Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Motive power   /mˈoʊtɪv pˈaʊər/   Listen
Motive power

noun
1.
The power or ability to move.  Synonyms: locomotion, motivity.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Motive power" Quotes from Famous Books



... central line. Those in the middle third of the bomb pointed directly outward, while those in its front portion were inclined forward at a slight angle, and those in the rear portion backward at the same angle. One tube at the end of the bomb, and pointing directly backward, furnished the motive power. ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... arm, darted forward, took the hand of the lady in the chair and pressed it to his lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded both his gloves upon his heart, and bowed low to the other lady. And now, the chair having stopped, the motive power became visible in the shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed to have in part outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the more forlorn from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... afford—though there is in this something almost appalling—as from the consciousness which everybody begins to have that to put such an engine of destruction as the German army into operation there must be behind it a new kind of motive power. It is easy enough for any government to put its whole male population under arms, or even to lead them on an emergency to the field. But that an army composed in the main of men suddenly taken from civil pursuits should ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... that has taken place in naval vessels and naval warfare since the introduction of steam as a motive power for ships of war demands either a corresponding change in some of our existing navy yards or the establishment of new ones for the construction and necessary repair of modern naval vessels. No inconsiderable embarrassment, delay, and public injury have been experienced from the want ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... to a company of Washington reporters a printing machine upon which he had been working for many years, and which he believed to be then substantially complete. It was a machine of very moderate dimensions, requiring a small motive power, and which bore upon a cylinder in successive rows the characters required for printed matter. By the manipulation of finger keys, while the cylinder was kept in continuous forward motion, the ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... in a greatly reduced form. Even more obvious is the change of structure in the case of masts of vessels, which originally bore the sails for propelling the ship. When steam engines were employed to give motive power, masts did not disappear. They now provide the derrick supports of trading steamers; in battleships their function is changed to that of fighting tops and signal yards. Even the poles carried by canal boats to bear windmills must be regarded as the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... nights, but rarely longer. Sometimes he would chant a hymn without words, or offer the ceremonial "filled pipe." In this holy trance or ecstasy the Indian mystic found his highest happiness and the motive power of ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... stopped; and with it stopped each form. Each foot was arrested at the point to which the sound had carried it when it paused. Each couple stood in perfect pose. The motive power which moved them was withdrawn, and the limbs stood motionless as if the soul that gave them animation had retired. They had been lifted to another world—a world of impulse and movement more airy and spirit-like than the gross earth,—and ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... furtherance of vague talkative religious movements the fostering of inter-racial ententes, all found in him a tireless exponent, a fluent and entertaining, though perhaps not very convincing, advocate. With the real motive power behind these various causes he was not very closely identified; to the spade-workers who carried on the actual labours of each particular movement he bore the relation of a trowel-worker, delving superficially ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... expense will no longer be matter of consideration. England is to lose her superiority as a manufacturing country, inasmuch as her vast store of coals will no longer avail her as an economical source of motive power. "We," say the German cultivators of this science, "have cheap zinc, and, how small a quantity of this metal is required to turn a lathe, and consequently to give motion to any kind ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... healthy social organism. The care of the insane, of imbeciles, of criminals, and of paupers is exercised more nearly on a scientific basis each succeeding year. Prevention and reform are the fundamental ideas in connection with the management of these classes. Altruism may be an initial motive power, prompting people to care for the needy and the suffering, but necessity for the preservation of society is more ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... details. It was very complex, for it was the working of the factory itself which was involved. The scheme was carefully gone into by the owner, his son, and their assistants together, and it was decided to try it. It was entirely successful; LESS than half the motive power now sufficed. ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... but the rolling mill completes what the puddling hall does in the rough. Five hundred and fifty thousand tons of iron, all shaped, are taken from the forge every day. To reach such a result it requires no less than 3,000 workmen and a motive power of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... main motive power, without which all the others would have been of no avail, was, indeed, mutual sympathy. When the treaty was signed the three negotiators, Barbe-Marbois, Monroe, and Livingston, who had known each other in America at the time of the war of Independence, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... At length the motive power of the Ark was developed, and it began to obey its helm. From the shelter of a "captain's bridge," constructed at the forward end of the huge levium dome that covered the vessel, Cosmo Versal, with Captain Arms, a liberally bewhiskered, veteran navigator in whose skill he confided, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... on a rocking horse—it is a beautiful motion, but there is no progress. Those who are working for salvation are like men on a treadmill, going round, and round, and round; toiling, and toiling, and toiling; but nothing comes of it all. There is no progress, and there cannot be until you have the motive power within, till the breath of life comes from God, which can alone give you power ...
— Sovereign Grace - Its Source, Its Nature and Its Effects • Dwight Moody

... Canada, and to confer the appointment upon the best man within his reach. How ignominously he failed to carry out his wishes in this particular is known to every student of Upper Canadian history; but what is not known, either to students of history or anyone else, is—What was the motive power which directed his choice? By what whimsical combination of circumstances it came about that the appointment was finally offered to, and accepted by, one of the most unlikely men in the three kingdoms, is one of those official riddles which appear to ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... moderate degree of wisdom, will carry a man further than any amount of intellect without it. Energy makes the man of practical ability. It gives him VIS, force, MOMENTUM. It is the active motive power of character; and if combined with sagacity and self-possession, will enable a man to employ his powers to the best advantage in ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... and tact reigned through it, and Rosa's diffusive charity made him the centre of a circle to whom he dispensed not only earthly goods, but the noble thoughts of his large understanding. And Paul realized that while he guided all things by his wisdom, given to him of God, Rosa was as the motive power to his existence. Her influence pervaded his every thought and feeling, and while it made his life upon earth so full and perfect, it allied him to Heaven; and thus he held her in his house and heart as ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... reveals his power in water and in fire, in the earth, the sea and the blowing of the winds; but his purest, most radiant and most active epiphany is in the stars whose revolutions determine every event and all our actions. Above all he manifests himself in the sun, the motive power of the celestial spheres, the inexhaustible seat of light and life, the creator of all intelligence on earth. Certain philosophers like the senator Praetextatus, one of the dramatis personae of Macrobius, confounded all the ancient ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... heat between the freezing-point and the boiling-point, 32 deg. and 212 deg., the expansion of air is about 1/490th part, so that any invention which seeks to use rarefied air as a motive power must employ a very intense degree of heat, enough to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... flying through the clouds and apparently propelled by wheels of a screw pattern, set at right angles to the direction in which the travellers are proceeding. But there is not a scrap of evidence to show what was the motive power which turned the wheels. Similarly, iron ships are mentioned in Chinese literature so far back as the tenth century, only, however, to be ridiculed as an impossibility; the circulation of the blood is hinted at; added to which is the marvellous anticipation of anaesthetics as applied ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... is cleaner or freer from impurities, purifying plant and material will be correspondingly less. Oil gas is now employed for lighthouse service in the illumination of the lanterns on Ailsa Craig and as motive power in the gas engines connected with the fog horns at Langness and Ailsa Craig lighthouse stations. It is also used largely in the lighting of railway carriages. Various populous places are now introducing oil gas for house service, and he felt sure that the system is one which ought to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... Mr. Ward; the motive power of this so-called boat must be as tremendous and as unknown as that of the remarkable automobile which ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... choose that which he hates, even sin itself, as the means of good. It makes the end sanctify the means, even in the eye of the holy God. This doctrine we utterly reject and infinitely abhor. We had rather have "our sight, hearing, and motive power, and what not besides, disputed, and even torn away from us, than suffer ourselves to be disputed into a belief," that the holy God can choose moral evil as a means of good. We had rather believe all the fables in the Talmud ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... was one, "Sunny Jim," a morbid transport mule, inside the tent, providing the motive power. "Sunny Jim" had always been something of a somnambulist, and this time he had sleep-walked clean through our mess and on into William's tent, where the mallet woke him up. He was then making the best of his way home to lines again, expedited ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various

... the pure silence necessary for the disciple, the heart and emotions, the brain and its intellectualisms, have to be put aside. Both are but mechanisms, which will perish with the span of man's life. It is the essence beyond, that which is the motive power, and makes man live, that is now compelled to rouse itself and act. Now is the greatest hour of danger. In the first trial men go mad with fear; of this first trial Bulwer Lytton wrote. No novelist has followed to the second trial, though some of the poets have. Its subtlety and great ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... Cole, Kenton Station, Tenn.—The object of this invention is to construct a machine which, by the application of but little power, will raise a stream of water to any desired hight, to furnish motive power for machinery ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... the subject of aerial navigation had in the United States one of its periodical revivals. Mr. Cooper, believing that a motive power developed from materials of small weight was essential to the solution of the problem, resolved to employ the explosive force of chloride of nitrogen,—one of the most dangerous compounds known to chemists. The result of his experiments in this direction was an explosion which ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond

... lived happily with her husband, surrounded by several lovely children. Deep piety remained the motive power of Richmodis' being, and nobody ever saw her ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... a fine point, Tom," warned Beverly. "Our gas is on its last legs, and any minute now we'll find ourselves without motive power." ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... sense, land is clearly of great importance in production. We build houses and factories upon it, we use it as a basis of transportation, we harness its motive power, and we make extensive use of the innumerable raw materials which it furnishes. Without land there could be no production, in the sense in which the economist ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... believe him when he tells us that he never wrote a line for hate's sake. He shrank instinctively from all that was mean and sordid. Generosity was a marked trait of his character, an ennobling principle of his nature, the motive power of his actions, and the mainspring of his life. Friendship was likewise congenial to his taste, if not a necessity of his nature; and with him it meant more than a name. It was a sacred union formed between kindred spirits — a chain of affection whose binding link ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... well-paid situations. It would be hard to say how far a love of knowledge contributes to this eagerness for study. It would be uncharitable to affirm it is altogether absent, but it would be shutting one's eyes to potent facts to suppose it furnishes the greater part of the motive power. Owing to various causes, such as the want of opportunity, of capacity, and diligence, the great majority of students do not aspire higher than the Entrance examination; but even to pass this successfully is considered a great feat, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... dogmas, the cries of propaganda only—precisely the food needed for developing the mob mind to its full strength. Envy, jealousy, hatred ruled supreme. Liberty was a catchword. Blood lust was the motive power driving each heart beat. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... from the hand, the distance travelled by the stone appears to depend partly on its weight and partly upon the exertion of the thrower. So that, the weight of the stone remaining the same, it looks as if the motive power communicated to it were measured by the distance to which the stone travels—as if, in other words, the power needed to send it a hundred yards was twice as great as that needed to send it fifty yards. These, apparently obvious, conclusions from ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley

... & T. Junction; the fast mail, one hour and thirty-five minutes late from the east, was backing in on track nine to take on the city mail. On track eight, pulled down so that the smoke from the engine should not foul the air of the train-shed, the receiver's private car, with the 1010 for motive power and "Red" Callahan in the cab, had been waiting since seven o'clock for the order to run special to Gaston. And as yet the headquarters office had made no sign; sent no word of reply to the ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... one compares the ceaseless, serious, and laborious striving of men with what they gain by it, nay, even with what they ever can gain, the disproportion we have pointed out becomes apparent, for one recognizes that that which is to be gained, taken as the motive power, is entirely insufficient for the explanation of that movement and that ceaseless striving. What, then, is a short postponement of death, a slight easing of misery or deferment of pain, a momentary stilling of desire, compared with such an abundant and certain victory over them all ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... of course the comedy of situation and finds its mainstay in mistaken identity. The Men. and Amph. with their doubles are farce-comedies proper, but the element of farce forms the motive power of nearly all the plots; for example, the shuffling-up of Acropolistis, Telestis and the fidicina in Ep., the quarrel between Mnesilochus and Pistoclerus in Bac. resulting from the former's belief that his friend had ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... a machine to discover the motive power, would you? But that is just what you are doing there with that brain. You are hoping by dissecting it to find the power that made it go, aren't you? And the power that made it ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... eloquent speaker of the day of the Baptist people. Our present educated preachers have lost the hold they should have upon the age in the cultivation of the intellectual instead of the emotional. Religion is the motive power in the intellectual guidance of humanity. These Lemens were well balanced in the cultivation of the intellect and the control of the emotions. They were well educated for their day, self-educated, great lovers of poetry, hymnal poetry, having no taste for the religious debates now so prevalent in ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul

... herself with insistent energy; "I will be true. I have given my word." She felt very tired and spent as she lay back in the corner of her cushioned seat. On heart and brain was an unaccustomed weight; her very limbs felt heavy and inert, as if the motive power had failed. Virtue had gone out of her. At the sight of that anguished face, the years of Pixie's untroubled girlhood had come to an end. Henceforth she was a woman, carrying her own burden. "But I will be true," she repeated gallantly; "I ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... attracts me in Cha—Cha considered not as a motive power at all, but as a personality—I am rapidly learning to discern in the multitudes of faces turned toward us as we roll through these miniature streets. And perhaps the supremely pleasurable impression of this morning is that produced by the singular gentleness of popular scrutiny. Everybody looks ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... moved by bills of exchange. I have seen some of them, [laughter,] wretched, crinkled, scrawled over, blotched, frowsy, and yet those wretched little scraps of paper move great ships laden with thousands of tons of precious cargo from one end of the world to the other. [Applause.] What is the motive power behind them? The honor of commercial men. [Applause.] Treaties are the currency of international statesmanship. [Applause.] Let us be fair—German merchants, German traders, have the reputation of being as upright and straightforward as any traders ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... I am not quite such a fool as I look, and that I have to be fished for with a rod and line for a good long while before I am caught, I will proceed to explain why I specially wished to make your brother look a fool. That my motive power is hate, I do not attempt to conceal. I have felt that before dying (and I am dying, however much fatter I may appear to you), I must absolutely make a fool of, at least, one of that class of men which has dogged me all my life, which I hate so cordially, and which is so prominently represented ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... swept away, and still find the years tolerable and the sun pleasant, still cherish in themselves that inexhaustible faith in an ideal something which supplies from century to century the invincible motive power of the race? ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... upwards, to facilitate its sliding along the ground, and to enable it to rise with readiness upon the rollers, which were continually placed before it by laborers just in front, while others following behind gathered them up when the bulky mass had passed over there. The motive power was applied in front by four gangs of men who held on to four large cables, at which they pulled by means of small ropes or straps fastened to them, and passed under one shoulder and over the other—an arrangement which enabled ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... teacher, besides the Stoic philosopher, has said, 'He who copies the gods worships them adequately.' One of the prophets lays it down as a standing rule, 'The people will walk every one in the name of his God.' But it is only in the Christian attitude towards God that the motive power is found which makes such imitation more than an impossible duty, even as it is only in the revealed character of God that a pattern is found, to imitate which is to be perfect. Everywhere besides, harmony with the gods meant discord with conscience and flagrant outrages ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... cared to assert it, was really that of general manager. Under him, in the head-quarters staff at Angels, there was an auditor—who also acted as paymaster, a general freight and passenger agent, and a superintendent of motive power. Operating the line as a branch of the P. S-W System, we can simplify the organization. We have consolidated the auditing and traffic departments with our Colorado-lines head-quarters at Denver. This will leave you with only the operating, telegraph, train-service, and engineering ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... smile. "Indeed he never let me in. I went home soon after you left me. The door was shut, I tried the window, but that was shut too, so I had to go back to the door. I couldn't open it and I rang. He answered me through the door, 'Who's there?'" She ended as if the motive power of speech had died down ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... and fill our place. For the intellect is the most neutral of all our qualities. Man is swayed by the animal propensities of his nature; he is swayed by the moral and religious elements of his nature; but the intellect, by itself, is not a motive power. It is a light; and no one will object to its being kindled except those who, by that objection, virtually confess that they fear the light. And this work of kindling is just what the state purposes to do for a child; leaving his religious convictions ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... of agriculture, and by whitened bones as well. Our footsore teams, gaunt and weakened, began to faint and fall. Horses and oxen died in the harness or under the yoke, and were perforce abandoned where they fell. Each pound of superfluous weight was cast away as our motive power thus lessened. Wagons were abandoned, goods were packed on horses, oxen and cows. We put cows into the yoke now, and used women instead of men on the drivers' seats, and boys who started riding finished ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... Craney as they come up, "of the Barlow Suburban Railway." And he points out the sagging track of rust-eaten rails which wanders away across the town's outskirts. "In here," he explains, escorting Tim up the incline of the platform and through the sliding door of the wareroom, "we have a stall for the motive power, which is a horse, and in the corner a cot for the general manager, who drives him. 'T is only three runs must be made daily across pleasant hills and fields and then a hearty supper when you collect fares enough to pay for it, and an infant's sleep here rocked by the trains as they ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of the country, where it would be absurd to expect the SAVOIR VIVRE of the south, and it would be amusing to see the customs of the land. By suggestion and seeming response, the clever Christina, unsuspected even of Mercy, was the motive power to bring about the ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... muscle contract at one time and not at another? Why does one whole group of muscles contract when the lobster wishes to extend his tail, and another group, when he desires to bend it? What is it originates, directs, and controls the motive power? ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... and with his jaw thrust forward showed himself the unyielding autocrat, who, in the rough and tumble of politics, had ruled his party with a rod of iron. This man whose wonderful talents and personality had fitted him for his chosen position of champion of the plain people, and whose great motive power, against all odds, that had forced him into the first place in their hearts, was his sincere and honest ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... difficulty, ascertained every factor in the problem. I had satisfied myself that only one thing needful was as yet wholly beyond the reach and even the proximate hopes of science. Human invention could furnish as yet no motive power that could fulfil the main requirement of the problem—uniform or constantly increasing motion in vacuo—motion through a region affording no resisting medium. This must be a repulsive energy capable of acting through an utter void. Man, animals, birds, fishes move by repulsion ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... long discussion over all this. Many other names were suggested. Danny agreed that they were those of men guilty of the worst crimes, but maintained that the first thing to do was to get hold of the real leaders, the brains and motive power of the gang. The five first designated filled ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... inventor to the aeronaut, "I have another plan. In addition to the positive and negative plates which will form our motive power, I am going to install forward and aft propellers, to use in ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... proved to be of the same general type as had been used by Hadley. It was equipped with six rocket motors, four discharging to the bow and two to the stern. Any one of them, Carpenter said, was ample for motive power. Equilibrium was maintained by means of a heavy gyroscope which would prevent any turning of the axis of its rotation. The entire flyer shell could be revolved about the axis so that oblique motion with our bow and stern motors was readily ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... ancient low-hung "Surrey," a vehicle admirably fitted for an invalid, and in this conveyance with a stout mare as motive power we often drove away into the country of a pleasant afternoon, sometimes into Gill's ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... regiment that passes! No drum, no fife, no inspiring music to stir their blood and strengthen their courage, nothing but the unvarying monotony of the four note trumpets. They don't need music to make them go. They are perfect little machines whose motive power is a patriotism so absolute, so complete, that it makes death on the battle-field ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... old-time life of the Colonial city. William Gilmore Simms was the head and mentor of the brilliant little band, and the much younger men, Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry Timrod, were the fiery souls that gave it the mental electricity necessary to furnish the motive power. Through all the coming days of trial and hardship, of aspiration and defeat, of watching from the towers of high achievement or lying prone in the valley of failure, not one of that little circle ever lost the golden memory of those magic evenings ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... occupying a middle ground between the sexes, did not exactly know herself what to make of her clerk's studiousness; all that she could say was that he kept up with his work. She assumed that before Lemuel's coming she had been the sole motive power of the house; but it was really a sort of democracy, and was managed by the majority of its inmates. An element of demagoguery tampered with the Irish vote in the person of Jerry, nominally porter, but ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... means of flight. Amongst these would-be fugitives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was the same want of motive power ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... efforts as a mechanical engineer, I had been impressed with the great advantages that would result from the employment of small high-pressure steam-engines of a simple and compact construction. These, I thought, might suit the limited means and accommodation of small factories and workshops where motive power was required. The highly satisfactory results which followed the employment of steam-engines of this class, such as I supplied shortly after beginning business in Manchester, led to a constantly increasing demand for them. They were used for hoisting in and out the weighty bales ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... last score of the years of his life, the most successful financially, he found that the money he could accumulate came only from the sale of products that could move from the valley across the mountains by their own motive power—something that could go on foot. So he turned to stock-raising and with his own slaves cut the present roadway from Pall Mall to Jamestown, there to join with the old Kentucky Stock road which ran from Atlanta ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... of the ringer is shown. One fire heats every room, passage, hall, and cupboard, and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the chambers; though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps is boiling, and that, when once turned on, it cannot be turned off again by any human energy. Everything is done by a new and wonderful ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... must have a Body and a Soul, each of the First Order; otherwise you will never get out of coarse art and skating in one syllable. So much for yourself, the motive power. And your machinery,—your smooth-bottomed rockers, the same shape stem and stern,—this must be as perfect as the man it moves, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... to accomplish what to his plodding neighbors would seem almost miraculous. He understood that the forces with which he was dealing were wellnigh infinite; and it was his delight to study them, to combine them, and make them his servants. It was his theory that the energy in nature was like a vast motive power, over which man could throw the belt of his skill and knowledge, and so produce results commensurate with the force of which he availed himself. There was, therefore, an unfailing zest in his work, and the majority of his labors ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... comrades, and that he has but to push a lever to set it in motion or stop it. The machine, in spite of its miraculous power and productiveness, has no mystery for him. The labourer in the electrical works, who has but to turn a crank on a dial to send miles of motive power to tramways, or light the lamps of a city, has but to say, like the God of Genesis, "let there be light," and there is light. Never sorcery more fantastic was imagined, yet for him this sorcery is a simple and natural thing. He would be greatly surprised if one were to come ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... seen some of them—wretched, crinkled, scrawled over, blotched, frowsy, and yet these wretched little scraps of paper moved great ships, laden with thousands of tons of precious cargo, from one end of the world to the other. What was the motive power behind them? ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... intersection. The bees, of course, no more knowing that they swept their spheres at one particular distance from each other, than they know what are the several angles of the hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic plates; the motive power of the process of natural selection having been the construction of cells of due strength and of the proper size and shape for the larvae, this being effected with the greatest possible economy of labour and wax; that individual swarm which thus ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... In order to transfer these articles from the hulk to the shore a raft would be necessary; and a raft would also be required to eventually convey those goods round to the islet. The latter transfer would involve the expenditure of an immense amount of labour and time unless the wind or some other motive power could be pressed into their service; and Gaunt had already learned during the course of his professional experience that when any important work had to be performed it was better and more economical in every way to provide efficient "plant" in the first instance. ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... always a mental weakness. It is sometimes vanity, but never pride, that reasonable pride that a philosophy now abandoned once numbered as one of the principal vices, and which, if rightly estimated, can be considered as the motive power of every noble action. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... almost as much as he pushed her back. Still, in time, and when his strength was fast decreasing, she did move, and he had the satisfaction of feeling the water deeper beneath him. But when he endeavoured to pull himself into the canoe over the prow, directly his motive power ceased, the waves undid the advance he had achieved, and he had to resume his labour. This time, thinking again, before he attempted to get into the canoe he turned her sideways to the wind, with the outrigger to leeward. When her sharp prow and rounded keel struck the mud-bank end on she ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies

... The motive power is turned on and we must grasp the helm if we sail the sea of life successfully, ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... there being forty or more rivers and streams of importance, some of them being navigable for a distance of thirty-five miles from their mouths for deep-draught ships, others forming means of irrigation and motive power throughout the region, whilst numerous lakes and lagoons exist. Among the navigable rivers are those of Coatzacoalcos, San Juan, Tonto, Papaloapam, Tuxpam, Casones. The scenery is extremely picturesque in places, changing to ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... far seeing inventor and most ingenious. He made mechanical toys that "worked" when they were wound up. He even devised a miniature flying machine; however, history does not tell us whether it flew or not. He thought out the uses of steam as a motive power long before ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon

... representation of an honourable name and the responsibilities of high station. If eldest sons do not often make as great a figure in the world as their younger brothers, it is not because their minds are less cultivated, but because they have less motive power for action. George Belvoir was well read, especially in that sort of reading which befits a future senator,—history, statistics, political economy, so far as that dismal science is compatible with the agricultural ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rear in the French order, ran on board the vessel next ahead of her, and by the collision lost her fore and main topmasts. These falling overboard on the lee side—in this case the port,[27]—not only deprived her of by far the greater part of her motive power, but acted as a drag on her progress, besides for the time preventing the working of the guns on that side. The "Ca Ira" dropped astern of her fleet. Although this eighty-gun ship was much bigger than his own,—"absolutely ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... automobile as a "glorified perambulator," the characterization was not unjust. This new method of transportation was slow in finding favor on our side of the Atlantic. America was sentimentally and practically devoted to the horse as the motive power for vehicles; and the fact that we had so few good roads also worked against the introduction of the automobile. Yet here, as in Europe, the mechanically propelled wagon made its appearance in early times. This vehicle, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... our call is to avoid debt or to avoid gathering, we will look up for new motive power into our Master's face. Him we love; Him we long to commend; and to Him we belong with all we have. In His Name, and for His sake, we ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... "transmute desire." Without desire man would be in a deathlike and dangerous condition—a condition in which further progress would be impossible. But by transmuting the lower desires into the higher he moves steadily forward and upward without losing the motive power that urges ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers

... was the same wretched round of bitter memories and vain but torturing activity of mind. Day after day passed and he grew haggard under his increasing mental distress. His mind was like a great driving wheel, upon which all the tremendous motive power is turned without cessation, but for which there is nothing to drive save the man himself, and seemingly it would drive ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... gas motor and well supplied with an abundance of fuel, since the winds on their recent voyage around the Florida Keys must have been favorable as a whole and with the motive power idle there had been no drain on ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... above that the motive power which brought about the religious revolution is probably to be found in the powerful influence and the peculiar views of the queen mother, Tii or Taia. This princess was of foreign origin; her complexion was fair, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... psychical world as well as the physical we must meet and overcome inertia. Our lives must be compelled by motive forces strong enough to overcome this natural inertia, and enable us besides to make headway against many obstacles. The motive power that drives us consists chiefly of our feelings and emotions. Knowledge, cognition, supplies the rudder that guides our ship, but feeling ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... Attachment or Repulsion, or by duties unperformed, or moral debts unpaid, that he might be brought back to work out the old problems until he had solved them. But even this is explained by those Reincarnationists who hold to the idea of Desire as the great motive power of Karma, and who hold that if one has risen above all earthly desire or dislike, that soul is freed from the attraction of earth-life, and is prepared to go on higher at once, or else wait in realms of bliss until the race is ready to pass on, according to the various ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... who wrote his History of British Birds in 1797, presents in one of his inimitable "tailpiece" wood-cuts a prevision of the aeroplane. The picture shows the airman seated in a winged car, guiding with reins thirteen harnessed herons as the motive power, and mounting upwards, apparently very near the moon. If he can see the modern interpretation of his dream he must be pleasantly surprised. Bewick's woodcock is one of the most beautiful portraits in the book: the accurate detail of the feather markings of the wings and ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... usually about thirty inches long, and something over eleven inches wide; it weighs about sixty pounds. The fore-paws are quite small in comparison with the rest of the body; the hind feet are larger, webbed like a duck's feet, and are the principal motive power in swimming. The most unique feature of the animal's body is the famous mud-plastering tail, which is oft-times a foot long, five inches in width, and an inch in thickness. The colour of the beaver varies; there are black beavers, white beavers, and brown beavers. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... been ridiculous to expect a dividend the first year, though the Nagasaki people were pacified with difficulty. All the business letters came to Tom's address, and everybody who was not directly concerned thought that he was the motive power of the reawakened enterprise. Sometimes business people came to the mill, and were amazed at having to confer with Mrs. Wilson, but they soon had to respect her talents and her success. She was helped by the old clerk, who had been promptly recalled ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... this man whom she hated and feared, wondering how she could ever fight against his influence over Julian; wondering, too, a little, why it was that she knew she must and certainly would fight it. For beyond the motive power of her love and jealousy, beyond the ordinary woman's desire to keep the man she admired from sinking to the level of the men she despised, there was another fiery and strong and urging insistent influence working upon her, working within her, crying to her, like a voice, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Missouri thirty years before, farm wagons and carts of every description, family carriages, spring wagons, stage-coaches, drays, and hay-carts. In fact, every thing that could carry a load was taken along. Even pack-saddles were not neglected. Horses, mules, jacks, oxen, and sometimes cows, formed the motive power. To stand by the roadside and witness the passage of General Sigel's train, was equal to a visit to Barnum's Museum, and proved an unfailing ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... of perforation was begun simultaneously on the north and south sides of the mountain, working toward the same point, so as to meet toward the middle of the boring. The waters of the Reuss and the Tessin supplied the necessary motive power for working the screws attached to machinery for compressing the air. The borers applied to the rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the pressure of air reduced to one-twentieth ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... him to which the student can refer, as well as scientific and other tomes, in which his manifold inventions have been recorded, and in no corner of the earth where the steam-engine has been introduced can his name be unknown. After many years' labour to bring the new motive power into practical use, Watt, helped by his friend Dr. Roebuck, took out his first patent in 1769. Roebuck's share was transferred to Matthew Boulton in 1773, and in the following year James Watt came to Birmingham. An Act of Parliament prolonging the patent for ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... the Porpoise and Monarch, electricity formed the motive power and was also used for many other purposes on board. Engines operated by gas produced the current which heated, lighted and moved the ship, as well as played a part in producing ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... his side as if he were in bed, drew up the blanket, and closed his eyes. He did not seem to know where he was, and, what was worse, he did not seem to care. Oscard gave the signal to the bearers, and the march began. There is something in the spring of human muscles unlike any other motive power; the power of thought may be felt even on the pole of a litter, and one thing that modern invention can never equal is the comfort of being carried on the human shoulder. The slow swinging movement came to be a part of Jack Meredith's life—indeed, life itself ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... and conveyances of all sorts, classified as ancient and modern, or according to the countries in which they are used, or the motive power, as horses, electricity, ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs

... commonly known as winds. It is unnecessary for me to prove that the motion of winds can be transmitted to other matter, as we have numerous examples from our observation and experience, in the case of windmills driven by the motive power of the winds, and also balloons urged along by the same cause; apart from the devastating effect produced in towns and country ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... three grounds—of its necessity for the future public welfare, that the self-interest of the parent often proves but a feeble motive power, and that the voluntary agencies placed at the disposal of the poor are unable systematically to undertake this work—we may maintain that the duty may legitimately be laid upon ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch

... the machine destined to carry the tubes should be a metal disc, of sufficient weight to ensure good "flank" movement, continuing over a considerable period of time. In other words, the machine should run down very gradually and slowly after the motive power is removed, thus obviating any disturbance of the relative positions of particulate matter in the solution that is ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... wish to think; and on this to concentrate the whole power of your mind. This requires careful training; but this only is education. With this you have full command of all your resources; without this they avail but little. The great motive power of the world is thought. Information without thought is simply a peddler burdened with stale wares on a dead market. It is not what one knows, but what he can produce, that makes the world feel his power. Hence one must be a producer as well as a receiver. The world's thought must be regenerated ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... astonishment, the name produced a sudden and terrible effect upon Doctor Hortebise, who started to his feet as if propelled from his chair by the unexpected application of some hidden motive power, and, fingering the locket that hung from his chain, gazed round upon his associates with ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... absolute necessity of such products to the use of submarines, aeroplanes, and motors, the United States Government has not yet reached the conclusion that they are improperly included in a list of contraband. Military operations today are largely a question of motive power through mechanical devices. It is therefore difficult to argue successfully against the inclusion of petroleum among the articles of contraband. As to the detention of cargoes of petroleum going to neutral countries, this Government has, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... develop astonishing riches. Cars will carry the ore through the tunnel and dump it in the mills and thus do away with the present costly system of double handling and transportation by mule teams. The water from the tunnel will furnish the motive power for the mills. Mr. Sutro, the originator of this prodigious enterprise, is one of the few men in the world who is gifted with the pluck and perseverance necessary to follow up and hound such an undertaking ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... peddlers, the economic fiddlers, the moral and business idiots out of the Temple. I would do it not by being a pure, sterilized, holy-looking person, but by having more imagination in business, by using higher levels and higher voltage of human motive power in business than they can use, by having more brains about human nature than they have, and by my power to get the public to be religious, i.e., my power as a sheer matter of business, to make the public prefer, as a ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee

... the parable are found at the beginning and the end. It was spoken in order to show that a man should set no limit to the forgiveness of injuries; and in order to show this, the parable goes into the deep things of God. It shows that the motive power which can produce in man an unlimited forgiveness of his brother, is God's mercy forgiving himself. At the close it lays down the law, that the act or habit of extending forgiveness to a brother, is a necessary ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... is the pickup antenna. As long as the rat is crawling right on the rail, only a microscopic amount of power is needed for control, not enough for the Nipe to pick up with his instruments. Each rat carries its own battery for motive power, and there are old copper power cables down there that we can send direct current through to recharge the batteries. And, when we need them, the copper cables can be used as antennas. It took us quite a while to work the system out, ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... or, in chemical terms, chlorine gas is formed. It is one of the most poisonous and suffocating of all gases. That is the real danger in submarine boats—suffocation from chlorine. It will remain so until we get a better form of motive power, liquid or compressed air, perhaps. And here"—Ross led them to a valve wheel amidships—"as though to invite such disaster, they've ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... of any human being present or to come. That scientific discovery may put not only dollars into the pockets of individuals, but millions into the exchequers of nations, the history of science amply proves; but the hope of its doing so never was, and it never can be, the motive power ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... reasoning. The very elaborateness and microscopic detail that makes Bergson great is opposed to Judge Troward's method of simplicity. He cared not for complexities, and the intricate minutiae of the process of creation, but was only concerned with its motive power—the spiritual principles upon which it was organized and upon ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... the mouse-mill that me must look both for the electricity which is used to electrify the ink and for the motive power which drives the paper. This unique and interesting little motor owes its somewhat epigrammatic title to the resemblance of the drum to one of those sparred wheels turned by white mice, and to the amusing fact of its capacity for performing work having been originally ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... suffices to turn off the water furnished by the pump by means of a three-way cock, and to send the water back to the reservoir of supply. The boiler can be emptied in less than a second, and the motor stops in consequence of being deprived of motive power. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various

... tension of the vocal cords, which, of course, entails unnecessary strain. Again, the air may be sent up with such velocity that some of it leaks through before the glottis has time to intercept it; or with such violence as to force the lips of the chink a little too far apart. In either case so much motive power is thrown away and to that extent the brilliancy and fullness of the tone are lost. The coup de glotte, or exact correspondence between the arrival of the air at the larynx and the adjustment of the cords to receive ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... The rough tossing about the Flying Fish had received had jammed the needle valve, but that was all. Presently all was in readiness to get under way once more with the little boat's proper motive power. The "jury rig" was speedily dismantled Merritt swung the flywheel over two or three times, and a welcome "chug, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... it in the protection given to their crops. The steamboats in interior waters will be exchanged for iron whalebacks, and new forces of a new nature, as yet only partly developed, such a electricity, will contest with steam as a motive power. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... Sammy Steele used as motive power in his bark mill a fine white mare and an iron grey mule. When Alfred could not get the use of the white mare he rode or drove the mule. Alfred's parents and others continually cautioned him to beware of the mule, that it was vicious and ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... development, but hundreds of tons of dynamite were used for blasting. Among the improvements introduced in the new station are ramps instead of stairways, the division of out-going from in-going traffic and the elimination of the cold trainshed. The substitution of electricity for steam as a motive power in the metropolitan area made possible the reclamation of Park Avenue and the cross streets from 45th St. to 46th St.—about 20 blocks in all—by depressing and covering ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... the advantage which inspiration has been to religions has not so much depended on what it taught, as on its strength as a psychological motive power. As a general mental phenomenon it does not so much concern knowledge as belief; its province is to teach faith rather than facts. No conviction can equal that which arises from an assertion of God directly ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... simply, a trivial perfume without special efficacy of any kind; while the Double Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm are two operative compounds, of a motive power which acts without risk upon the internal energies and seconds them. Their perfumes (essentially balsamic, and of a stimulating character which admirably revives the heart and brain) awake ideas and vivify them; ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... which has been graded through the ravine. Railroads serve a great utilitarian purpose, but they have their defects; it seems out of place to ride across Egypt or the Holy Land behind a locomotive; a prancing steed or a camel with tinkling bells seems the most fitting motive power. There is nothing sentimental about a railroad, but after all who would care to return to the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... interest, with crude engravings of palms and coral reefs, of naked savages and tropical mountains covered with jungle, the adventures, in brief, of one Captain Cook. I also discovered a book by a later traveller. Spurred on by a mysterious motive power, and to the great neglect of the pons asinorum and the staple products of the Southern States, I gathered an amazing amount of information concerning a remote portion of the globe, of head-hunters and poisoned stakes, of typhoons, of queer war-craft that crept up on you while you were dismantling ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... attached to a plough," says the governor, who spoke truthfully but with little knowledge of this wild animal, "it would move it at a speed superior to that of the domestic ox." I do not know how appealing this harnessing of the original motive power of the prairie to the uses of agriculture was, and it is not of importance now. The buffalo has long since gone. Even the ox and the Norman horse, so long in use there, have been largely supplanted by that mysterious force, ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... class was that of the Canopus—the Goliath, Vengeance, Ocean, Albion, and Glory—2,000 tons lighter than the first class named above, but more modern in equipment and construction, having been built between the years 1900 and 1902. Their motive power was heavier, being 13,500 horsepower, and their speed was almost a knot faster. Increase in the power of naval guns had made unnecessary any increase in the thickness of their armor, and consequently ranged from ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... motive power, electricity has distinct advantages over all other means. The switch operated by pressure starts the pump when the supply of water in the storage tank drops below a certain level, and also stops it when the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... which in England is rarely attained before twenty. Everything about the girl—except her little rosy ears—was on a grand Amazonian scale. Her shapely hand was long and large; her supple waist was the waist of a woman. The indolent grace of all her movements had its motive power in an almost masculine firmness of action and profusion of physical resource. This remarkable bodily development was far from being accompanied by any corresponding development of character. Natalie's ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins

... extensive repairs almost everywhere, and the officers in command hoped that the Louisiana, which had come down the night before, would be able to keep down the mortar fire, at least in part. When it was found she had no motive power they asked that she should take position below the obstructions on the St. Philip side, where she would be under the guns of the forts, but able to reach the schooners. If she could not be a ship of war, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... suggested that the expense of running a dry-farm could be materially reduced by using some motive power other than horses. Steam, gasoline, and electricity have all been suggested. The steam traction engine is already a fairly well-developed machine and it has been used for plowing purposes on many dry-farms in nearly all the sections ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... a deposition of metallic silver or organic oxide in a minute state of division, either on glass, paper, or other suitable material. This is brought about by the action of light and certain reagents. Light has long been recognized as a motive power comparable with heat or electricity. Its action upon the skin, fading of colors, and effect on the growth of vegetable and animal organisms are well known; and, although the exact molecular change ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... for regarding cooking as a menial and vulgar labor; and those who give some thought to their daily food usually gain in vigor and cheerfulness. It is a truism that food is concentrated force. The manipulation of a motive power capable of invigorating both body and mind, is an occupation worthy to employ intelligence and skill. In countries where the people depend upon meagre supplies this art is brought to perfection. The pot-au-feu of France and Switzerland, the olla podrida of Spain, the borsch of Poland, ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson

... motive power for vessels; it may be by the broadside in rowlocks abeam, by sweeps on the quarters fore and aft, or by sculling with one oar in the notch of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... handle it. I've been a tramp long enough to know that I can keep on being a tramp, but I'm going to make one more almighty try before I succumb. I may be all wrong, but lately I've thought the—the motive power has—come to me." A strange, uplifting dignity seemed to fall upon Filmer. Drew tried to speak; to say the right thing, but he merely smiled feebly and rose ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... besotted face. A demon of revenge seized upon him, and all but gained the mastery. For one instant he was perilously near to springing on her where she sat, and strangling the life out of her. All passions and all possibilities are in the soul of every one of us, at every moment; only the motive power, the circumstance, the incitement, are needed to make us cross the boundary of restraint. If Alan was not a murderer, it was not because the thing was impossible to him, but because at the crisis of temptation his heart had been ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... stern of the boat, paddle in hand. As they expected to drift with the current, always swift in these deep Florida streams, there was no need of additional motive power; though Tony had also picked up another paddle, as if he ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne

... mill-tracks or the cleanings from mill-tracks. It is usually sold in large, irregular, somewhat soft lumps, and is much esteemed by spawn makers for impregnating their bricks, but nowadays, that horses have given place to steam as a motive power in mills, we have no further supply of mill-track spawn for use in spawning our mushroom beds. We do not feel this loss, however, as the spawn now manufactured by our best makers will produce as good a crop of mushrooms as the ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... some directions given in the Old Book which it will pay our ploughmen to study. One is as to the choice of the team. Don't yoke an ass with an ox (see Deut. xxii, 10). In your motive power see to it there is no mixture of vanity with duty. You will not succeed in concealing the fact. A donkey is one of the worst of animals to ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... the will is twofold: one is its immediate act, as it were, elicited by it, namely, "to wish"; the other is an act of the will commanded by it, and put into execution by means of some other power, such as "to walk" and "to speak," which are commanded by the will to be executed by means of the motive power. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... fixed a cylinder with paddles, which was joined on the exterior with a strong cable rolled on a wheel, supporting a basket. In this way, by means of a long rope reaching to the ground, which enabled them to regulate the motive power, they could rise in the basket to the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... important to the true comprehension of the motive power behind the war to remember what this "news from the South" was. It was not the news of the death of Uncle Tom or of the hanging of John Brown. It had not the remotest connection with Slavery. It was an insult offered to the flag. In the view of every Northern ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... asserted that either Lee or Jackson fathomed the source of this unconquerable tenacity, They had played with effect on the fears of Lincoln; they had recognised in him the motive power of the Federal hosts; but they had not yet learned, for the Northern people themselves had not yet learned it, that they were opposed by an adversary whose resolution was as unyielding as their own, who loved the Union ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... with scarcely a sound, and as smoothly as though they ran on ice. The chariot, as Arthur always called it afterwards, was built of beautiful woods, and lined and curtained throughout with satin, whilst the motive power was supplied by two splendidly harnessed white oxen. Two native servants, handsome young fellows, dressed in a kind of white uniform, accompanied the sledge, and saluted Arthur on ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... more the necessity of setting a good example forced itself upon him. Several flyers had started on scouting work already; the fog was quickly lifting, the day would soon be resplendent, and the notion of duty too quickly dazzled him, like the sun. For duty had always been his motive power; he had always anticipated it, from the day when he was fighting to enlist at Biarritz to this 11th of September, 1917. It was neither the passion for glory nor the craze to be an aviator which had caused him ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... machinery by means of which to apply the new force to industrial processes. The use of practical activity will likewise necessitate many changes in the educational machinery before its richest results are realized. Yet the conditions that attend the introduction of practical activity as a motive power in education are very different from those that attended the introduction of the use of steam. In the case of steam the problem was that of applying a new force to an old work. In the case of practical activity it is a question ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp

... of the British navy, compared with that of the British army and the other elements of Great Britain's government, has taken on magnified dimensions during the last half century. So long as war-ships used sails as their principal motive power, so long were they forced to employ methods of construction and equipment that forbade the efficient employment of high-power guns, the attainment of great speed, and the use of instruments of precision; so long, in other words, ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... gradual, as all of God's processes are. Sometimes painfully gradual, and will be strictly in proportion as the man yields himself unreservedly to the control of the indwelling Spirit. And the process will be by the injection of a new and mighty motive power. The shallow-minded man will have an intense desire to study God's wondrous classic so as to learn His will. And though his studies may not get much farther, yet no one book so disciplines and deepens the mind as that. The lazy man will find a fire kindling in his bones to ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... he got a forked stick and used that instead; then he got a larger one and used both hands; then a still larger one, and used oxen as the motive power; and then he fitted handles to it, and other parts till he finally produced a plough. But the principle has not been changed, and the gang-plough is but a multifold forefinger. It is great fun to loose the tether of the mind and let it go racing along, in and out, till ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... apply the term 'equipage' to any vehicle, whether on wheels or runners, and with or without its motive power. It is a generic definition, and can include anything drawn by horses, dogs, deer, or camels. The word sounds very well when applied to a fashionable turnout, but less so when speaking ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... flying machine should suddenly descend in an American village with no sign of steam gear, electric motor, compressed air, or any other motive power with which we are familiar, can you imagine that eighty per cent of the population of the village would stand around, begging the inventor to make it fly and alight again, exhibiting all the delight of children in a strange toy, but giving it not one close ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... the conditions between the still air of a room and those of the open sky. His insight into the difficulties of the problem cannot have been less than that of his successor, Coxwell, who, as the result of his own equally wide experience, states positively, "I could never imagine a motive power of sufficient force to direct and guide a balloon, much less to enable a man or a machine to fly." Even when modern invention had produced a motive power undreamed of in the days we are now considering, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon



Words linked to "Motive power" :   motivity, locomotion, mobility



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com