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Lowering   /lˈoʊərɪŋ/   Listen
Lowering

adjective
1.
Darkened by clouds.  Synonyms: heavy, sullen, threatening.



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"Lowering" Quotes from Famous Books



... the edge of her chair and looked him in the face, lowering her voice to prevent her emotion ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... with such delightful odours—the whole forest, in short, seems so refreshed and full of life, that every one hails their approach, the toil-worn peasant breathes without complaint the sultry air, and observes with pleasure the dark and lowering clouds gathering ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... obey him. My father in those times fashioned wonderful organs with pipes of wood, spinets the fairest and most excellent which then could be seen, viols and lutes and harps of the most beautiful and perfect construction. He was an engineer, and had marvellous skill in making instruments for lowering bridges and for working mills, and other machines of that sort. In ivory he was the first who wrought really well. But after he had fallen in love with the woman who was destined to become my mother-perhaps what brought them together was that little flute, to which indeed he paid more ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... Fischer, Fickert, and Countess Maria von Linden. In Eimer's own laboratory the latter performed experiments on Papilionides, "which prove in the most striking manner the recapitulation of the family-history in the individual." "The fact that it is possible by raising or lowering the temperature during the time of development to breed butterflies, possessed of the characteristics of related varieties and species living in southern and northern regions respectively, characteristics not merely of ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... and apprentices, Owen could not tell. Mr Scoones he could hear issuing his orders, but he had reason to fear that some of the others had been washed overboard, or perhaps killed by the falling blocks and spars. Still a good many men remained, the greater number of whom were engaged in lowering the boat on which they believed their safety depended. At length she was launched over the side, and five or six men got into her, and shouted ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston

... from there we should steal as far as we dared up the Reussthal while daylight lasted, dine at some village inn, and then, instead of returning to the lowlands of Lucerne, make a dash across the mighty barrier that shut us away from Italy. Under a lowering sky, and buffeted by short, sharp gusts of wind, which seemed the heralds of fiercer blasts, we swung along the reedy shores of the narrowing lake, the broken sides of the Rigi standing finely up on our right hand. Winston was satirical about the poor Rigi and its railway, calling ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... heavens with their acclaims, "Long live the Commons' King, King James!" Behind the King thronged peer and knight, 595 And noble dame and damsel bright, Whose fiery steeds ill brooked the stay Of the steep street and crowded way. But in the train you might discern Dark lowering brow and visage stern; 600 There nobles mourned their pride restrained, And the mean burgher's joys disdained; And chiefs, who, hostage for their clan, Were each from home a banished man, There thought ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... immature years from women of immoral life, inquiry as to the character of the woman bringing the charge should be permitted. Gov. Lyman U. Humphrey urged that such an amendment should be adopted, which could be done without lowering the age of protection for girls. No change, however, has been ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... working now," he said, lowering his voice so that Lorraine could not hear. "So I'm going to stay here and help see you through with ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... consists in extending the hands and waving them inwards, once or oftener, and stroking the beard; the formal one in raising the hands with an inward curve to the level of the head two or three times, lowering them, and rubbing them together; the ceremony concluding with stroking the beard several times. The latter and more formal mode of salutation is offered to the chief, and by the young to the old men. The women ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Here he got up, as if unable to keep still in the state of excitement into which he was falling, and stood with his hands behind him and his back to the fire. "I have a strong suspicion that the young man's not quite right here." And lowering his voice, Mr. Wedmore touched ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... little way out of Florence, with a most elaborate network of bucket ropes over many gardens to one well. Similarly one sees the occupants of the higher floors drawing vegetables and bread in baskets from the street and lowering the money for them. The postman delivers letters in this way, too. Again, one of the survivals of the Davanzati to which the custodian draws attention is the rain-water pipe, like a long bamboo, down the wall of the court; but one has but to ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... one- twentieth part so potent to effect the misery and ruin of her noble defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect in which a great people had been exhibited for many years. With shame and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty and crime, which is always below us—with little adequate expression of the general mind, or apparent understanding of the general mind, in Parliament—with the machinery ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... Lowering his Winchester, Frank led the way up the trail, slackening his pace as he reached the bend, and partly raising ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... was really imperceptible; and they bowled along as easily and as merrily as if on level ground. Moreover, the scenery around was of the most attractive character. They were among the mountains; and though there were no snow-clad summits, and no lofty peaks lost amid the clouds, still the lowering forms that appeared on every side were full of grandeur and sublimity. Amid these the road wound, and, at every new turn some fresh scene of beauty or of magnificence was disclosed to their admiring eyes. Now it was a sequestered valley, with a streamlet running through it, and the ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... original population, as well as the numerical proportions of its members, indicates a warmer and, on the whole, somewhat tropical climate, which remained tolerably equable throughout the year. The subsequent distribution of living beings in zones is the result of a gradual lowering of the general temperature, which first began to be ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... came into my room where I was writing, and wished me a pleasant journey, telling me for the second time that she was going to send her daughter Annette. The girl came in the evening, accompanied by a servant, and after lowering her mezzaro, and kissing my hand respectfully, she ran gaily ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... haggard beauty in the lowering night. Monstrous tattered clouds sprawled round a forlorn moon; puddles and rocks glistened with inner light. They were passing a grove of scrub poplars, feeble by day but looming now like a menacing wall. She stopped. They heard the branches dripping, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... following day, as the tidings spread through Smyrna that the sainted woman was at rest, the flags of the American vessels in the harbor were seen lowering to half mast, and that upon the dwelling of the consul was shrouded with the drapery ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... chorus of astonishment repeated. But only two scarlet spots on Egil's cheeks showed that he heard them. He gave Alwin a long, lowering look. "You should know by this time that I ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... meditative squirrel. Having just dined he was naturally in evening dress, with a butterfly tie, gleaming pumps, and a buttonhole of violets. He shut the door gently, glanced at his nice-looking grandmothers, and, walking forward very quietly and demurely, applied his eye to the telescope, lowering himself slightly by a Sandow exercise, which he had practised before he became a prophet. Having remained in this position of astronomical observation for some minutes, he deviated into the upright, closed the window, and ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... my father, lowering his voice; 'for see where these have been scraped away. Am I right? ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... the power companies? What will happen to the copper industry when the need for millions of miles of copper wire vanishes? They will all suffer tremendous setbacks, throwing tens of thousands more out of work and lowering the value ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett

... you permit me to say two or three things which are in my mind," he answered, lowering his voice a little, "you may do all the rest of ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... contrast between ice and open ocean; the ocean area from about latitude 40 south to the Antarctic Circle has the strongest average winds found anywhere on Earth; in winter the ocean freezes outward to 65 degrees south latitude in the Pacific sector and 55 degrees south latitude in the Atlantic sector, lowering surface temperatures well below 0 degrees Celsius; at some coastal points intense persistent drainage winds from the interior keep the shoreline ice-free throughout ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... South. Worn in resources, supplies—in everything but patient endurance, she still came forth from the dark doubts the winter had raised, hopeful, if not confident; calm, if conscious of the portentous clouds lowering upon her horizon. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... ordinary sense, they meet with little success. Individual freedom of opinion and conduct is the rule, and such a thing as class coercion is an impossibility. At one time it was argued by the adversaries of the university that this laxity must result in lowering the standard of scholarship. But recent events lead us to the opposite conclusion. The Saratoga regatta last summer proved that the Cornell students are not wanting in muscle, and the inter-collegiate contest of this winter shows still more conclusively ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... gaunt and lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude toward property—is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes; his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... lands, who have had the first thought of carnality planted in their bosom by the scheming Priestcraft, I would have a throng of tear-faced mortals that would rend the heart of stone and stigmatize the cunning of Catholicism with a stigma blacker than the lowering clouds ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... hedge of cypress and cedar, lay some little distance from the temple; for, in their secret race, it was not permitted for the house destined to the worship of the Most High, to be surrounded by the homes of the dead. A slow and solemn hymn accompanied the lowering of the coffin; a prayer in the same unknown language; a brief address, and the grave was filled up; the noble dead left with his kindred, kindred alike in blood as faith; and ere the morning rose, the living had all departed, save the few retainers of the house ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... as dusk falls, we make our way to the beach, ship our rudder and oars and push slowly along shore, or drift quietly with the tide. The stars may come out in clear splendour and the visual symphony of the northern lights play over the dark vault above us, or all may be obscured in lowering, leaden clouds. But the lights of the sea are never obscured—they always shine with a splendour which keeps one entranced ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near. The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious saying in the Fishery, —the more whales the less fish. Of all the drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... Crouch, lowering his voice in a significant manner. "You remember, sir, you was askin' me this time last year about a man called Hanks, who'd come up to you wantin' money, and you didn't know 'ow he'd got to know you. Well, he's in jail now for stealing fowls; but I seen him a month or so back, ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... lady armed with a shot-gun, undertook to defend it, and drove them away. She subsequently refused to give up her fire-arms on the requisition of the traitor Harris. Mrs. Lucy H. Hooper has told the story of the rebel efforts to procure the lowering of her flag very ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... spring. For a short term of probation, no doubt, the task should be irksome; but when this is over and it should not be prolonged work should be given which would tend to call out the best feelings, restore self-respect, and act as a sort of cordial to remove lowering and depression. To explain by a homely instance what we mean, we will mention an incident that occurred to one of us when building the Woking prison in 1866. A convict undergoing sentence there, of the labouring class, was found to be of an exceptionally ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair

... Mrs. Glenarm. She suddenly leaned forward over the piano, and fixed her eyes in unconcealed scrutiny on Anne's face. The violent temper, so often found in combination with the weak nature, began to show itself in her rising color, and her lowering brow. "How do you know what the person wrote?" she asked. "How do you know that the correspondence has passed into other hands? Who are you?" Before Anne could answer her, she sprang to her feet, electrified by a new idea. "The man who wrote to me spoke of something else besides a correspondence. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... lady, I have never seen these stout warriors, save one only, who is greatly like to the noble Siegfried. If this be he, I would have you give him a hearty welcome. Next to him is a man of right royal mien, a King, I trow, who rules with his sceptre mighty lands and herd. The third has a lowering brow, but is a stout warrior withal; the fourth is young and modest of look, but for all his gentle bearing, we should all rue it, I trow, if wrong ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... will not discuss the truth. But as to the zeal, what do you say to the example of it among us now?" And the Bishop, lowering his voice, indicated Stafford. ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... holding his ground. We who watched, when the blow came which made the strong man reel and the life-blood spout, felt our hearts faint within us; then again ground was gained, and the fight went on, the water lowering somewhat under the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... be complete, must possess certain qualifications. As Dr. Mason has well said: "In any style of mechanical weaving, however simple or complex, even in darning, the following operations are performed: First, raising and lowering alternately different sets of warp filaments to form the 'sheds'; second, throwing the shuttle, or performing some operation that amounts to the same thing; third, after inserting the weft thread, driving it home, and adjusting it by means of the batten, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... summon me to his study. But, as he saw with whom I was conferring, and overheard the subject of our conversation, he thought better of it, and with lowering face ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... without lowering his voice. "Sometimes I can only keep him here by force. He thinks the whole island is ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... Drapier went this day to the Tholsel[195] as a merchant, to sign a petition to the government against lowering the gold, where we hear he made a long speech, for which he will be reckoned a Jacobite. God send hanging does not go round." (Scott's edition, vol. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... solemnity, in a local calm, almost a seclusion, except for the ever-present shuddering roar in the air. On the shore above the Horseshoe they first comprehended the breadth, the great sweep, of the rapids. The white crests of the waves in the west were coming out from under a black, lowering sky; all the foreground was in bright sunlight, dancing, sparkling, leaping, hurrying on, converging to the angle where the water becomes a deep emerald at the break and plunge. The rapids above are a series of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... on the singers. Seen thus from an open boat under the lowering wings of night, there was something awe-inspiring—even to these who lived onboard them—in the stupendous fighting outlines limned against the last of the light. Complete darkness reigned on board, but once a dog barked, and the strains of an accordion drifted across the water ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... asked the knight, rather stiffly lowering his great body into his great chair set ready for him beside the fire. "I would have my valor in all men's mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a tender conscience, and that mad fellow of the north, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... circus dog did rush back to help Uncle Wiggily. And he got him out of the well in no time, by lowering a long rope to him, and pulling the rabbit gentleman up, and then the rabbit and dog ran away, before the toad could come back with the savage wolves, who didn't get any supper out of the well, after all, and ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis

... to organize a secret society, to occupy our subterranean dwelling. In that I fear we overstepped the rules of the school. Of course, Mr. Clark knew of our cave, in fact he visited us there once, lowering his dignity sufficiently to squeeze into the narrow passageway, and playing Bill a game of chess at our club table. He seemed quite pleased with our work, and complimented us very highly on the masterful way in which we had built the underground house. We told him ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... up the bottle with the candle. "Look at that!" he said, lowering the light and displaying a long transverse scar beginning at the mare's knee and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... Euphrasia can blush from morning to night. I can't think how she contrives it. Miss Beverley, too, plays at it vastly well; she's red and white, and white and red half a dozen times in a minute. Especially," looking at her archly, and lowering her voice, "if you talk to ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... indeed, as he learned the next moment, was not unjustified. Cautiously he was lowering himself over the edge, feeling for the scanty and elusive foothold, when all at once the air was filled with a rush of mighty wings, which seemed about to overwhelm him. A rigid wing-tip buffeted ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... into the quiet little harbour in which she was wont to take her goods on board, and had a narrow escape from a French cruiser; but had got free by the very common device of lowering all her canvas during the night and allowing her pursuer to pass her. Without further cause for alarm, she made the English coast. Dick, though he liked the life well enough, had no wish to continue in it; he wanted to see his parents and Janet, and to relieve their anxiety about ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar, by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others. He did not approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. He said "I think so" with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement, that she formed the most cordial opinion ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... the heavens was lowering and angry, particularly in that point where the light of the moon fell against the clouds, from a seeming chasm in them, through which alone she was visible. The edges of this chasm were faintly bronzed, but the dense body of the masses that hung piled on each ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... when the power, direct and indirect, of this great Government is to be used in the most effective manner against us? A power which claims that we shall not exercise the rights of States even, a power which seeks to coerce us, when we propose to protect ourselves against this lowering and impending danger. You of the North are descended from men who honored the scaffold for the very rights we now seek to exercise. So are we. You would deserve to be spurned by the maids and matrons among you, if you ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... stories, we were confined in the lower part. This was more favorable to our designs. During the night we busied ourselves in loosening two of the planks of the flooring, so that we could remove them at any time. Then lowering two of our number into the cellar, we succeeded in removing enough of the stone foundation to allow the escape of one man at a time through the aperture. Our arrangements were hastened by the assignment of a particular day on which we were to be transferred from our prison, and conveyed ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... through a hole in the blocks of ice! The ice looks cold, it is very well done, but the little bits of spray loop up round the fish in a stiff frill of a regular pattern. Then there is that one of the sea. It gives one a tremendous idea of a heavy lowering storm with the great indigo waves curling over that doomed boat, yet the edge of every wave has a sort of lace frill on it exactly alike! I must have those to take home; they won't ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... to try to start with a side wind is most unpleasant. It is possible after a great deal of practice to turn in the air, and fairly quickly. This is accomplished by throwing one's weight to one side, and thus lowering the machine on that side towards which one wants to turn. Birds do the same thing—crows and gulls show it very clearly. Last year Lilienthal chiefly experimented with double-surfaced machines. These were very much like the old machines ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... himself, he has probably taken the loose and incorrect estimates of the inhabitants. He describes it also as built upon little islands like Venice, and has twelve thousand stone bridges, [343] the arches of which are so high that the largest vessels can pass under them without lowering their masts. It has, he affirms, three thousand baths, and six hundred thousand families, including domestics. It abounds with magnificent houses, and has a lake thirty miles in circuit within its walls, on the banks of which are ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... their consumption of the raw material while the demand of the market is for more cloth, it will be supplied by others, either here or abroad; and the only real solution of the difficulty or means of lowering the price, is an increased supply. This points to other exertions than those which have been latterly directed to the production of fibrous materials to be converted directly into paper. Exertions ought rather to be directed to ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... if he would have clasped her in his arms; but then recollecting himself he came forward very slowly, half lowering his eyes ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... doubt even on the reality of the victory. Of the loss in moral forces there is no reliable measure, except in the trophies: therefore, in many cases, the giving up the contest is the only real evidence of the victory. It is, therefore, to be regarded as a confession of inferiority—as the lowering of the flag, by which, in this particular instance, right and superiority are conceded to the enemy, and this degree of humiliation and disgrace, which, however, must be distinguished from all the other moral consequences of the loss of equilibrium, is an essential part of ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... youthful. The older a man is, within limits of course, the more interesting he should be, and is, unless he has weakly allowed age to benumb him before his time. Then he becomes merely depressing, a kind of drag and lowering influence upon his friends; and, too, a ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... lowering his voice impressively, "here is the fact. Some one somewhere on Riverside Drive is keeping close and constant tab on the warships and transports there in the river. We have managed recently to intercept and decipher some code ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... off shore, with frequent heavy squalls, but about noon of the 17th of September, the Richard and the Pallas beat up within gun-shot of Leith Fort and were lowering away their tenders in order to land, when a heavy Northwest gale sprang up, compelling them to hoist their boats, and put to sea. The gale lasted about twenty-four hours, but, on the morning of the 19th, the wind took another turn, the sea grew calm, and Jones ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... recruit. Only two cases were remanded for trial by court-martial. Nor were the evils resulting from excessive drinking conspicuously present. Precautions, however, had to be taken to prevent any lowering of the standard which the Battalion was working towards, and in this respect examples had to be made in a few cases where the individual held rank, and in other cases where ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... firmly, but respectfully, "I am unhappy in your displeasure; yet thus far fortunate, that while your words can confer honour, they cannot impair or take it away.—It is hard," he added, lowering his voice, so as only to be heard by the King,—"It is hard that the squall of a peevish wench should cancel the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... a lowering in politics. The 'Moniteur' contains almost daily some bitter abuse of our minister and parliament, and in London there is great anxiety and omening. I have dreaded war from the time that the disastrous fortunes of the expedition ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the boat, we found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it could not be done without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft in lowering. An expedient, however, though at the eleventh hour, was hit upon. Fastening a long rope to the breaker, which was perfectly tight, we cautiously dropped it overboard; paying out enough line, to insure its towing astern of the ship, so as not to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... I should sort with another kind of ministers, whose chief contrivances and consultations were, by what art the prince's treasures might be increased. Where one proposes raising the value of specie when the king's debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a little receive a great deal: another proposes a pretence of a war, that money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be concluded ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... Thus did I desire it: What our contempts doth often hurl from us, We wish it ours again; the present pleasure, By revolution lowering, does become The opposite of itself: she's good, being gone; The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on. I must from this enchanting queen break off: Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know, My ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... attacking a bush that was fairly black with the luscious ripe fruit. "And besides," she added, lowering her voice to a confidential pitch, "Mrs. Irving said that if she could find some flour and baking powder in the lodge she would make us a steamed ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope

... and poor Martia, to her infinite sorrow and self-reproach, was conscious of a sad lowering of her moral tone after this long frequentation of the best earthly ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... place in this country has long spawned a social degradation. Where the gift is in the hands of a fixed power, its seeking is lowering enough; but when it is besought from the enlightened voter himself, "the scurvy politician" becomes a reality painfully frequent. Soliciting the ballot over a glass of green corn juice in the back room of a country grocery, or flattering the cara sposa of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... Bonnycastle describes the scene as that of a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light. A long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness to the parts of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base of the high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering, and more intensely obscure. Long tortuous lines of light showed immense numbers of large fish, darting about as if in consternation. The topsail yard and mizzen boom were lighted by the glare, as if gas-lights had been burning directly below them; and until just before ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... was noted by the Prophet. His own face had paled as if with some deep emotion; and lowering his raised hand, he spoke again with a ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... looked so lowering that Mr. Evringham hastened to speak in his brusque and final fashion. "She is here now. Might as well let ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... grow,—stronger and healthier, more helpful every day. We'll find our work and place in the world yet, poor child! You shall show me what a pure, earnest life is, Grey, and above us—what there is there," lowering his voice. "And I,—how much I have to do with this bit of humanity here on my hands!"—playfully. "An unhewn stone, with the beautiful statue lying perdu within. Bid you know you were that, Grey? and I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... absurdities and dangers that the book had been originally written to expose. In 1803 John Leland, representing forty-two Baptist clergymen, twenty licensed exhorters, four thousand communicants, and twenty thousand attendants, sent out another plea for disestablishment in his "Van Tromp lowering his Peak with a Broadside, containing a Plea for the Baptists of Connecticut." In it he urges that thirteen states have already granted religious liberty, and that many of them have formed newer constitutions since ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... other, capturing thirty or forty guns as we went along, which fired at twenty paces from us, and were served obstinately. The brave men drew up in an excellent line, and cheered Gough and myself as we rode up the line, the regimental colours lowering to me as if on parade. The mournful part is the heavy loss I have sustained in my officers. I have lost ten aides-de-camp hors de combat, five killed and five wounded. The fire of grape was very heavy from one hundred pieces of cannon. The Sikh army was drilled by French officers, and the men the ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... repeatedly said, we cannot measure the value of any one of those elements of climatic disturbance, raising or lowering of temperature, increase or diminution of humidity, nor can we say that in any one season, any one year, or any one fixed cycle, however long or short, they balance and compensate each other. They are sometimes, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... tell you what I'll do," continued Folly, lowering her voice to a confidential tone; "you shall give me your bird Content, and, as I told you before, I shall feed him and foster him with the same care as I do my own pet alligator. In return I will ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... was driving, doubtless with a certain degree of impetuosity, as he did most things.... They were on an unfrequented part of the road," said Mr. De Guenther, lowering his voice, "when there occurred an unforeseen wreckage in the car's machinery. The car was thrown over and badly splintered. Both young people were pinned ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer

... said, gently lowering his eyes upon mine after a moment's pause—"does not your choice of a profession imply that you have not to give chase to a fleeting phantom? Do you not profess to have, and hold, and ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... varies, but sticks to with the like plodding constancy that a mill-horse follows his trace. But the Muses and the Graces are his hard mistresses; though he daily invocate them, though he sacrifice hecatombs, they still look asquint. You shall note him (besides his dull eye, and lowering head, and a certain clammy benumbed pace) by a fair displayed beard, a night-cap, and a gown, whose very wrinkles proclaim him the true genius of familiarity. But of all others, his discourse and compositions best speak him, both of them are much of one stuff and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... another. They talked loudly, called the professors by their names and surnames, occupied themselves in getting their subjects ready, exchanged notebooks, climbed over desks, fetched themselves pies and sandwiches from the vestibule, and ate them then and there merely lowering their heads to the level of a desk for propriety's sake. Lastly, the third class of candidates (which seemed a small one) consisted of oldish men—some of them in frock coats, but the majority in jackets, and with no linen to be seen. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... times for Hurstley, he would say, and we must all rub over them as best we can. According to Simon, it was as much as his own place was worth to remit one single penny of a fine, or make the least indulgence for calamity; while, as to lowering a cotter's rent, or raising a ditcher's wages, he dared not do it for his life; folks must not blame him, but look ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... because they did not spare prisoners, they knew that they could not count upon mercy from people who were driven to despair and rebellion. They therefore retreated in silence, in close rank, shoulder to shoulder, now raising, now lowering their javelins and broad axes, hewing, shooting with their crossbows as much as the confusion of the fighting permitted them, and continuing to retreat slowly toward their horsemen, who were engaged in life and death battle with ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... you an atom," she said, as Katy began to demur and glance at the lowering sky. "You can wear your waterproof boots and my shaker, if you like, and I do so want Morris to have ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... say I told you!" said the Widow Brett, lowering her voice still more, and looking about with ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... and the borrowed gun was a weak poor thing, not a duck gun. We built ourselves a bough house out on a little island in the swamp and got in it, crouched down, and soon some ducks came down, down, lowering their feet to drop in the water. "Don't shoot, Poppie, don't shoot!" I exclaimed, and he did not shoot, and to this day he never knew why I gave such bad advice—I was afraid of the noise of the gun! Father thought I wanted him to wait until they were nearer. But ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... There is no doubt that its habitual use may be a factor in the formation of haemorrhoids; as in the case of all drugs that act powerfully on the lower part of the intestine, without simultaneously lowering the venous pressure by causing increase of secretion from the bowel. Aloes also tends to increase the menstrual flow and therefore belongs to the group of emmenagogues. Aloin is preferable to aloes for therapeutic purposes, as it causes less, if any, pain. It is a valuable drug in many ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... then, and Jeffrey answered, without lowering his voice, in what seemed to Lydia and Anne, watching the effect on their father, a reckless, if not ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... verified, the results have been so far futile as well as disastrous. The negro has been degraded, and yet, after all our brutality, we cannot take his place. Therefore, besides the enormous evils to slave-trading countries themselves, the lowering of their moral tone, the substitution of piracy for legitimate commerce, and the degradation of the countries which bought the slaves, the superior race has not even been able to suppress the inferior. But the abolition of this monstrous evil does not involve the abolition but the humanisation ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... would be too much, you know, for me to have both when my presents are so big. I don't believe a stocking will hold 'em much longer. But oh! we've got such a fine plan in our heads," said little Ellen, lowering her voice, and speaking with open eyes and great energy "we are going to make presents this year! we children won't it be fine? we are going to make what we like for anybody we choose, and ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... dark and lowering. Despair had well nigh possession of the bravest hearts. After my arrival I soon saw and felt that the sentiment of the West was decidedly against the Union, or rather in ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell

... a supernatural influence to cause the record of that which can only issue in a puzzle, is to lower indefinitely our conception of the Divine dealings in respect of a special Revelation." (Ibid.)—Why more of a lowering puzzle in GOD'S Word than ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... attracted my entire attention. He stood there bareheaded and baldheaded, his hat as a collection-box before him on the ground, after the manner of these people. He was belaboring an old, much-cracked violin, beating time not only by raising and lowering his foot, but also by a corresponding movement of his entire bent body. But all his efforts to bring uniformity into his performance were fruitless, for what he was playing seemed to be an incoherent succession of tones without time or melody. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... becomes aggravated when the middleman-sweater, as is usually the case in the modern sweat-shop, employs the labor himself, at his own house, for the purpose of extracting a double quantity of labor, either by lowering wages or working ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... of a very agreeable lunch by the roadside, all arranged and prepared by the boys, with endless burned potatoes down on the menu as "fresh roasted," when the lowering clouds gave Dame Nature's warning. Next the thunder roared about what it might do, and then our friends hurried away from the scene. The run brought them some way on the direct road to the Berkshires, and in one of those spots where it would seem the ark must have tipped, ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose

... I'm sure, and Mikky ought to appreciate his friends, but he's being taken care of perfectly right where he is and he couldn't be moved. It might kill him to move him, and if he stays where he is he will get well. I'll tell you what I'll do," he added as he saw the lowering distress in the dumb eyes before him, "I'll give you a bulletin every day. You be here to-night at five o'clock when I come out of the house and I'll tell you just how he is. Then you needn't worry about him. He's ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... me, lowering and silent. For two hours the tornado lasted without interruption; the sun had set, and the darkness was opaque. It was impossible to move against the force of the wind and the deluge of water which descended. Speak, we did not, but shut our eyes against the lightning, and held ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... famous Palma, intimate adviser of the house of Keller, who retired on the appearance of the perfumer. When Birotteau had explained his errand, Adolphe—much the cleverest of the two brothers, a thorough lynx, with a keen eye, thin lips, and a dry skin—cast at Birotteau, lowering his head to look over his spectacles as he did so, a look which we must call the banker-look,—a cross between that of a vulture and that of an attorney; eager yet indifferent, clear ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... to herself, though, when a woman near her, without lowering her voice, said with an amused look, "I'm glad that nice child in the corner is looking happier. It's positively cruel to allow so young a girl to mope about ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther

... who were below literally "tumbled up," as seamen express it, and those who were aloft slid down to the deck like flashes of lightning. Captain Gardiner sprang out of his cabin, seemingly at a single bound; at another, he was in the whale-boat that Hazard was in the very act of lowering into the water, as the schooner rounded-to. Perceiving himself anticipated here, the mate turned to the boat on the other quarter, and was in her, and in the water, almost as soon as his ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... said Kenneth. "That is what I wanted you for, Miss Desire," he said in a pleased, gentle way, lowering his tone to her especial hearing, as he stood beside ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... had dropped his gun when assuming his position at bay, and it lay several feet away on the ground. Lowering his own weapon, Deerfoot pointed after the fleeing horse and said sternly in the tongue ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... between the object and the eye which makes it not so much light as bright. Now this quality of light was thought by the old masters to be the most important one of light, extending to the half tones and even in the shadows, where there is still light; and this by art and lowering the tone they were able to give, so that we see not the value of the praise when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... mostly raised in America, had been presented to him by his admirers. After an unsuccessful attempt to make terms with the Conservatives, in the course of which he had a famous interview with Lord Carnarvon, the viceroy, Parnell flung his vote—now eighty-six strong since the lowering of the franchise—into the Liberal scale and so brought about the fall of the short-lived first Salisbury government. Mr. Parnell nominated the greater number of Nationalist candidates for the Irish constituencies, and the firm hand with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... lowering, the sky broken into wild irregular masses of red and angry clouds. The sun, after throwing one fierce look over the broad and troubled sea, had sunk behind a hard, huge battlement of cloud, on the round waving edges of which ran a bright burning rim, that looked like a train of fire ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... minutes. Saddle as you never saddled before," he continued in a low tone, "or—" His tongue did not finish the threat, but his hand waved the man away. "For you"—he held Tignonville an instant with his lowering eye—"and the preaching fool with you, get arms and mount! You have never played aught but the woman yet; but play me false now, or look aside but a foot from the path I bid you take, and you thwart me no more, Monsieur! And you, Madame," he continued, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... business!" Chubikoff answered roughly. "Be good enough to examine the floor! This is not the first case of the kind I have had to deal with! Eugraph Kuzmitch," he said, turning to the inspector, and lowering his voice, "in 1870 I had another case like this. But you must remember it—the murder of the merchant Portraitoff. It was just the same there. The scoundrels murdered him, and dragged the corpse out ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... the mainsail," was quickly followed by the lowering of the foresail until not more than a mere corner was shown, merely to keep the canoe end-on to the seas. Soon even this was lowered, and Van der Kemp used his double-blade paddle to keep them in position, at the same time telling ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... came faster and faster. Great feathery flakes they were at first. The girls went on, laughing and chatting, with never a thought that harm could befall them through the gathering of these fleecy droppings from the lowering clouds. ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... It was a very young field of corn, which the splendour of the day turned into pearly down. I could have looked at it for ever, at one moment letting the full glory of it burst on my dazzled eyes and then gradually lowering my lids down to the tiny threads that trembled and glittered in my breath. Then my mouth formed itself into a kiss; and I amused myself by slowly and lovingly making the cool pearls of the morning die ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... the interrupted harmony of nature is at last reestablished. [Footnote: "Aquatic plants have a utility in raising the level of marshy grounds, which renders them very valuable, and may well be called a geological function. The engineer drains ponds at a great expense by lowering the surface of the water; nature attains the same end, gratuitously, by raising the level of the soil without depressing that of the water; but she proceeds more slowly. There are, in the Landes, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... the forced abdication of Abdul Hamid, proclaimed the aims and ideals of the new regime. At once Germany saw her opportunity, for here, with her help, might arise the strong Turkey which she desired to see, instead of the weak Turkey which all the other European Powers had been keeping on a lowering diet for so long (desirous only that it should not quite expire), and from that moment she began to lend, or rather let, to Turkey in ever-increasing quantities, the resources of her scientific and her military knowledge. It was in her interests, if Turkey was to be of use to her, ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... Darrell, bending towards his daughter, and lowering his voice almost to a whisper, as though fearful of being overheard, "in one week's time—only one week from this very day—the contract will expire, and the heirs of Richard ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... of that, sir,' said Tregarva, lowering his voice. 'What is written'? That there is One who hears the desire of the poor. "Lord, Thou preparest their hearts and Thine ear hearkeneth thereto, to help the fatherless and poor unto their right, that the man of the earth be no more ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... against Dr. Van Anden," Sadie said, watching the lowering brow and sarcastic curve of the lip, with curious eyes. "How much I should like to know precisely what is ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... what will happen in this country," Snake had said to Yellin' Kid, and the latter agreed, lowering his voice, for once at least, so Bud and his ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker

... There are people whose life is a primrose path along which they dance and prattle, whose emotions are a pose, whose thoughts are an echo, whose trials are a graceful luxury; there are others whose way lies through dark ravines and beside raging torrents, over whose head the black clouds are ever lowering, and whom any moment the lightning may strike. This was their destiny. Upon their marriage day one saw the way that these two would have to go, and it was inevitable that they should drink their ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... see," began the Baron, with a casual air intended for any witnesses of the interview. "Work," he added, cautiously lowering his voice, "which, if I may be allowed to say so, Sire, can hardly be other than distasteful to his Royal Highness Prince Mirliflor ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth, Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent north Where the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south. Even such fire was this that lit them, not from lowering skies Where the darkling dawn flagged, stricken in the sun's own shrine, Down the gulf of storm subsiding, till their earnest eyes Find the relics of the ravening night that spared but nine. Life by life the man ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... be delighted, but—" And so all my castles came tumbling down from the clouds, and left them black and lowering and leaden as before. Once or twice, later on, I made a few spasmodic efforts to galvanize the place into life; they, too, failed, and I accepted the inevitable. When Father Laverty came he helped me to bear ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... innermost of their leafy depths as if steeped in the exhalations of a golden mist. While, contrasting strangely with the wondrous radiance around them, the huge bronze pine-tree in the middle of the Place, and the wide front of the basilica, rose up in gloomy shadow, indefinite and exaggerated, lowering like evil spirits over the joyous beauty of the rest of the scene, and casting their great depths of shade into the midst of the light whose dominion they despised. Beheld from a distance, this wild combination ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... instinct, or demoralized by lucre. Such a nature can never lead civilization. Genuflexion before the idol or the dollar atrophies the muscle which walks and the will which moves. Hieratic or mercantile absorption diminishes the radiance of a people, lowers its horizon by lowering its level, and deprives it of that understanding of the universal aim, at the same time human and divine, which makes the missionary nations. A free people, forgetting that it has a soul to be cared for, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... mind. But it made him no less desperate or careless. With strength almost maniacal he leaped at what he would have fled from at any other time, and, swinging his ax with the quickness of light, struck tremendously at the great lowering head. He yelled again as he felt stone cut and crash into bone, though himself swept aside once more as a great paw, sidestruck, hurled him into the bushes. He bounded to his feet and saw something huge and dark and gasping floundering in the pathway. He thought not but ran on ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... out to speak to these naughty children, supposing them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that she found Tom leaning with rather a careless air against the white paling of the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means of teasing ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous



Words linked to "Lowering" :   cloudy, reduction, decrease, diminution, movement, step-down, lower, tapering



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