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Rank   /ræŋk/   Listen
Rank

adjective
(compar. ranker; superl. rankest)
1.
Very fertile; producing profuse growth.
2.
Very offensive in smell or taste.
3.
Conspicuously and outrageously bad or reprehensible.  Synonyms: crying, egregious, flagrant, glaring, gross.  "An egregious lie" , "Flagrant violation of human rights" , "A glaring error" , "Gross ineptitude" , "Gross injustice" , "Rank treachery"
4.
Complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers.  Synonyms: absolute, downright, out-and-out, right-down, sheer.  "An absolute dimwit" , "A downright lie" , "Out-and-out mayhem" , "An out-and-out lie" , "A rank outsider" , "Many right-down vices" , "Got the job through sheer persistence" , "Sheer stupidity"
5.
Growing profusely.



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"Rank" Quotes from Famous Books



... about God, she proceeded in time to mock at religion. Nor was the Marquis any better than his wife; he was proud and quarrelsome, and loved no one but himself. He spent all his time amongst a set of wicked young men of his own rank; they sat up all night drinking and swearing and playing at cards ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... though to obey, but instead of leaving the room closed the door and locked it. Then, placing the small grip he carried upon the table, he deliberately went close to the threatening president and said coldly: "This is rank nonsense, Greenfield. I won't leave this office until I'm through with what I came to do. I have business with you that concerns you as much ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... succeeded me upon The Daily Bulletin, has chopped me and my play to mincemeat, cut bits of live flesh out of me and fried them in filth, and washed down my wounds with the vitriol of hypocritical compassion and good advice? That is the style of recognition a really first-class work of art, fit to rank with the classics, with Wycherley, and Congreve, and Sheridan, or Lytton—for there are qualities of all these very dissimilar masters in my writing—gets from the present-day press. As I have told you all along, the critics ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... historical interest is now in course of publication in Germany, the first volume of which has already made its appearance. It is the Diary of General Patrick Gorton, who served in Russia during a large part of the seventeenth century, where he attained the highest military rank. He was in the habit of noting every thing that passed around him, or with which he was connected, whether of a political, military, or personal nature. His field of service extended throughout the entire empire, and embraced the most important events in the reign of Peter the Great. He participated ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... who had hitherto sat motionless in the front rank of the audience, now arose, and with slow, stately, and unwavering step ascended the pulpit stairs. The quiverings of incipient harmony were hushed, and the divine sat in speechless and almost terrified ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... the trader at Flying Post, the only Indian in the Company's service holding rank as a commissioned officer, grunted in contempt at the question, while Achard, of New Brunswick House, motioned warningly toward the groups of Indian trappers in the background. "Hush, boy," said he to Herbert, "news travels, and in the south are the Free ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... heard," she said. "They take life so much more lightly than we who live in quieter places. Here there is born with us the consciousness that our rank has many obligations. There is not a peasant girl on my estates whom I do not know by name. It has been so with the women of our house ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

... perhaps, may be accounted for without much difficulty, if the suggestion should be correct, (as I apprehend it is,) that it denoted the academical rank or degree which had been taken; and was not intended to designate an inferior order of the priesthood. This title of Sir was never applied to laymen, and appears to have been given both to the regular and secular clergy, or persons in Priests orders who had taken ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... sleep well, nothing distresses me that I eat, I go from day to day without a feeling of weariness or pain, indeed I am a well man, and wholly through the influence of H.H. Warner & Co's Tippecanoe. I consider this remedy as taking the highest possible rank in the treatment of all diseases marked by debility, loss of appetite, and all other symptoms of stomach and digestive disorders. It is overwhelmingly superior to the tonics, bitters, and dyspepsia cures of ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... county court influenced the selection of all other county officers. The clerk of the court was elected outright, but others—including the sheriff, coroner, inspectors and commissioners for special duties, and militia officers below the rank of brigadier—were commissioned by the governor from lists submitted ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... his instigation. For the execution, however, of this dark deed, the Emperor would require the aid of a foreign arm, and this it was generally believed he had found in Francis Albert, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. The rank of the latter permitted him a free access to the king's person, while at the same time it seemed to place him above the suspicion of so foul a deed. This prince, however, was in fact not incapable of this atrocity, and he had, moreover, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... of wind, the cloud parted, and the mountain loomed like a phantom peak over the gulf. She started up and stood swaying gently on her feet while the trees, tall and spectral and cloaked in snow, opened rank on rank like a uniformed company. Lower still, the steep roofs of the station reflected a shaft of the sun, and the long line of cars appeared clearly defined, waiting still on ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... opposition availed to stem the tide of public opinion. Yielding at last to the force of circumstances, he had entered the Confederate service rather late in the war, and served with distinction through several campaigns, rising in time to the rank of colonel. After the war he had taken the oath of allegiance, and had been chosen by the people as the most available candidate for the office of sheriff, to which he had been elected without opposition. He had filled the office for ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... deposit was indorsed by the Brazovics firm, and the council of war had accepted their receipt instead of money down; a house had been found for the young couple, and besides all this Katschuka had received his promotion to the rank of captain. This removed his last excuse; the last cartridge of the besieged had been expended, and nothing remained but to capitulate, and take the rich and beautiful ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... star, I soon learned from Popof, bore the name of Faruskiar. He was accompanied by another Mongol, of inferior rank, of about the same age, whose name was Ghangir. As they looked at the van being attached to the tail of the train in front of the luggage van, they exchanged a few words. As soon as the arrangements were complete the Persians took their places in the second-class car, which preceded ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... grave Barons had nothing to say to such a little boy, and the very respect and formality with which they treated him, made him shrink from them still more, especially from the grim-faced Bernard; and Osmond, his own friend and playfellow, was obliged to ride far behind, as inferior in rank. ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with me and have a game there. Mamma's going to take a nap before dinner, and she won't be able to sleep while you make this row under her window. Come along, there's good fellows.' The two little ones left off picking up gold and silver directly, and Duncan descended from the rank of a landed proprietor with great good-humour;—not that Mr. Thomas Tytler's domains were the only ground belonging to him: he had a neat little flower-plot in one corner of the garden, as had all the elder brothers except Johnnie, who had been deprived of his ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... and to enable him to keep up a style of living in unison with his lady's rank, he must write, and the question arose, what mode of composition was likely to be the most lucrative? Were he to continue to indite panegyrical verses, like those to Clarendon, he stood a chance of having a few guineas tossed to him now ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... of producing the same things in very different sizes. Here was a miniature copy of those large Australian lakes which show nothing to the eye but rank grass. You ride upon them a little way, merely wetting your horse's feet, but after a while the sponge gets fuller and fuller, and the grass shows symptoms of giving way, and letting you down to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... numerously well-dressed portion of the population, which so greatly contribute towards enlivening the scene, consists almost wholly of English, as the few French families which still reside in Boulogne, above the rank of the tradespeople, keep themselves very close and retired as in all other provincial towns in France; and in Boulogne they are very suspicious of the English, having had such numbers of bad characters who at first preserved a very ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... and its organization, the party leaders are drawn from every rank of society. The chairman of the borough of Manhattan is Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw, wife of a prominent Wall Street banker. Mrs. Frederick Nathan, president of the New York State Consumers' League, is chairman of the assembly district in which ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... fifteen who are invading it. The mist stands straight up from the earth like a high wall drawn close about the house; it blocks with dense grey stuff every inch of space between the bushes and trees; they are thrust forward rank upon rank, closing in upon the house; they loom enormous and near. A few paces further back they appear as without substance in the dense grey stuff that invests them; their tops are tangled and lost in a web of grey. In this strange garden it is as if space itself ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... firm or a single republic. Today, producing units often have lost their major customers and their major sources of supply, and the market institutions and incentives for adjusting to the new political and economic situations are only slowly emerging. Rank-and-file Russians will continue to suffer major deprivations in 1992 and beyond before the country begins to realize its great economic potential. The comprehensive economic reform program enacted in January 1992 faces many ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... ashamed of our love, and we can both, without humiliation, present our hearts to each other. Baron Pollnitz can take for his wife, without blushing, the woman ennobled by art, and Prima Donna Anna Pricker need not be humbled by the thought that Baron Pollnitz has forgotten his rank in his choice ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... blow that liberated them from an existence now rendered insupportable. Women approaching maternity were selected for more excruciating torments, and savage delight was exhibited in destroying the unborn fruit of the womb. Nor was any rank respected. Madame d'Yverny, the niece of Cardinal Briconnet, was recognized, as she fled, by the costly underclothing that appeared from beneath the shabby habit of a nun which she had assumed; and, after suffering every indignity, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... was so uncommonly fine, that she could not be long settled in the country without attracting general notice. Though the lower rank of people may be less refined in their ideas, yet her beauty was so very striking, that it did not escape their admiration, and the handsome lady, as they called her, became the general subject of discourse. As church was the only place where she exposed to public view, she had from the first ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... occurs in suffrage reports between 1865 and 1870. She was a member of the State Association and a frequent speaker at its conventions. Besides working in that body, she assisted in the organization of the local society at Crawfordsville, wrote poems, stories, essays, and won high rank in the State in literature and reform. From mature womanhood her record as Mrs. Harbert belongs to Illinois ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... pupil, a girl who was working her very hardest in order to become, as she hoped, a first-class governess, and who, poor thing! by reason of her natural thickness would never reach even the third rank. Iris would have been sorry for her, because she worked so fiercely, and was so stupid, but there was something hard and unsympathetic in her nature which forbade pity. She was miserably poor, too, and had an unsuccessful father, no ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... in Virginia. The ten Botetourt companies hold themselves under arms. At any moment may come the order to the front. The county has not spared her first-born—no, nor the darling of his mother! It is a rank and file different from the Old World's rank and file. The rich man marches, a private soldier, beside the poor man; the lettered beside the unlearned; the planter, the lawyer, the merchant, the divine, the student side by side with the man ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... old, and, secretly taking her with him to Eubaea, sold her to Lycus, a merchant. This person, a long time after, sold her, when now grown up, to Dorio. She, however, knew that she was the daughter of parents of rank, inasmuch as she recollected herself being attended {and} trained up by female servants: the name of her ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... you something that may be of value to you in official places where you are going. The North is not only in earnest—it is religiously in earnest. If you know Puritan history you know what that means. For example: if Jack had hesitated a moment or made delay to get rank in the army, I should have abhorred him. So would our mother, though she seems to be dismayed at his serving as a common soldier. I adore Jack; I think him the finest, the most perfect nature after my father's—that lives. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... rose quickly, leaving a layer of bluish tinge below. The milk was pleasant in flavor and odor, and very superior in these respects to that of many animals such as goats or camels, and in quality equal to that of cows. Nor did the milk emit any rank odor on heating. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... the dwindled creek We go loitering. We speak Only with old questionings Of the dear remembered things Of the days of long ago, When the stream seemed thus and so In our boyish eyes:—The bank Greener then, through rank on rank Of the mottled sycamores, Touching tops across the shores: Here, the hazel thicket stood— There, the almost pathless wood Where the shellbark hickory tree Rained its wealth on you and me. Autumn! as you loved us then, Take ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... for he was the foremost in the rank, and followed the girl. One or two other passing cabs heard the cry, and made for the place, but the girl had taken care not to call till she was near enough to give her friends the first chance. When they reached the curbstone—who should it be waiting for the cab but Mrs. and Miss ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... nick of fortune? Do you know that a sub-lieutenancy is vacant in my company? Sub-lieutenant, with rank of a Colonel ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... DE CIV. DEI. Printed in the Soubiaco Monastery, 1467. Folio. A fine large copy; but not equal to that in the Royal Library at Paris or in Lord Spencer's collection. I should think, however, that this may rank as the third copy for size ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... gem of some little constellation which had no Sirius, or Arcturus, or Vega to eclipse him with its superior splendor. But from the distance of the vast majority of the stars the sun would probably be invisible to the naked eye, and as seen from nearer systems could only rank as a fifth or sixth magnitude star, unnoticed and unknown ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... work of Mr. London has that compelling style, that skill in character portrayal and in the construction of unusual plot which since he first began to write fiction have always marked him apart from the rank and file of novelists. No writer to-day is more praised than Mr. London for the color of his stories, for the fertility of his imagination, for the strength of his prose, for the way in which he makes his people live. His versatility, for he can turn out a bit of grim tragedy or a tale brimming ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... high rank for the humor of women because it is almost exclusively of this higher, imaginative type. A woman rarely tells an anecdote, or hoards up a good story, or comes in and describes to you something funny that she has seen. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... hearth, the nursery, the bridal suite, the kitchen, the bed and board of the army ants. It was the focus of all the lines and files which ravaged the jungle for food, of the battalions which attacked every living creature in their path, of the unnumbered rank and file which made them known to every Indian, to every ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... source of his unpopularity, while it affords good reasons against cultivating him as a pet, and mars his attractiveness as game, is by no means the greatest indignity that can be offered to a nose. It is a rank, living smell, and has none of the sickening qualities of disease or putrefaction. Indeed, I think a good smeller will enjoy its most refined intensity. It approaches the sublime, and makes the nose tingle. It is tonic and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... "truth" exists as matter of fact; but what that something is still awaits scientific determination. If only these three words could be scientifically defined, philosophy, law, ethics and psychology would cease to be "private theories" or verbalism and they would advance to the rank and ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... particular employment, or class of employments. The son of a priest was necessarily a priest; the son of a soldier, a soldier; the son of a labourer, a labourer; the son of a weaver, a weaver; the son of a tailor, a tailor, etc. In both countries, the cast of the priests holds the highest rank, and that of the soldiers the next; and in both countries the cast of the farmers and labourers was superior to the ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... was, we passed through into the tangled, weedy place where the lights of lanterns were shining weirdly, and we could see men in their shirt-sleeves working with shovel and pick, while others were clearing away the dead rank herbage of autumn. ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... men, in order that from them, as a man's judgment, they may gain glory." (Drews, 613; St. L. 20, 1647; E. 4, 441.)—Regarding Luther's disputations against the Antinomians Planck pertinently remarks that they compel admiration for his clear and penetrating mind, and rank among the very best of his writings. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... Danby placidly. "It's funny you haven't heard them mentioned. But people don't talk much about the Captain now—he's an old story—and of course they never go anywhere, not even to church. The Captain is a rank infidel and they say his daughter is just as bad. To be sure, nobody knows much about her, but it stands to reason that a girl who's had her bringing up must be odd, to say no worse of her. It's not really her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Chile, who correspond to the Gauchos of the Pampas, are, however, a very different set of beings. Chile is the more civilised of the two countries, and the inhabitants, in consequence, have lost much individual character. Gradations in rank are much more strongly marked: the Guaso does not by any means consider every man his equal; and I was quite surprised to find that my companions did not like to eat at the same time with myself. ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... of the Yagers and light horse, with beating drums and flying colours, paraded from one end of the town to the other, ending with a review immediately in front of the Drinkers' house. Following this the regimental bands of hautboys played a series of German airs which the now disbanded rank and file joined in vocally. Then, as night and snow set in, a general move was made indoors, at Rahl's quarters, to the parlour, where a tall spruce tree, brilliant with lighted tallow dips, and decorated with bits of coloured ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... downfall of yours as something that could not be averted by forethought. Alas, she who hath you all, that resemble Indra himself to attend to her comforts—even she, so chaste and exalted, hath now to attend to the comforts of others, that are to her far inferior in rank. Behold, O Pandava, my plight. It is what I do not deserve. You are alive, yet behold this inversion of order that time hath brought. She who had the whole Earth to the verge of the sea under her control, is now under the control of Sudeshna and living in fear of her. She who had dependants ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... sudden twist, the road turned in at the entrance of a sadly neglected estate. The grounds of the place were overrun with rank growths and the driveway was covered with weeds. The tumble-down gables of a descrepit frame house peeped out through the trees. It was a rambling old building that once had been a mansion—the "big house" of the natives. A musty air of decay was upon it, and crazily ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent

... themselves. Here we send a police officer over to Italy to look up the records of some of the worst suspects. He loses his life. Another takes his place. Then after he gets back he is set to work on the mere clerical routine of translating them. One of his associates is reduced in rank. And so what does it come to? Hundreds of records have become useless because the three years within which the criminals could be deported have elapsed with nothing done. Intelligent, isn't it? I believe it has been established that all but about fifty of seven hundred known ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... their father, who hinted to Marie Antoinette that such a relaxation of the royal dignity would be attended with considerable injury to French manufactures, to trade, and to the respect due to her rank. 'My State and Court dresses,' replied she, 'shall not be less brilliant than those of any former Dauphine or Queen of France, if such be the pleasure of the King,—but to my grandpapa I appeal for some indulgence with respect ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... India, could not fail to produce. The strongest feelings of our nature, honour, religion, female modesty, rose up against the innovation. Arrest on mesne process was the first step in most civil proceedings; and to a native of rank arrest was not merely a restraint, but a foul personal indignity. Oaths were required in every stage of every suit; and the feeling of a quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than that of a respectable native. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of neglect, the shrubs grew rank and stalky, the paths were covered with weeds, but there was a slight feeling of spring in the air, the bare branches of the trees seemed swollen with the rising sap, and upon the edge of the terrace balustrade ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... gathered about us, some lying at full length and some sitting on horseback. They all belonged to a company raised in St. Louis. There were some ruffian faces among them, and some haggard with debauchery; but on the whole they were extremely good-looking men, superior beyond measure to the ordinary rank and file of an army. Except that they were booted to the knees, they wore their belts and military trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens. Besides their swords and holster pistols, they carried slung from their saddles the excellent Springfield ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... about one year younger than the Lady Mary, and was by universal fame reported "a prudent, beautiful, and virtuous lady." The royal family had reason to be grateful for her influence over the king, whom she persuaded to restore both Mary and Elizabeth to their rank. To Edward she was a second mother, and Henry seems to have looked upon her with something akin to respect, appointing her regent when he crossed the Channel to invade France ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... them. He observed how strangely the people standing in a row with their figures bent slightly forward and their clothes plastered by the wind to the shape of their bodies resembled naked statues. On their pedestal of earth they looked unfamiliar and noble, but in another moment they had broken their rank, and he had to see to the laying out of food. Hirst came to his help, and they handed packets of chicken and bread from one ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... those who were entitled to be summoned to parliament, to wit, "The Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, and Great Barons of the Realm, * * and all others who hold of us in chief." Those who held land of the king in chief included none below the rank of ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... rose, and against the fire I saw that he was the Prime Minister, Umnyamana. He came to me and, with a nod of recognition, conducted me some paces to the right where a euphorbia tree grew among the rank herbage. Here I found a stool placed ready on which I sat down, Goza, who of course was not of the Council, squatting at my side ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... Presently he came into the living-room. "Well, are you satisfied with your new palace?" he addressed me in Yiddish. And for the hundredth time he proceeded to make jokes at the various modern "improvements," at the abundance of light, and at my new rank of "real boarder." ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... with the moon-god, the latter takes precedence of Shamash,[52] and in the enumeration of the complete pantheon, in the inscriptions of both Assyrian and Babylonian kings, the same order is preserved. Other evidence that points to the superior rank accorded to Sin, the moon-god over the sun deity in Babylonia, is the reckoning of time by the moon phases. The day begins with the evening, and not with sunrise. The moon, as the chief of the starry ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... houses of ill fame and women of the town came into vogue at Rome. That they had long been under police regulation, and compelled to register with the aedile, is evident from a passage in Tacitus: "for Visitilia, born of a family of praetorian rank, had publicly notified before the aediles, a permit for fornication, according to the usage that prevailed among our fathers, who supposed that sufficient punishment for unchaste women resided in the very nature of their calling." No penalty ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... account appears to be too wonderful for credence, we are, of course, disposed to rank the author with romance-writers; but when we find that divers accounts, equally extraordinary, are related by others as happening under similar circumstances, we then begin to suppose that we may have judged erroneously. Captain Riley's Narrative of his Captivity in Africa ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... showed from the light within that there was no roof, while here and there charred timbers thrust their unsightly way from out of a riot of brambles, wild and disorderly. What we could see of the garden was a very wilderness. Tall rank grass flourished on every side, carriage-way and borders alike had been blotted into a springing waste, and the few sprawling shrubs which we could recognize hardly emerged from beneath the choking smother of ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... this ship, his Majesty having been pleased to give him the rank of master and commander in the navy, with a commission as Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island, in ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... fond of the long rank herbage, which springs up in moist and undrained lands. In their habits they are almost amphibious, lying for hours half submerged in water ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... described in the first series of these volumes, though some changes had been made, as further experience suggested. Instead of quarterly, as before, the offices were given out every month. Captains were not retired after a single term, as formerly, but were obliged to accept whatever rank and position they ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... dwarf—for he was perfectly well proportioned from head to foot—Pesca was, I think, the smallest human being I ever saw out of a show-room. Remarkable anywhere, by his personal appearance, he was still further distinguished among the rank and file of mankind by the harmless eccentricity of his character. The ruling idea of his life appeared to be, that he was bound to show his gratitude to the country which had afforded him an asylum and a means of subsistence by doing his utmost to turn himself into an ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... "Murray's Guide-books" in their hands, are looking at the "Descent from the Cross." Of this picture the "Guide-book" gives you orders how to judge. If it is the end of religious painting to express the religious sentiment, a hundred of inferior pictures must rank before Rubens. Who was ever piously affected by any picture of the master? He can depict a livid thief writhing upon the cross, sometimes a blond Magdalen weeping below it; but it is a Magdalen a very short time indeed after her repentance: ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... very different constructions. During his lifetime it obtained little notice save for purposes of disparagement and denunciation. Now it is viewed with extreme enthusiasm by many, and is generally admitted to hold a permanent rank in English literature, though faulty (as some opine) through vague idealism and want of backbone. These are all points on which I shall here offer no personal opinion. I shall confine myself to tracing the chief ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... carrying the flaming jets. Here and there the shots were true. A man hunched under a cylinder exploded like a fat moth caught in a candle-flame. But that advancing line of fire after the long bombardment was too much for the rank and file, whose clothes were smoking and whose bodies were scorched. In something like a panic they fell back, abandoning the cratered ground ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... you know," said Belle solemnly. "If I hadn't taken in some of the Brotherhood ideas I wonder where that pretty, innocent young girl would have been by this time. Would you like me to go back and be as I was in the old days, a rank materialist, caring for nothing but dress, dancing, and having a good time? You know you wouldn't, David. You know as well as I do that Theosophy has been the making of me, and through me it shall be ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth

... totality as man and as artist, Ludwig cannot be counted among the names of the very first rank in German nineteenth century literature. To him cannot be assigned the unequivocal greatness of a Kleist, a Hebbel, a Keller. The narrowness of the circumstances of his life and the invalidism of his mature years combined with, and no doubt ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... proof or Major Crawford would not have been convinced or allowed himself to get in such a passion with this Mrs. Boyd. But a girl reared amid the commonest surroundings, enduring the straits of poverty, lack of education, no accomplishments, how could she take her place in the front rank of Mount Morris society? And the boys—how would they accept this rusticity and ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... court at nine o'clock. The galleries were crowded with rank, beauty, and fashion. Conflicting odours of lavender, musk, and Eau de Cologne emanated from ladies on the bench, most of whom were furnished with opera-glasses, sandwich-boxes, and species of flasks, vulgarly known as pocket-pistols. In all our experience we never recollect such a thrill as that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... contests with British vessels of the same class has established the reputation of the American navy for skill and prowess in the eyes of Europe; and the United States, with comparatively few ships, already rank high as ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... satisfactorily proved that species may[20] be originated by selection? that none of the phenomena exhibited by species are inconsistent with the origin of species in this way? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the rank of hypotheses into that of theories; but so long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of enforcing that affirmative, so long, to our minds, the new doctrine must be content to remain among the former,—an extremely valuable, and in the highest degree probable, doctrine; indeed, the only ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... crown-officers, distinguished military commanders, &c., received such a dress as a gift from the royal treasury, in order to prepare them at all times for the royal presence. According to the universal custom of Asia, the trains were proportioned in length to the rank of the wearer; whence it is that the robes of the high-priest were adorned with a train of superb dimensions; and even Jehovah is represented, (Isaiah, vi. 1,) as filling the heavenly palace with the length of his train, [Footnote 10] Another distinction ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... within or without. The large bare room, with its grim old furniture, the narrow, latticed windows, revealing the dull, grey sky above and the desolate wilderness below, where the dark stone walls and iron gate, the rank growth of grass and weeds, and the hardy evergreens of preternatural forms, alone remained to tell that there had been once a garden,—and the bleak and barren fields beyond might have struck me as gloomy enough ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... hands on our breeches or putties after a course, or a hundred other habits which have become so natural to us now. My greatest fear is that in a moment of absent-mindedness I shall, if tired, throw myself down on some cab rank where the horses are standing still and with my head pillowed on my arm and a foot twisted in a rein take a forty winks, so accustomed have I become to the close proximity of ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... mother-of-pearl buttons and a ragged black boa. The ends of her tulle collarette had been carefully disordered and a big bunch of red flowers was pinned in her bosom stems upwards. Lenehan's eyes noted approvingly her stout short muscular body. Rank rude health glowed in her face, on her fat red cheeks and in her unabashed blue eyes. Her features were blunt. She had broad nostrils, a straggling mouth which lay open in a contented leer, and two projecting front teeth. As he ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... saved our charming friend, Miss Van Duzen, to whom we had both become greatly attached, from being gracefully snubbed and insulted, except the presence of her uncle, whenever she came out to visit us in the evening. Mr. Desmond's indisputable social rank, his unimpeachable demeanor as a gentleman, and the dignity and impressiveness of his presence, though it could by no means overawe my mother-in-law, made it impossible even for her to give him an affront. Besides, she seemed ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... pleasantries and spicy jests in their society, he thought them all prudes, and himself was considered as having good taste. Whenever one of them came to pose at his studio, he felt, in spite of any advances she might make to please him, that disparity of rank which prevents any real unity between artists and fashionable people, no matter how much they may be thrown together. Behind the smiles and the admiration which among women are always a little artificial, he felt the indefinable mental reserve of the being that judges itself of superior essence. ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... thither on foot in company with the local leaders. These were intelligent mechanics seeking clumsily and blindly enough what they knew to be the good of their fellows. At their heels tramped the rank and file of the great movement. The assembly was a subtle foreshadowing of things to come—of Newport and the march of twenty thousand men, of violence and bloodshed, of strife between brethren, and of justice ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... with delight, appearing to be wholly unconscious that the lids of his right eye were swollen shut and that his attire, not too finical before the struggle, now entitled him to unquestioned rank as a sansculotte. Herman was a similar ruin, and gave as ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... dash forward to another's help. This time, however, it was not blindly and in the dusk, for a shiver of dread ran through him, knowing how crippled his old companion was, when he saw that Serge was one of those who had been unable to keep his place in the rank when the Romans were driven back, and that now he was defending himself and striving to hold his own against the attack of three of the Gauls. Tearing off his helmet, as if it were an incumbrance, and making his short sword flash through the air, Marcus rushed to his old companion's ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn

... informed he was no longer required, had left with his vehicle. He rapidly rang up the man's employers, asking them to stop the cab directly they came in touch with it, then hurrying out of the hotel, he hailed a taxi and drove to the rank on which the man ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... wholly upon yourself—for God and Faith are not there. The people outside disperse their affections, you hoard yours, you nurse them into intensity. What they let slip, what they forget in the movement and changes of free life, you hold on to, amplify, exaggerate into a rank growth of memories. They can look with a smile at the troubles and pains of the past; but you can't. Old pains keep on gnawing at your heart, old desires, old deceptions, old dreams, assailing you in the dead stillness of your ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... rain when it meets their still colder summits. Upon what a gigantic scale does nature here operate! Vapours, raised from an ocean whose nearest shore is more than 400 miles distant, are safely transported without the loss of one drop of water, to support the rank luxuriance of this far distant region. This and other offices fulfilled, the waste waters are returned, by the Cosi and Teesta, to the ocean, and again exhaled, exported, expended, re-collected, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... some things square an' some things round, An' little game cocks ain't sol' by de pound; Dey's weighed by sand an' pluck an' grit An' de number o' dead dey leave in de pit. An' dey ain't by deyselves in rank like dat— No, dey ain't ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... who owns 9,669 acres in Clare, has been fortunate in getting some rent, mainly in consequence of his tact in driving round one day to collect it himself and taking his tenants by surprise. But Mr. Burton is an exception, both in tact and fortune, to the majority of landlords of the second rank. Colonel Vandeleur has been very unfortunate, like all landholders encumbered with what would be called small farmers in England. The few really large farmers in Clare, as a rule, have paid up either ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... Government takes one-third, puts them in sacks called the Ecoles, and shakes them up together for three years. Though every one of these young plants represents vast productive power, they are made, as one may say, into cashiers. They receive appointments; the rank and file of engineers is made up of them; they are employed as captains of artillery; there is no (subaltern) grade to which they may not aspire. Finally, when these men, the pick of the youth of the nation, fattened ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac

... to it from afar, so can I also. Like a dog, too, can I wind the hidden partridge brood—though never the nesting hen—nor can a mink do that much either. But keen as the perfume of a bee-tree, and certain as the rank smell of a dog-fox in March—which even a white man can detect—are the odours of the wilderness to him whose only home it is. And even as a lad, and for the sport of it, have I followed and found by its scent alone ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... regular blockade was formed around the city, and in the first week of August, hostilities took place. The besieging army was directed in its military character by general Kellerman, who, with other distinguished soldiers, had now began to hold an eminent rank in the republican armies. But for the purpose of executing the vengeance for which they thirsted, the Jacobins relied chiefly on the exertions of the deputies they had sent along with the commander, and especially of the representative, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... relations: French politicians ceaselessly endeavoured to gain influence over England, and sometimes with success. The ambassadors' letters at such times refer to the weightiest matters of state, and become invaluable; they rise to the rank of the most important and instructive historical monuments. They have been hitherto, in great ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... however, which most excited the attention and jealousy of the Spanish crown, were those of the Portuguese. Vasco de Gama, a man of rank and consummate talent and intrepidity, had, at length, accomplished the great design of the late Prince Henry of Portugal, and by doubling the Cape of Good Hope, in the year 1497, had opened ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... the stout ungainly Viceroy, Artok, another of the coldly saturnine visage of Urga in the front rank, and with a roar of ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... Is it a great price to pay for an easy conquest, to make a change which threatens neither your power, your fame, nor your wealth? Do you marvel that I desire from you such a revolution as this? I was born for the gods, in their service I inherited rank and renown, for their cause I have suffered degradation and woe, for their restoration I will plot, combat, die! Assure me then by oath, that with a new rule you will erect our ancient worship, and through my secret inlet to the city I will introduce men ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... thank Providence that under the conditions of the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the "dead-centre" of his career. And when a man stands still, he feels the slightest impulse from without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should be, for the first part of his service, one of the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels of the Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength, in the process. Until steam replaces manual power in the working of the Empire, there must always be this ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... S. Naval School a year or two previous to the war, and was a strict disciplinarian. Two years after our separation, I fell in with him accidentally; and he then gave me a sad account of the changes wrought by death and disease in his fine company. He had risen to the rank of Colonel, and was then on his return to duty in the army of Northern Virginia after recovery from wounds received in battle. The graphic account given by him of the manner in which he was wounded and his narrow escape from death, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... constructionist under either of the two heads "enrichment" and "flexibility." In the masterly Report of the Rev. Dr. T. W. Coit to the Joint Committee appointed by the Convention of 1841 to prepare a Standard Prayer Book,[10] a document of classical rank, there is more than one intimation of the hope that future reviewers would be given a larger liberty in this direction than he had himself enjoyed. He chafed, and naturally enough, under the necessity of reprinting in a "standard" book, evident and acknowledged solecisms and blunders. ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... fact that you object to me expectoratin' on the deck proves to me that you're leavin' behind you all them bay scow tendencies of the green-pea trade. It leads me to believe that you'll rise to high rank and distinction in the Colombian navy. Your fin, Scraggsy. Expectoratin' on the decks is barred, and the Maggie II goes under navy discipline from ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... should rejoice to see your brother again, but a king's daughter must never forget what is due to her rank, even in her greatest joy. Go back to your mother directly. I see your attendants waiting yonder. Go and tell them, that as this is a day of rejoicing I will allow your heedless conduct to pass unpunished, but the next time you appear unbidden in these apartments, which none may ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... one thing is, I think, his extreme politics. I always find these violent Radicals very unwilling to allow in others the unlimited freedom of thought that they claim for themselves. He can't forgive my love for the President. Now I must tell you a story I know to be true. A lady of rank was placed next the Prince a year or two ago. He was very gentle and courteous, but very silent, and she wanted to make him talk. At last she remembered that, having been in Switzerland twenty years before, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... Chauncy's on the "Repeal of the Stamp Act," Rev. Mr. Cooke's Election Sermon on the "True Principles of Civil Government," Rev. Mr. Gordon's "Thanksgiving Sermon in 1774," and the discourses, celebrated in their day, of Langdon, Stiles, West, Payson, and Howard. Among these, the first rank is doubtless due to Dr. Mayhew's remarkable discourse at the West Church on the 30th of January, 1750. The topics relating to "non-resistance to the higher powers," which Macaulay treats with such wealth of statement, argument, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... on a rail, We shied at him, in careless glee, Some large tomatoes, rank and stale, And eggs of great antiquity — Their wild, unholy fragrance flew About ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... done. Mrs. Foss, the more simple-minded organizer of it, felt that she should remember it as an occasion when she had risen to the level, placed the right cards in the fist of destiny, and created an event worthy to take rank at least with those little triumphs of good housewives at whose home the president of their husband's company arrived one night unlocked for and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... God, since, as the Apostle says: "Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made him?" (Rom. 11:35). The other consists in distribution, and is called distributive justice; whereby a ruler or a steward gives to each what his rank deserves. As then the proper order displayed in ruling a family or any kind of multitude evinces justice of this kind in the ruler, so the order of the universe, which is seen both in effects of nature and in effects of will, shows forth ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... grace and beauty—is regardless of the principles of perspective, foreshortening and other rules of drawing, and who sets about it merely for the sake of gain—without the least ambition to rise to the first rank, both in its practice and theory. There is no profession or trade in which a slovenly manner will not show itself, and none where its effects will be ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... herbs. And the gardener may be agreeably surprised at the results obtained. No harm in trying! Whatever the quality of the soil, it should not be very rich, because in such soils the growth is apt to be rank and the quantity of oil small in proportion to ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... But the time came, as Acts shows, when John took precedence, and was closely linked with Peter as the two leaders. So the ties of kindred may be loosened, and new bonds of fellowship created by similarity of relation to Jesus. In His kingdom, the elder may fall behind the younger. Rank in it depends on likeness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... I was pleased, for I said to myself, "So, then, this champion of democracy, this scorner of rank and title, is flattered by the carriages of the nobility crowding at her door;" and, again I said to myself, "human nature is the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... that in the North Sea the English war-ships had destroyed the German fleet. To celebrate this battle which, were the news authentic, would rank with Trafalgar and might mean the end of the war, one of the ship's officers exploded a detonating bomb. Nothing else exploded. Whatever feelings of satisfaction our ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... who did so much mischief in the Spanish West Indies, was one John Cooke, a native of the island of St Christophers, a brisk bold man, who so distinguished himself as to be promoted to the rank of quarter-master in the ship commanded by Captain Yankey. On taking a Spanish prize, which was converted into a privateer, Cooke claimed the command of her, according to the custom, of the Buccaneers; and being extremely popular, soon engaged a sufficient number of men to serve under him. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which had arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been computed at two thousand and forty-eight persons; [127] the Greeks appeared in person; and the consent of the Latins was expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff. The session, which lasted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... said: they took her to themselves; and she Still hoping, fearing 'is it yet too late?' Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, And for the power of ministration in her, And likewise for the high rank she had borne, Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess, lived For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past To where beyond these voices there ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... patient sagacity—a sagacity which is all the more dangerous, as it is unsuspected—and I had come to the conclusion that a constant dread rendered his life a burden. Could it be for himself that he trembled, this great nobleman, who was so powerful by reason of his exalted rank, his connections, and his wealth? Certainly not. Was it for me, then? Undoubtedly it was. But why? It had not taken me long to discover that he was concealing me, or, at least, that he endeavored ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... itself, and had declined to swear an active compliance with their own ruin. How could a man of common flesh and blood endure that those who but the other day had skulked unobserved in their antechambers, scornfully insulting men illustrious in their rank, sacred in their function, and venerable in their character, now in decline of life, and swimming on the wrecks of their fortunes,—that those miscreants should tell such men scornfully and outrageously, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... I did not know how much I had lost, for having always heard and thought more of my wit and beauty, than of my fortune, it did not suddenly enter my imagination, that Melissa could sink beneath her established rank, while her form and her mind continued the same; that she should cease to raise admiration, but by ceasing to deserve it, or feel any stroke but from the hand ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... do was wait, and he'd automatically be promoted to the Commanding Staff, where he would have an equal vote with the others of his rank. One unit vote to begin with and an additional ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett

... good deal of quiet quarrelling on board ship. The mate spared Tricky because he thought he would some day give the Captain a 'turn'; the Captain let him live, hoping he would do something dreadful to the mate. Everybody waited to see Tricky do something to somebody else. So he rose to the highest rank in the merchant-marine, and was respected almost to idolatry by all on ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond

... requests differing so widely from those of several other officers, and of one in particular, an officer of artillery, who had made great pretensions on his arrival, and had soon afterwards drowned himself in the Schuylkill. The rank of major-general (the highest in the American army) was given to Lafayette. Washington received the young volunteer in the most friendly manner, and invited him to reside in his house as a member of his military family, which offer Lafayette accepted with the same frankness ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... that this book is rank melodrama. It has scant literary quality. It is not planned to edify. Its only mission is to entertain you and,—if you belong to the action-loving majority, to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... hasard[531] was verray unliklye; for the Erle of Anguss host[532] stood evin as a wall, and receaved the first assaultairis upon the pointis of thare spearis, (which war longar then those of the Englismen,) so ruidlye, that fyftie horse and men of the first rank lay dead at ones, without any hurte done to the Scottishe army, except that the spearis of the formar two rankis war brokin. Which discomfitur receaved, the rest of the hors men fled; yea, some passed beyound ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... outlandish fellows say," exclaimed the soldier; "thou art of the genuine game breed, Prudence, and were it not that thy pretty person might come to harm, I would desire no better front rank man than thee. But this is a dangerous litany, and I beseech thee, dear Prudence, to remember how ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... supporters that, at the great caucus which was to decide the matter, Mr. Conkling's name should be presented by the member of the assembly representing his district, Ellis Roberts, a man of eminent character and ability, who, having begun by taking high rank as a scholar at Yale, had become one of the foremost editors of the State, and had afterward distinguished himself not only in the State legislature, but in Congress, and as the head of the independent treasury in the city ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... cried in a sort of exasperation, "I bid myself remember the great gulf between you and me; every minute you forget it. I make a curtain of your rank, your title, and—let us be frank—your destiny; I hang the curtain up between us, and with a gentle hand you tear it down. At the end of it all I am flesh and blood. Why did I sit the whole long dreary day out on the bank by ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... more recent man of true genius, though not of the highest rank, who may possibly be counted as epileptic: Vincent van Gogh, the painter.[5] A brilliant and highly original artist, he was a definitely abnormal man who cannot be said to have escaped mental deterioration. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... the Bishop's Palace was crowded that morning. The six prisoners were led out in order, according to their social rank:—first, William Hunter, the apprentice-boy of Brentford, only sixteen years of age; then Thomas Tomkins, the weaver; Stephen Knight, the barber of Maldon; William Pygot, the butcher of Braintree; John Laurence, the Black Friar; lastly, Thomas Hawkes, ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt

... The twenty-seven months of mourning for parents—nominally three years, as is now again the rule—was reduced to a more manageable period of twenty-seven days. Literary degrees were first established, and perpetual hereditary rank was conferred upon the senior descendant of Confucius in the male line, which has continued in unbroken succession down to the present day. The head of the Confucian clan is now a duke, and resides in a palace, taking rank with, if not before, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... circling a huge area of weird growths that already were waist high. They leaped across a gaping chasm and fought their way over a low hill, rank with vegetation, only to be confronted by a maze of great stalks—stalks that sprouted as they watched, dismayed, and threw out grotesque ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... of events, in Northern France alone, can be cited than those extracted from the note-books of captured and fallen Germans. Such blood-stained pages must be a tithe of those that returned to Germany, but they furnish a full story of what the rank and file accomplished at the instigation and example of their officers. Space precludes quotation; but one may refer the reader to "Germany's Violations of the Laws of War,"[A] published under the auspices of the ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... Zek was no fool to expose himself to the blackened honor of a thief and a murderer. Taking his long gun with him, he left the trail, entering the rank and tangled vegetation which walled it, and crawling slowly forward on hands and knees he paralleled the trail; but never for an instant was his body exposed to the rifle ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... between him and them, which he, in his condescension, might cross as suited his whim, but over which none might follow him back again; and this, he was well aware, they would be the first to admit did they but know his actual rank. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... more odd and striking, none more illustrative of the permanence, in human nature, of certain elements. To examine these psychological curiosities may, or may not, be 'useful,' but, at lowest, the study may rank as a branch of ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... inexperience should lead you from the paths of wisdom, I have arranged that you be accompanied on your journey by Ablano, the Holy Brahman, who has lately come to our realm. On the morrow, then, you will be prepared to start in company with an escort of horsemen and a train of camels as befits your rank ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood

... Gospel came to their shores. I made a point of inquiring at each station as to the status of the widows and the fatherless, and found that everywhere they are well cared for. Indeed, the widows invariably stand in the first rank of those for whom regular employment is found by the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel. They gratefully acknowledged this. Several of them also gave me a special commission, which I hereby ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe

... these tests, the spring and harvest customs of our European peasantry deserve to rank as primitive. For no special class of persons and no special places are set exclusively apart for their performance; they may be performed by any one, master or man, mistress or maid, boy or girl; they are ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... the authour, yet as there is always a silent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his designs, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we shall place any particular performance, curiosity is always busy to discover the instruments, as well as to survey the workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to original powers, and how much to casual ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson

... Rutherford's Lex Rex; as, for example, "The Crown is but the kingdom's or people's livery. . . . The king bears the relation of a political servant or vassal to that state, kingdom, or people over which he is set to govern." But the commonplaces of to-day were rank heresy in ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... prophecy that when the French Army marches down the Champs Elysees after the war is over, when the vanguard passes under the Arch de Triomph, de Maud'Huy—a nervous little firebrand—will be right up in the front rank with Joffre. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... to Lord Lundy then, As happens to so many men: Towards the age of twenty-six, They shoved him into politics; In which profession he commanded The income that his rank demanded In turn as Secretary for India, the Colonies, and War. But very soon his friends began To doubt if he were quite the man: Thus, if a member rose to say (As members ...
— Cautionary Tales for Children • Hilaire Belloc

... had a fit and scrambled back into the car almost in spasms. Of course the scene drew some more people and we soon had a considerable crowd. I gathered up the boy—who was a beauty and not at all afraid—and took him out of the car. There was in the front rank an enormous Belgian with a fiercely bristling beard. He looked like a sane sort, so I said to him: "Expliquez a ces gens que vous n'etes pas des ogres pour croquer les enfants." He growled out affably: "Mais non, on ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... north; in conclusion, I may notice some of those noblemen and gentlemen who have distinguished themselves as breeders of Aberdeen and Angus polled cattle. Among these the late Hugh Watson, Keillor, deserves to be put in the front rank. No breeder of polled Aberdeen and Angus will grudge that well-merited honour to his memory. We all look up to him as the first great improver, and no one will question his title to this distinction. There is no herd in the country which is not indebted to the Keillor blood. For many a long ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... struggle against as the chest diseases from which professional men so often suffer; I believe if he had really tried or wished he could have conquered his vice altogether. Neither of these causes kept him from the foremost rank. ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... possible convert to join the ranks of the witch-society, he came in his own person, usually dressed plainly in the costume of the period. When in ordinary clothes he was indistinguishable from any other man of his own rank or age, but the evidence suggests that he made himself known by some manual gesture, by a password, or by some token carried on his person. The token seems to have been carried on the foot, and was perhaps a specially ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... ultimately a victor in World Wars I and II, France suffered extensive losses in its empire, wealth, manpower, and rank as a dominant nation-state. Nevertheless, France today is one of the most modern countries in the world and is a leader among European nations. Since 1958, it has constructed a hybrid presidential-parliamentary governing system resistant to ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Probably Tira never did what would be called thinking. But her heart had a vital life of its own, her instinct was the genius of intuition. He had been kind to her, compassionate. She had built up a temple out of her trust in him, and now he had smoked the altar with the incense that was rank in her nostrils. He had brought, not flowers and fruits, but the sacrifice of blood. And he, on his part, what did he think? Only that he ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... conducted upon a stage comparatively obscure, serves to show us "the sort of men that formed the rank and file of the army of the Reformers. They were not illiterate, sectarian, noisy controversialists—far from it; they were men who had studied the word of God, and knew well how to wield the weapons with which the armory of the Bible supplied them. In respect ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... before I received the Lord's Supper, I saw a man standing there, a tanum liana (a man of rank, or authority). He said Your breath is bad, I will give you ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... The birthright of Reuben Was forfeited by his sins, so that he followed after In his comrade's track. In the tribes of the Hebrews, The blessings of the birthright his brother enjoyed, His riches and rank; yet Reuben was brave. 340 Following him came the folk in crowds, The sons of Simeon in swarming bands, The third great host. With hoisted banners Over the watery path the war-troop pressed Dewy under their shafts. ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... senses, extend your knowledge, or refine your manners. Have some decent object of gallantry in view at some places; frequent others, where people of wit and taste assemble; get into others, where people of superior rank and dignity command respect and attention from the rest of the company; but pray frequent no neutral places, from mere idleness and indolence. Nothing forms a young man so much as being used to keep respectable ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... on the spot ourselves. Bertillon cleared up many crimes with this help, such as the mystery of the shooting in the Hotel Quai d'Orsay and other cases. The metric photograph, I believe, will in time rank with other devices ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... one of the errors of his uncle, he avoided seeking a wife in the royal families of Europe, but allied himself with a Spanish lady of noble rank, the young and beautiful Eugenie de Montijo, dutchess of Teba. At the same time he proclaimed that, "A sovereign raised to the throne by a new principle should remain faithful to that principle, and in the face of Europe ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... they are stories in the truest sense of the word, illustrating in a graphic and natural style the manners and customs, trials and sorrows, sins and backslidings, of the men and women of whom they treat. The heroes and heroines of these admirable stories belong to every rank of life, from the king and noble to ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... characteristic sayings, and here he seems to me typical both of modern thought in general and especially of English thought, and that both for good and ill. We see in him the want of precision, the lack of logical coherence, that have prevented us from ever producing a philosopher of the first rank. At the same time there is something true and profound in his instinct that the moment has not yet come in which to formulate our faith. We all feel that we are on the brink of tremendous, perhaps terrifying, discoveries; we resent any cut-and-dried ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... intercessions obtained for members of your body Consulships, Patriciates, Praefectures; and now, behold, I am similarly honoured myself. Reflect, I pray, that by my accepting it, the genius of the Patriciate is exalted, since none of my fellow-countrymen will hold cheaply that rank in you which he sees honoured in me. Live in security, by the blessing of God; enjoy your prosperity with your children; and strive, now as always, to show forth the true Roman type of character. I shall defend those with ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... mother of the human race. On the contrary, the fact was often mentioned, in the Middle Ages, as a distinct proof of inferiority. The question was discussed in the mediaeval Council of Macon, and the position taken that woman was no more entitled to rank as human, because she brought forth men, than the garden-earth could take rank with the fruit and flowers it bore. The same view was revived by a Latin writer of 1595, on the thesis "Mulieres non homines ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... reaching nearly from one end to the other of the communion rails. Mr. Richmond stood near one end, by the font, and did not change his place; so each one, as he or she received the rite, passed to one side, while the place was filled by another. Without breaking the rank this was done; one set slowly edging along from left to right, while from right to left, one by one, the others came to take their turn. It was a pretty sight. So some thought; but there ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... Shields and Breaux, both of whom distinguished themselves in the battle of Baton Rouge, dined here. Their personal appearance was by no means calculated to fill me with awe, or even to give one an idea of their rank; for their dress consisted of merely cottonade pants, flannel shirts, and extremely short jackets (which, however, is rapidly becoming the uniform of the ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... organ was not favourable. As soon as he had finished, M. le Duc d'Orleans rose, and committed the same fault. He said, also standing and uncovered, that the request of M. le Duc appeared to him just; and after some praises added, that M. le Duc du Maine was now reduced to the rank given to him by his peerage, M. le Marechal de Villeroy, his senior, could no longer remain under him, which was a new and very strong reason in addition to those M. le Duc had alleged. This request ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... fair counterpart of the royal prerogative of that day; the two houses of Congress corresponded sufficiently well to the House of Lords and the House of Commons, allowing for the absence of the elements of hereditary rank and territorial influence. While the English constitution has changed much, the American constitution has changed very little in these respects. Allowing for the more democratic character of the constituencies, the organization of the supreme power in the United States is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various

... escaped destruction in this unequal contest with an enemy then wielding the whole thunders of the state, is somewhat surprising; and historians have sought their solution of the mystery in the powerful intercessions of the vestal virgins, and several others of high rank amongst the connexions of his great house. These may have done something; but it is due to Sylla, who had a sympathy with everything truly noble, to suppose him struck with powerful admiration for the audacity of the young patrician, ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar

... voluptuous courts of Europe. The order, in fact, had become a mode of providing for the needy branches of the Catholic aristocracy of Europe. "A commandery," we are told, was a splendid provision for a younger brother; and men of rank, however dissolute, provided they belonged to the highest aristocracy, became Knights of Malta, just as they did bishops, or colonels of regiments, or court chamberlains. After a brief Residence at Malta, ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... would forfeit her right to the privileges of society in Cranford. I think she had some little idea of mortifying Lady Glenmire by the decision she gave at last; which was to this effect: that whereas a married woman takes her husband's rank by the strict laws of precedence, an unmarried woman retains the station her father occupied. So Cranford was allowed to visit Miss Matty; and, whether allowed or not, it ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... Thebes exceed them in magnitude, they bear no comparison with the symmetry of the columns, with the richness of the doorways, and the friezes, which abound at Baalbec. The foundations of the great temple are themselves entitled to rank with the pyramids among the wonders of the world, being raised twenty feet above the level of the ground, and have in them stones of one solid mass ninety feet long, eighteen feet wide, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... them. Not all the dread of an invasion by the French could reconcile the people of these coasts to the necessity of impressment. Fear and confusion prevailed after this to within many miles of the sea-shore. A Yorkshire gentleman of rank said that his labourers dispersed like a covey of birds, because a press-gang was reported to have established itself so far inland as Tadcaster; and they only returned to work on the assurance from the steward ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell



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