full work, the weather made less demand upon their resources. The children lived mostly out-of-doors, and seemed to have always what they ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... the cab, leaped out and disappeared through a narrow passage. In less than five minutes a very tall gentlemanly man issued from the same passage and approached them. Little Di opened her blue eyes to their very uttermost. It was her ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... notice the starry, fluttering figure. It overtook them none the less, and with a flying leap was into the Pattern of his story—in the very centre, too!—as quickly as lightning passes through the foliage of the tree it strikes. Only the lightning stayed. The figure remained caught. The entire Pattern shivered to its outer fringes, then began to glow and shine all ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... existed we shall find twenty, all rich and splendid Foundations, without counting those of Westminster and the villages within a few miles of London Stone. These were built for the most part either just within or just without the City wall. The reason was that the City was less densely populated near the wall than lower down along the river-side. Every one of these Societies was possessed of estates in the country and streets and houses in the City. Every one then retained, besides the monks or friars and nuns, a whole army of officers ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant

... numbers they could not discover, shot hard upon them, and many fell there who had escaped from the square at Worcester. When the list was called upon the arrival at the castle, it was found that no less than thirty of those who had set out were missing, while many ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... cold will, which fashioned them into new form. Christophe was too much of an artist not to do so: but he would not accept it: he forced himself to believe that he did no more than transcribe what was within himself, while he was always compelled more or less to transform it so as to make it intelligible.—More than that: sometimes he would absolutely forge a meaning for it. However violently the musical idea might come upon him it would often have been impossible for him to say what it meant. It would come surging up from the depths of life, from far ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... the cashier stayed until late in the day to get them balanced. After he had finally secured the totals of the day's transactions, he found that he had received, according to the depositors' "tags," $114,300 less than he had paid out. In some perturbation he recalled the notice of Scranton, Willard & Co., and at once sent to them, to see if that affair had anything to do with his immense discrepancy. Following ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... of the lower classes were less at ease than they were without. Some of the ministers mingled with them, and tried to form a bond between them and the other villagers. Mr. Peck took no part in this work; he stood holding his elbows with his hands, and talking with a perfunctory ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... was nothing other / than gold and jewels rare. And if to every mortal / on earth were dealt a share, Ne'er 'twould make the treasure / by one mark the less. Not without good reason / ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... the contrary, was not at all inclined to accept anything less than a complete fulfilment of the letter of their relationship, though the spirit ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... early one morning—before I had even commenced my breakfast—that a stranger was announced to me. And who, think you, should that stranger turn out to be? Nothing less than the Nephew of the late Abbe Rive. His name was MORENAS. His countenance was somewhat like that which Sir Thomas More describes the hero of his Utopia to have had. It was hard, swarthy, and severe. He seemed in every respect to be "a travelled man." But his manners ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... the less sensual novelle, the first of which was Piccolomini's Euryalus, and the less obscene comedies, adultery and derision of marriage are the leading motives. The harlots were the Muses of belles-lettres during the Renaissance. ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... 'beneficent whip' as the bearer of salvation to tropical indolence. But we can not for a moment doubt that the first result of emancipation was, in most of the islands, to substitute for the worst kind of moral and political evil, one of a less fatal but still of a very pernicious kind. The negroes had been treated as mere machines for raising sugar and coffee. They were suddenly liberated from that mechanical drudgery; they became free beings—but without the discipline needful to use freedom ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... secret. The love of God in the heart is the magical light which touches the dreariness and hardship of self-thwarting with a splendor of sublime Romance. You cannot have holiness without love. Holiness can be either greater nor less than the love of God. Let this love faint or grow cold, there is at once a loss of holiness, even though it retain all its external gear. This is a cardinal truth; it is a key which will solve many a puzzle. It will explain why ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.

... was in the hands of Moss Ibramovitch, trading as the Union Jack Investment and Mortgage Corporation, licensed and registered as a moneylender according to law. And being in the hands of this gentleman, was much less satisfactory and infinitely more expensive than being in the hands ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... by the 42nd in the field with that of other corps, it has generally been less than theirs, except at the defeat at Ticonderoga. The officers who served in the corps attributed the comparative loss to the celerity of their attack and the use of the broadsword, which the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... strenuously, seeking one thing at a time! But to be killed by his chosen arm, overshrilled by his own shout—that sobered him, little of a sentimentalist as he was. As for love-lorn Prosper, he had still less sentiment to waste. True, he had not chosen his arms, his motto had been found for him by his ancestors—they were cut-and-dried affairs, so much clothing to which Galors at this moment served as a temporary peg. Sweet Saviour! the Much-Desired was near him, close by. He could have ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... time to swim ashore," he said, "and when the boat starts, put another light beside the one that burns now like a star above your vessel. We shall see and understand. And don't send the boat till there is less lightning: a boat is bigger than a man in the water. Tell the rowers to pull for the palm-grove and cease when an oar, thrust down with a strong arm, touches the bottom. Very soon they will hear our hail; but if no one comes they ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... sailor was a good deal mollified by Dick's present attitude, and taking an easy stroke with his oar, he began his more or less veracious narrative. ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh

... less difficult to practice a successful deception of this kind in ancient days than it is now, for then writing was usually performed by scribes trained for the purpose, and there was therefore seldom any thing in the handwriting of a communication to determine the question of its authenticity. ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... needless to quibble at a definition of the term. It may be designated, simply and fairly, as the art of expressing a simple truth in a concealed form of words, any number of which, at intervals greater or less, may ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... will be impossible; an unwholesome divorce will be established between the expert and the public, and the slow and natural process of leavening the social lump by discovery and discussion will be displaced by something far less safe and salutary. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... a moment of less passion, would not have ventured to attack a boy so near his own size. Like all bullies, he was essentially a coward, but now his rage got the better of ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... an expression that flashed him back to St. Croix and the last weeks of his mother's life. He fancied in that moment that he could even discern the earthen hue of the skin. When he realized that it was Angelica, he was hardly less startled, but ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... he always would. But these words often came back to Eric's mind in later and less happy days—days when that gentle hand could no longer rest lovingly on his head—when those mild blue eyes were dim with tears, and the poor boy, changed in heart and life, often flung himself down with an ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... brief a while, The gleam has faded from your smile; This grave and tender air Leaves you, for all but one, less fair. ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons

... human. The less of a detective, the more human he is. Henry was not much of a detective, and his human traits were consequently highly developed. From a boy, he had never been able to resist curiosity. If a crowd collected ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... at the inquest was disappointing. He was cool and collected: said he had no reason to believe that his wife was dead, and less reason to think she had been drowned; she had left him in a rage, and if she found out that by hiding she was putting him in an unpleasant position, she would probably ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... few people were about and no one at all was on the sands. There was an immense noise of what sounded like grasshoppers or crickets, and also at intervals distant choruses of frogs, but these sounds seemed altogether beneficent,—so warm, and southern, and far away from less happy places where in October cold winds perpetually torment the world. Even in the dark Mr. Twist knew he had got to somewhere that was beautiful. He could imagine nothing more agreeable than, having handed over ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... life as very pretty little girls, but showed more or less of the Hollander ancestry as they grow up. Only Franceska, content with her Dutch name, had shot up into a beautiful figure, together with the fine features and complexion of the Underwood twins, and the profuse golden flax hair of her aunt Angela, so ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Less than an hour later Jack stood in the shelter of a large tree at the very edge of the clearing. In the distance he could make out what appeared to be numerous buildings. This was the point, the lad felt sure, where the blow would ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... stirred by the teeming, adventuresome life about him and he began to put his ideas into short stories with the mellow background of the golden state of California. Poe and Hawthorne had made the short story a distinct type. Now Bret Harte, less artistic and careful in his style, followed their lead with short stories to which he added the new idea of coloring brilliantly the setting of the story with the atmosphere of a ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... other all this time was beautiful to see; no effusive display of affection, but every appearance of a perfect mutual understanding and contentment. And their treatment of me was no less appropriate and delightful,—a happy combination of freedom and dignified reserve. I took it for an extremely neat compliment to myself, as well as incontestable evidence of unusual powers ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... only those arts were known or practiced which sufficed for the hunting, fishing, and nomad states. Everywhere has the class of ritualistic priests and lettered theosophists been preceded by a class of less-cultivated worshipers, who paid simple offerings of flesh and wine to the personified powers of the visible universe without the aid of a hereditary professional priesthood. Everywhere has the class of nobles and territorial ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... a former play, The night restores our actions done by day; As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece: 340 Chimeras all; and more absurd, or less: You, who believe in tales, abide alone; Whate'er I get ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... consideration, the conclusion is irresistible that there is not a single man who is free from the sin of doing injury to animal life. Even the sage, O good Brahmana, whose vow is to do harm to no creature, doth inflict injury to animal life. Only, on account of greater needfulness, the harm is less. Men of noble birth and great qualities perpetrate wicked acts in defiance of all, of which they are not at all ashamed. Good men acting in an exemplary way are not commended by other good men; nor are bad men acting in a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... wish of the detachment that Mrs. Conger may never know less pleasure than was afforded us by such a noble example of patriotic ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... golden-rod waved its yellow plumes, the herald of autumn, and near, its companion, the aster, raised its little lavender stars. Summer was at its maturity, warm, ripe, and dreamily restful, with as yet no hint of days less fair. ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... the celebrated Mr. John Sheppard? Was that amiable quiet gentleman in spectacles the well-known Mr. Fauntleroy? In Hazlitt's admirable paper, "Going to a Fight," he describes a dashing sporting fellow who was in the coach, and who was no less a man than the eminent destroyer of Mr. William Weare. Don't tell me that you would not like to have met (out of business) Captain Sheppard, the Reverend Doctor Dodd, or others rendered famous by their actions and misfortunes, by their lives and their deaths. They are the subjects of ballads, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... crowned, and the great, the wise, and the brave of every age are buried. But few, perhaps, are aware that the Abbey also contains the oldest and one of the most famous boys' schools in the world. It is true that the statutes of the school, as they now exist, are of a less remote date than those of Eton and Winchester schools—being framed by Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth—but they no more represent the origin of Westminster School than the Reformation represents the origin of ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... first time to reckon independently with the last; hitherto they had been watched and influenced in my favour by others. This had been done not only by masters of the art of pedagogy, but by their no less powerful co-educators, my companions, among whom there was not a single corrupt, ill-disposed boy. I was now to learn what circumstances I should find in my new relations, and in what way they ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Sigvaldi," cried Sweyn, wiping his wet lips with the back of his hand, "and make no less a vow ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... did not stop when he had reached temporary safety. Farther up toward the direction in which lay the village, and halfway up the side of the bluff Billy saw what he took to be excellent shelter. Here the face of the bluff was less steep and upon it lay a number of large bowlders, while others protruded ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... write to thee, he waits on me from room to room, hands me in the Garden, shoulders me in the Balcony, nay, does the office of my Women, dresses and undresses me, and does so smirk at his handywork: In fine, dear Wittmore, I am impatient till I can have less of his Company, and more ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn

... quarters of heaven. His success gives him a place beside Webster and Blake, on one of the very highest peaks of Parnassus. And, if not the highest of all, Browne's peak is—or so at least it seems from the plains below—more difficult of access than some which are no less exalted. The road skirts the precipice the whole way. If one fails in the style of Pascal, one is merely flat; if one fails in the style of Browne, one is ridiculous. He who plays with the void, who dallies with eternity, who leaps from star ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey

... troops, I have not a single general who would condescend to command such merely machinery armies. As for the Duke of Lorraine, and my brother, Prince Charles, they shall not thus degrade themselves. The great duke is not so ambitious of an empty honor, much less to enjoy it under the patronage of Prussia. You speak of the imperial dignity! Is it compatible with the loss of Silesia? Great God! give me only till October. I shall then at least be able to ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... have been the stimulation of his drink, but it was probably nothing more nor less than jealousy that sparked his sluggish imagination as he contemplated a two-column reproduction in coarse half-tone of a photograph entitled "Marian Blessington." Slowly the light dawned upon mental darkness; ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... Joe Rooney, when they were all seated, more or less comfortably, on the beds and chairs in the room of the three chums. ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... that constitutes it genius,—the power of acting creatively under laws of its own origination." So that I may fitly close this branch of the subject by applying to Shakespeare a very noteworthy saying of Burke's, the argument of which holds no less true of the law-making prerogative in Art than in the State: "Legislators have no other rules to bind them but the great principles of reason and equity, and the general sense of mankind. These they are bound ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... other martial qualities no doubt) beyond his years. As he strode into the Chapel of the Invalides on Tuesday at the head of his men, he made no small impression, I can tell you, upon the ladies assembled to witness the ceremony. Nor are the crew of the "Belle Poule" less agreeable to look at than their commander. A more clean, smart, active, well-limbed set of lads never "did dance" upon the deck of the famed "Belle Poule" in the days of her memorable combat with the "Saucy Arethusa." "These five hundred sailors," says a French newspaper, speaking of them in ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... will be delighted if he attains to anything which seems to resemble truth. Before I proceed to Ethics, I note your weakness in placing all perceptions on the same level. You must be prepared to asseverate no less strongly that the sun is eighteen times as large as the earth, than that yon statue is six feet high. When you admit that all things can be perceived no more and no less clearly than the size of the sun, ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... name, that I could not accomplish more than two chapters. Later I was again informed that "L'Eve Future" was a really fine novel, and I had another brief tussle with it, and was vanquished by its dullness. I received a third warning, and started yet again, and disliked the book rather less, and then I completely lost it in a removal. After months or years it mysteriously turned up, like a fox-terrier who has run off on an errand of his own. But I did not resume it. And then after another long interval the idea that I absolutely must read "L'Eve Future" gathered force in my mind, ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... no little censure, because it was placed there without reason, and was perhaps a greater weight than was safe. Many would have preferred the lions to have been made of copper gilded over and hollow inside, and then set up in the same place, when they would have been much less heavy and more durable. It is said that the horse in relief in S. Maria del Fiore at Florence is by the same hand. It is gilded, and stands over the door leading to the oratory of S. Zanobi. It is believed to be a monument to Pietro Farnese, captain of the Florentines, but as ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... find a dwelling place for John's family. Finally they were accommodated by Jedediah Morse, well-known author of Morse's geography and gazetteer, in a lodging in Charlestown, near Bunker Hill. In less than a month John began to build a spinning jenny and a hand loom, and soon the Scholfields started to produce woolen cloth. The two brothers were joined in the venture by John Shaw, a spinner and weaver who had migrated from England with them. Morse, being much impressed with some of ...
— The Scholfield Wool-Carding Machines • Grace L. Rogers

... one by one, searching them carefully for concealed weapons as they stood with hands elevated above their heads. Once satisfied that they were unarmed, she set them to work cutting the cable which held the Kincaid to her anchorage, for her bold plan was nothing less than to set the steamer adrift and float with her out into the open sea, there to trust to the mercy of the elements, which she was confident would be no more merciless than Nikolas Rokoff ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the blade of his hunting-knife. After a few minutes he thrust his hand in and felt the box. It was apparently of wood, covered with leather and studded over with scores of nails. Its top was only seven or eight inches wide by less than a foot long, however, and in thickness it ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... the heat became stifling, the darkness more oppressive, but the cries and shouts were dying down; their volume was less great, their intonation less shrill; stupor and fatigue and exhaustion were having their effect. Trench bent his head again to his companion ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... has not; she is certainly recovering. The dread of seeing a familiar face is less poignant; her father was here to-day with Gray ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... high, 2 to 4 quarts of blood may be abstracted from the jugular vein; in weak subjects or unless in high fever this should be omitted. Next relieve the kidneys so far as possible by throwing their work on the bowels and skin. A pint of castor oil is less likely than either aloes or salts to act on the kidneys. To affect the skin a warm stall and heavy clothing may be supplemented by dram doses of Dover's powder. Pain may be soothed by dram doses of bromid of potassium. Boiled flaxseed may be added to the drinking water, also thrown ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... my studies. When I was able to bring home a good report from my teacher, he was greatly pleased, and showed it in his eye and voice, but he always insisted that I should get the "maximum," that he would never be perfectly satisfied with less. That I did sometimes win it, deservedly, I know was due to his judicious and wise method of exciting my ambition and perseverance. I have endeavoured to show how fond my father was of his children, and as the best picture I can offer of his loving, tender devotion ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... self, or tell hart from hind, doe from roe, in a glade at midnight? I misdoubted me little when I saw the figure run past us to the smith's habitation in the wynd, habited like a morrice dancer; and yet my mind partly misgave me whether it was our man, for methought he seemed less of stature. But when he came out again, after so much time as to change his dress, and swaggered onward with buff coat and steel cap, whistling after the armourer's wonted fashion, I do own I was mistaken super totam materiem, and loosed your knighthood's bulldog upon him, who ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... albeit merry stories and belike incentive to concupiscence have been told here and we have continually eaten and drunken well and danced and sung and made music, all things apt to incite weak minds to things less seemly, I have noted no act, no word, in fine nothing blameworthy, either on your part or on that of us men; nay, meseemeth I have seen and felt here a continual decency, an unbroken concord and a constant fraternal familiarity; the ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... speak it not to bring her to charges. I would she had less cause to spend than ever she had, and her coffers fuller than ever they were; but I will prefer her life and safety, and the defence of the realm, before all sparing of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and he wore in his right eyesocket a round glass, with no rim or string, held by a puckering of cheek and brow, giving him a quizzical, stage-like stare, and twisting his nose into a ripple of tiny wrinkles. He weighed, say, one hundred pounds or less, was bent, but with a fresh complexion and active step. I saw him rise naked from his cot one morning, and the first thing he put on was the rimless monocle. The natives, who name every one, called him "Matatitiahoe," "the one-windowed ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... persons who had voted against the question to be sent to him, and he often consulted it. They proved to be not Royalist, but for the most part staunch Republicans. To my knowledge many Royalists abstained from voting at all, not wishing to commit themselves uselessly, and still less to give their suffrages to the author of the Duo d'Enghien's death. For my part, I gave my vote in favour of hereditary succession in Bonaparte's family; my situation, as may well be imagined, did not allow me to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... oneself among the Tertiaries, and every new enrolment was an important accession to the stability, and, indeed, to the material resources of the Minorites; and when, apparently within a few days of one another—no less than five gentlemen of knightly rank, of whom at least one, Sir Giles de Merc, had only recently been employed as an envoy by the king to his brother Richard in Gascony, and another, Sir Henry de Walpole, was amongst the most considerable and wealthy ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... grew less excited, and sat in the big, deep seats more quietly, looking at the trees and telegraph poles that seemed to rush by so swiftly. There were a few other passengers in the sleeping-car—that is, it would be a sleeping-car when the berths were made up—and for a time ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope

... have no way to aggressively breakdown rock particles or organic matter, nor to sort out one nutrient from another. They uptake everything that is in solution, no more, no less while replacing water evaporated from their leaves. However, soil fungi are able to aggressively attack organic matter and even mineral rock particles and extract the nutrition they want. Fungi live in ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... disasters to the Ville du Havre, to the Oregon, and, only three years ago, to the Elbe, show the terrific results of collision, to which every ship crossing the ocean is liable. Collisions between vessels less known than those named are of weekly occurrence. Yet no general outcry is raised against the general safety of the transatlantic liners. People unconsciously realize that, where accidents are so infrequent, the ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... The meeting had been appointed with a view to intercept the Bishop and the Preachers on their way to the Conference. The attendance was large and the meeting spirited. Bishop Scott came early in the week, and before Friday night there were not less than sixty-five Preachers in attendance. After preaching twice, the Bishop left on Saturday, as he was to dedicate the new Church in Baraboo on the Sabbath. As it was desirable also for the Presiding Elder to go forward with the Bishop, I was requested to remain and ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... ointments on the top shelf in the second closet, and you can make a poultice for this hurt of mine. Between you and me, Peter, I've less pain, but much more weakness, which is ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... as a minstrel-physician to the palace, which was spent at Bethlehem, and that that visit itself cannot have been very brief, since in its course he became very dear and familiar to Saul,—it will not seem that all these events could be crowded into less than some twelve or fifteen years, or that he could have been more than a lad of some sixteen years of age when Samuel's hand smoothed the sacred oil ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... with the bride in his palace, would wait so long for the marriage as to allow the many pretty incidents mentioned by Brangaena to happen. Yet again, if they were married, Mark, in the third act, shows a more than heroic willingness and less than cuckold readiness to let Isolda go free. Probably Wagner never gave the problem a moment's consideration, which is hardly surprising when we consider his own multitudinous love affairs. He was not writing a Sunday-school ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... honor the memory of the old heroes who rebelled and fought for liberty—shed rivers of blood to escape from far less intolerable oppression and wrongs than the Injuns ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... find among the apes the most remarkable examples of its operation. Thus in one species the mother is said to carry her young one clasped in one arm uninterruptedly for several months, never letting go of it in all her wanderings. This instinct is no less strong in many human mothers, in whom, of course, it becomes more or less intellectualized and organized as the most essential constituent of the sentiment of parental love. Like other species, the human species is dependent upon this instinct for its continual existence ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... on regaining his Spanish hearth should be disappointed in his expectations of the happiness awaiting him there, was the inevitable condition of such a marriage, since, not the less for his military bluntness, Roland had that refinement of feeling, perhaps over-fastidious, which belongs to all natures essentially poetic; and as the first illusions of love died away, there could have been little indeed congenial to his ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of London changes have been none the less rapid than in the east. The cutting through of Northumberland Avenue, from Trafalgar Square to the river, laid low the gardens and mansion of Northumberland House. Of this stately mansion it is said that it ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun

... may be excused if this record fails to convince the reader of their reality. At least half the citizens themselves did not and could not believe that they were not walking in a hideous nightmare from which they hoped to awaken and find their womankind properly subdued and returned to the less ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... she is pleased to assume before the public, and she stands revealed as Madame Biard, the wife of the great humoristic painter, whose "Sequel of a Masquerade," "Family Concert," "Combat with Polar Bears," and other pictures, are not less highly esteemed by English than by French connoisseurs. Born about 1820, she is twenty years younger than her husband, whom, in 1845, she accompanied in his excursion to Spitzbergen; an excursion which opened with, by way of prologue, a rapid tour through Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Norway. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... wight that weapon wieldest Spare thy speering why we fled, Oft for less falls hail of battle, Forth we fled to wreak revenge; Who was he, fainthearted foeman, Who, when tongues of steel sung high, Stole beneath the booth for shelter, While his beard blushed red ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... burden from her, and even if she had wished to be left to herself she had no redress, and accordingly submitted. Influences long at work upon her had rendered her less defiant than she had been in the past. There was an element of quiet in her expression, such as Derrick had not seen when her beauty ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... then that those officers who strongly opposed Brock's determination to attack became suddenly wise after the event and eager to share the honour. The temptation to improve the opportunity, to any man less strong than our hero, would have been irresistible, but there was no display of vainglory, no cheap boasting. The sword of the conquered American general was accepted with manly deference and the consideration due to his rank, and ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... Bacon downwards, they have hitherto resisted all attempts to include them in some definite cycle. The summer and harvest of 1835 were the last of a series of fine summers and abundant harvests; and for six years after there was less than the usual heat, and more than the usual rain. Science, in connection with agriculture, has done much for us in the low country, and so our humbler population were saved from the horrors of a dearth of food; but on the green patches which ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... with those who serve Him with their hearts, though it is sad she should bow down before images. But look at thy slave Mabrook, can he understand one hundredth part of the thoughts of thy mind? Never-the-less he loves thee, and obeys thee with pleasure and alacrity; and wilt thou punish him because he knows not all thy ways? And shall God, who is so much higher above us as thou art above thy slave, be less just ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... own mother that did no less, telling me she got word from Timothy he would come meet here with myself. It is certain he will bring me into his house, she having wedded secondly with a labouring man has got a job at Golden Hill in Lancashire. I would not recognise him ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... at table alone with their mother, they should not only be allowed to talk but unconsciously trained in table conversation as well as in table manners. Children are all more or less little monkeys in that they imitate everything they see. If their mother treats them exactly as she does her visitors they in turn play "visitor" to perfection. Nothing hurts the feelings of children more than not being ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... transactions we may trace some of the causes which would be likely to embroil the States with each other, if it should be their unpropitious destiny to become disunited. The competitions of commerce would be another fruitful source of contention. The States less favorably circumstanced would be desirous of escaping from the disadvantages of local situation, and of sharing in the advantages of their more fortunate neighbors. Each State, or separate confederacy, would pursue a system of commercial policy peculiar to itself. This ...
— The Federalist Papers

... immense considerations some matters of less importance. I think that I should not omit mentioning the voyage of Juan Solis,[5] who sailed from the ocean port of Lepe, near Cadiz, with three ships, the fourth day of the ides of September, 1515, to explore the southern coasts of what was supposed to be a continent. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... which directed him, at every risk, to make himself master of the Euphuist's person. The Abbot's unceasing exertions had collected a body of men almost equal in number to those of the English Warden, but less practised in arms. They were united under the command of Julian Avenel, and it was apprehended they would join battle upon the banks of a small stream which forms ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... it was. Jed, whose hands were full, deposited his burden upon another packing case. The said burden consisted of no less than three motor car cranks. Grover ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... instances of personal power, there was equality in the mass. For instance, as business was a part of their system, the local religious authority in some remote part might be the business subordinate of some other man of less ecclesiastical rank, with the result that this peculiar intermingling kept them all practically upon one level of social order; and the man who made adobes under the hot sun of the desert through all the week might ...
— Conditions in Utah - Speech of Hon. Thomas Kearns of Utah, in the Senate of the United States • Thomas Kearns

... cocoa-nut leaves. One of the artillery-men wanted to go in to the tiger, but we would not suffer it. At last the beast sprang; this man received him on his bayonet, which he thrust, apparently, down his throat, firing his piece at the same moment. The bayonet broke off short, leaving less than three inches on the musket, the rest remained in the animal, but was invisible to us: the shot probably went through his cheek, for it certainly did not seriously injure him, as he instantly rose upon his legs with a loud roar, and placed his ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... must have left the Aksu Valley to cross the Pass of Tagharma, about 50 or 60 kilometres to the north of the Neza Tash Pass; thence to Kashgar, the distance, in a straight line, is about 200 kilometres, and less than 300 by the shortest route which runs from the Tagharma Pass to little Kara Kul, and from there down to Yangi Hissar, along the Ghidjik. And Marco Polo assigns forty days for this route, while he allows but thirty for the journey of 500 kilometres ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... and men began to gather in such force that the French invaders found it prudent to depart with some haste, and with such of their spoil as they could hurriedly carry with them. They departed, says Hals, "with small honour and less profit." It was after this attack that the twin forts were built, at Polruan and Fowey, to protect the mouth of the river, and a chain was dropped at night between the two, as was the practice ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... nerves to hold steady while he slowly, inch by inch, moved away from the coils of the angry reptile. When Ned was six feet from the rattlesnake he sprang back and stood, almost fainting, quite out of reach of the reptile, which continued to wave its head and jar its rattles, but with less passion. The boy had often been told never to leave a rattlesnake alive and he looked around until he found a stick about five feet long, with which he returned to the field of his fright. The rattler had uncoiled and was creeping away when Ned rushed up ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... was built on to this room and looked tiny beside it. Kitchen and servants' quarters, two fair-sized and one very small bedroom, a minute sitting room for Frances where she kept her collection of tiny things—toys and ornaments mostly less than an inch, many far smaller, that were the delight of children. She had not, Gilbert remarked, allowed her taste to guide her in choosing ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... never make me love you," cried Daisy, covering her face with her hands; "do not hope it—and the more you talk to me the less I like you. I wish ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... also reveal important facts as to the relative consequences with respect to costs. For example, two operations might both be acceptable as to this factor, but one might be less acceptable than the other. Accordingly, the less acceptable operation might be omitted, or might be deferred for the ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... another with low murmurs, and a storm gathered over the head of the aristocratic prisoner, raised less by his own words than by the manner of the keeper. The latter, sure of quelling the tempest when the waves became too violent, allowed them to rise to a certain pitch that he might be revenged on the importunate Andrea, and besides it would afford him some recreation during ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... something of that description, then four little morocco cases; a chain wrapped up in paper, and something else done up in a common piece of newspaper—possibly a decoration. Raskolnikoff distributed these, together with the purse, about his person, in order to make them less noticeable, and quitted the room again. All the time he had left the door wide open. He went away hurriedly, fearing pursuit. Perhaps in a few minutes orders would be issued to hunt him down, so he must hide all traces of his theft at ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... jolting by—and the sound of funerals—and the church bells tolling, tolling—all these bore witness. And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. From Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, from Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night, Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... England which should have made British statesmen shrink from the evidence of their unsuccessful conspiracy against the life of a friendly State. The course of Great Britain during the war was reviewed in language not less forcible and convincing because it was calm, dignified and restrained. A fortress of facts was presented impregnable to British reply, and highly creditable to the forethought and skill with which the American State Department had gathered the material for its case from the very beginning ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... once again the good will of the Imperial and Royal Government. M. Sazonof replied that he took note with satisfaction of this proof of good will, but he desired to draw my attention to the fact that negotiations at St. Petersburg for obvious reasons appeared to promise less prospect of success than negotiations on the neutral terrain of London. I replied that your excellency, started from the point of view that direct contact should be maintained at St. Petersburg, so that I was not in a position to commit myself with regard to his suggestion as to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... roused at last, lad, come, it's time to have a bit breakfast. It ain't a heavy un you'll git, poor boy, but 'tis better than nothin', and bigger men have throve upon less at times." ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... inquiry agent, "if you will, you can do more—much more—without appearing to do anything. Pratt's office is only a few minutes away. Can you drop in there, making some excuse, and while there, mention, more or less casually, that Parrawhite, or information about him, is wanted; that you and a certain Halstead & Byner are advertising for him; that you've just seen Murgatroyd in respect of a communication which he wired to Halstead's this morning, and that—most ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... Less than a hundred miles from the Missouri River is the famous Loup Fork of the Platte, once celebrated for the great Pawnee Indian village on its south bank, where, long before the white man encroached upon the beautiful region, that once powerful tribe lived in a sort of barbaric ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... do you harm. Think you, if employed in the manner you name, I would be in this spot to seek you? Ask yourself whether your visit here was known, or whether it was more than the idle caprice of a young noble, who finds his bed less easy than his gondola. We have met, Duke of Sant' Agata, when you distrusted ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... paid for twenty-four hours after they were due. The banker gave me a pack of cards, with a little basket containing a thousand counters. I told the company that I should consider each counter as a Naples ducat. In less than two hours my basket was empty. I stopped playing and proceeded to enjoy my supper. It was arranged in the Neapolitan style, and consisted of an enormous dish of macaroni and ten or twelve different kinds of shellfish which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... much by his own. He would have loved and followed her to the end, in spite of her having become a very outcast of crime, if she had continued to love him; and it was simply impossible for him to conceive of her love's being either less or different. But, when in a volume of poems which Mercy published one year after their parting, he read the following sonnet, he knew ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... it less abroad," thought the Captain. "A home in which she frets herself to death, is after all, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... Any ordeal is far less terrifying, far easier to meet with courage, when it is repeated, than is even a milder experience which is ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... lift her above her old companions, and indeed above her apparent station in life, though on that point my ideas had no solid standing ground. For, as I have said, the Le Marchants of Brecqhou were more or less of mysteries to us all, and there had been such upsettings just across the water there, such upraisings and downcastings, that a man's present state was no indication of what he might have been. The surer sign was ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... at such a time learn all the particulars. There was likewise violence used with the watchmen, as was reported, in abundance of places; and I believe that from the beginning of the visitation to the end, there was not less than eighteen or twenty of them killed, or so wounded as to be taken up for dead, which was supposed to be done by the people in the infected houses which were shut up, and where they attempted to come out ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... miss. There's a drop at our side which makes the fence ever so much higher, and how you didn't hurt yourself is little less than a miracle to me. I'll have the horse put to the cart and drive you round to the front entrance in a jiffy. Dan and Beersheba can follow, the run'll do them ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... was Gossner, whose life, at first full of reverses and disappointment, has lately come to a triumphant and brilliant close. He was originally a Roman Catholic priest, but his Pietistic inclination precluded him from the favor of his less devout brethren. He went from one city to another, tarrying only a few years in each. From St. Petersburg he went to Berlin, thence to Hamburg, and afterwards to Leipzig. While in the last city he quietly left the Romish fold and ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... neighboring seas and through the canal which he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year few of them might be alive, for all thought of any peril to his army and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been dismissed with ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... honors. The President of the Royal Geographical Society, at a special meeting held to welcome him, formally invited him to give to the world a narrative of his travels. Some knavish booksellers paid him the less acceptable compliment of putting forth spurious accounts of his adventures, one at least of which has been republished in this country. Livingstone, so long accustomed to a life of action, found the preparation of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... Brandram' in the Dictionary of National Biography is a reciter who died in 1892; he certainly had less claim to the distinction than ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... stock in mainland, Azores, Madeira Islands; citizens of black African descent who immigrated to mainland during decolonization number less ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... gleemen, who could compose or recite in verse, ritual, laws, and heroic ballads. During the four hundred years of Roman occupation, the Celts in England became somewhat Romanized, but the Irish, and their near relatives the Scots, were less influenced by Latin civilization. It is therefore in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales that the oldest traces of Celtic literature are found, for the bards there retained their authority and acted as judges after Christianity had been introduced, and as late as the sixth century. Although St. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... had assured his hearers at Palmetto and Macon would take place. He ordered Forrest (about the ablest cavalry general in the South) north for this purpose; and Forrest and Wheeler carried out their orders with more or less destruction, occasionally picking up a garrison. Forrest indeed performed the very remarkable feat of capturing, with cavalry, two gunboats and a number of transports, something the accomplishment of which is very hard to account ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... friends, acquaintances, newspapers, and the like.[1] Praise and blame are not so fixed and rigid in civilized communities; individuals move freely among diverse groups whose standards differ. But group approval is none the less effective. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... for those less developed countries (LDCs) with particularly rapid industrial development; see newly ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... work in shops and factories, or independently, and make thirty to seventy-five dollars a month, and even more, will not, simply because he is black, leave those chances to accept service in private employment for fifteen dollars per month, and less, and board himself. No school could covenant to train servants for an indefinite tenure; it can at best only promise to train leaders who shall go among the masses and lift them up; to train men and women who shall in turn ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... the past and present year, David Copperfield, will have a chapter to itself, and in this may be touched but lightly. Once fairly in it, the story bore him irresistibly along; certainly with less trouble to himself in the composition, beyond that ardent sympathy with the creatures of the fancy which always made so absolutely real to him their sufferings or sorrows; and he was probably never less harassed by interruptions or breaks in his invention. His principal ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... heeding her question; but, face to face as they were, something had none the less passed between them. It was this that, after an instant, made her again interrogative. "What do you mean ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... ruin. Dined at home, and after dinner up to try my dance, and so to the office again, where we sat all the afternoon. In the evening Deane of Woolwich went home with me and showed me the use of a little sliding ruler, less than that I bought the other day, which is the same with that, but more portable; however I did not seem to understand or even to have seen anything of it before, but I find him an ingenious fellow, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... appeal. Jefferson also was almost boisterous in denouncing the very idea. He impressed upon him the importance of his continuing at that crisis. He had not been President long enough to establish precedents for the new Nation. There were many volatile incidents which, if treated with less judgment than his, might do grievous harm. One wonders how sincere all the entreaties to Washington were, but one cannot doubt that the great majority of the country was perfectly sincere in wishing to have him continue; for it had sunk deep into the hearts of Americans ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... unalluring, undesired, undesirable, uncared for, unwished[obs3], unvalued, all one to. insipid &c. 391; vain. Adv. for aught one cares. Int. never mind; Who cares? whatever you like, whatever. Phr. I couldn't care less, I could care less; anything will do; es macht ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... whom the larger number of chronicled cases are drawn. The excitement of the revival meeting is as fatal an attraction to them as the dram is to the confirmed alcoholist; and if the ill-consequences are neither so immediately discernible nor as repulsive in character, they are none the less present in a large number of cases. The emotional strain to which the organism is subjected occurs, as the ages of the converts show, precisely at the time when it is least able to bear it safely. ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... be present as my deputy," he announced gravely. "I don't know anything about a quarrel between you two men, and I care less. I 'm here to enforce the law and arrest law-breakers. If you decide to interfere between me and my duty I 'll know how to act. I 've smelt of the business end of a gun before to-day, and I guess nobody ever saw Sam Hayes play baby when there was a fight on tap. If there 's trouble between ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish

... head blackish, varied; spot on each side of nose, on upper and lower lips and front of chin, white; tail end pale brown like back, varies; throat more or less white. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... "Believe me, I wouldn't 'a' thought of intrudin'. I ordered the picture there from your father a fortnight ago, and this was the day I was to come and give it a last looking-over before I came through with the cash, see? I hadn't heard he was sick even, much less"—he cleared his throat—"gone beyond," he ended, quoting from the "Millings Gazette" obituary column. "You ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... hast vauntingly said upon the whole, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are." I am no such NEEDY man. (Luke 15:7) "I am no extortioner, nor unjust, no adulterer, nor even as this Publican." I am come indeed to thy feast, for of civility I could do no less; but for thy dainties, I need them not, I have of such things enough of mine own.19 (Luke 18:9) I thank thee therefore for thy offer of kindness, but I am not as those that have, and stand in need thereof, "nor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan



Words linked to "Less" :   comparative degree, little, fewer, comparative, more, inferior, slight



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