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Root   /rut/   Listen
Root

verb
(past & past part. rooted; pres. part. rooting)
1.
Take root and begin to grow.
2.
Come into existence, originate.
3.
Plant by the roots.
4.
Dig with the snout.  Synonyms: rootle, rout.
5.
Become settled or established and stable in one's residence or life style.  Synonyms: settle, settle down, steady down, take root.
6.
Cause to take roots.



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"Root" Quotes from Famous Books



... have failed to discover and recognise it at first sight from the description he already had, for the leaves of the plant grew thick about the root and put forth an upright stem, some two to three feet high, from which proceeded shoots, like broccoli sprouts on an enlarged scale, the outer petal-like leaves of which were six to eight inches ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... a wood-cutter for more than a year, when one day I wandered further into the forest than I had ever done before, and reached a delicious green glade, where I began to cut wood. I was hacking at the root of a tree, when I beheld an iron ring fastened to a trapdoor of the same metal. I soon cleared away the earth, and pulling up the door, found a staircase, which I hastily made up my mind to go down, carrying my hatchet with me by way of protection. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... he said, "I come to bid you farewell. The words you spoke to me during my last visits to you sunk deep down in my heart. The glorious truths you explained took root, and have since by God's grace been abundantly watered. I obtained a copy of His blessed Word. I sought for instruction from those able to give it, and I am now ready, if it is His will, to add my testimony to the truth by my blood. I ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, And not be tainted with a shameful fall? Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree, Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves, And ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... impact of life, is free from dross and veneer, and is genuine through and through. There was arithmetic, back along the line somewhere, but it has been absorbed in the big quality which it helped to generate and develop. And it is better so. For if he were now solving decimals and square root he would be but a cog and not the great wheel itself. He has grown beyond his arithmetic as he has grown beyond his boyhood warts and freckles, for the larger life has absorbed them. Yet he feels no disdain either for freckles or arithmetic, but regards them as gracious incidents ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... "rhetorical exaggerations," or have "eccentricities" or teach in a style "utterly beyond" my accuser's "comprehension," or create in him "blank astonishment," or "exalt the magical powers of my Church," or have "unconsciously committed myself to a statement which strikes at the root of all morality," or "look down on the Protestant gentry as without hope of heaven," or "had better be sent to the furthest" Catholic "mission among the savages of the South seas," than "to teach in an Irish Catholic University," or have "gambled away my reason," or adopt ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... she found herself able to differ from him on a variety of points. In fact, the quality of this small ripe country seemed as sweet to her as the taste of an October pear; and her satisfaction was at the root of the good spirits which enabled her to take her cousin's chaff and return it in kind. If her good-humour flagged at moments it was not because she thought herself ill-used, but because she suddenly felt ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... translated breakfast by that vain word jentaculum, so, doubtless, it will translate dinner by that still vainer word prandium. Sincerely we hope that your own dinner on this day, and through all time coming, may have a better root in fact and substance than this most visionary of all baseless things—the Roman prandium, of which we shall presently show you that the most ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... attached to as many short digitations. The three middle claws are strong, and about eight or nine tenths of an inch in length; the thumb and little finger claws are also strong, but shorter than the others, being only from six to seven tenths of an inch. The fleshy root of the thumb claw is smaller and more flexible than the others. The sole of the paw is hard, and the upper part is covered with the common hair, down to the roots of the claws which it overhangs. The hind legs are less strong and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... more than nominal work. As to making them efficient farm servants, they quickly gave up that idea. As a sailor, Typee had little fancy for husbandry; and the doctor found his long back terribly in his way when requested to dig potatoes and root up stumps, under a sun which, as Shorty said, "was hot enough to melt the nose hoff a brass monkey." Long Ghost very soon gave in; the extraction of a single tree-root settled him; he pleaded illness, and retired to his hammock, but was considerably vexed when he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... two gives us the most trouble. Willingly as I made myself familiar with all sorts of conditions, and many as had been my inducements to do so, an excessive aversion from all inns had nevertheless been instilled into me by my father. This feeling had taken firm root in him on his travels through Italy, France, and Germany. Although he seldom spoke in images, and only called them to his aid when he was very cheerful, yet he used often to repeat that he always fancied he saw a great cobweb spun across the gate of an inn, so ingeniously that the insects could ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... been ceded to us in 1814, and we handed it over to Germany in 1890, so our tenure was too brief for us to have struck root deeply into the soil. Heligoland was a splendid recruiting ground for the Royal Navy, for the islanders were a hardy race of seafarers, and made ideal material for bluejackets. There was not a horse or cow on the island, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... not united in this, that there is room for treason under the motive of misguided patriotism. And it is to scent every possible form of that disloyalty that I have been sent here; sent to the very place where the Tories most abound and where such a plot is most liable to take root." ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... have done for her, yet am I looked upon as mad by many in that at twenty-eight years I have not begotten me a son, for they could not understand the disgust which had taken root in my whole being, so that in love or passion or desire I laid not ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... decay furnishes a very little addition to that. In favourable situations a stray oak leaf or two falls and lies there, and also decays, and by and by there is a little coating of soil or a little lodgment of it in a crevice or cavity, enough for the flying spores of some moss to take root and find home." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... is disease. Whenever the cause of disease shall be discovered, the root, from which all vice and misery have so long overshadowed the globe, will lie bare to the axe. All the exertions of man, from that moment, may be considered as tending to the clear profit of his species. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... had liberally dispensed "hot water tea," in the blessed dead and embalmed era of nursery rule and parental power; now eschewed with its despised use, and packed to the brim with medicinal "yarbs," bone-set, horse mint, life everlasting, and snake-root. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... daylight. I lay down, as did Stanley and Donald, to obtain a little sleep. I was to lead the party, as I fancied I knew the direction where I had found the juicy fruit. When Senhor Silva heard the account I gave, he expressed a hope that we should find not only an abundance of melons, but a root which he called Jeroshua, which grows in the desert, and is of ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... "It was Celery-Root, you know him, the bloke with a wooden leg. Well, as he was going back to his native place, he wanted to treat us. Oh! We were all right, if it hadn't been for that devil of a sun. In the street everybody looks shaky. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... dear. We happen to be going to the root of things, that's all. Perhaps it's as well to do so now and then. Oh, I admire you immensely, Rhoda. You are the ideal adversary of those care-nothing and believe-nothing women who keep the world back. But don't prepare ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... misstep, and the shaft—the old Granite Hill shaft, you know—it's close to the road. We found him in the sump at the bottom. There had been too much rain, but it is a deep shaft anyway. He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses long enough to hook it onto a poor little stray pine-root above the water, where he died. It was a cruel death, but his face was good to ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... a hard matter to root out cockle so that it may not sprout again, so it is no less difficult for people who have once been habituated to evil to forbear relapsing into their crimes. Only a few days after the departure of Ojeda, one D. Ferdinand de Guevara, who was in disgrace with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... love. I can hardly write this word, so incongruous and impossible does it seem; such a change of our places does it imply—nor, next to that, though long after, would I, if I could, supplant one of any of the affections that I know to have taken root in you—that great and solemn one, for instance. I feel that if I could get myself remade, as if turned to gold, I WOULD not even then desire to become more than the mere setting to that diamond you must always wear. The regard and esteem you now give me, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... sign bit, the mantissa in ones complement arithmetic. The arithmetic subroutines are: add, subtract, multiply, divide, convert a floating point number to binary, convert a binary number to a floating number. Additional routines form: [square root of x], e^x, ln x, sine(pi/2)x, cos(pi/2)x, tan^{-1}x. There are also programs to convert between floating decimal ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation

... then easy to prove that there will be no abstractive set with the property of being covered by every abstractive set which it covers. I state this difficulty at some length because its existence guides the development of our line of argument. We have got to annex some condition to the root property of being covered by any abstractive set which it covers. When we look into this question of suitable conditions we find that in addition to event-particles all the other relevant spatial and spatio-temporal abstractive ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead

... quite as close to me as she is to you, but she's nigh enough to make me feel plumb ashamed. I've always tuck pride in both you gals; but lawsy me, if Ann is goin' to gaum 'erself from head to foot like a pig learnin' to root, why, I reckon I'll jest hang my ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... mandrake be create Flesh with the power incorporate, I know not; yet, if from the earth 'tis rent, Shrieks and groans from the root are sent; Shrieks and groans, and a sweat like gore Oozes and drops from the clammy core. Maranatha—Anathema! Dread is the curse ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... after their daily work, resort to the cabaret to spend their time and their earnings. Agriculture is very backward in Brittany, but the land produces abundance of corn. It is thrashed out direct from the field, on a clay floor (aire). Beet-root and clover grow very luxuriantly, and in some fields the pretty red clover (Trifolium incarnatum) carpets the country ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... was a woman of the world, proud of her family-tree, whose root disappeared in the depths of past centuries, and devoted to the pursuit and cultivation of those graces and manners that are supposed to distinguish people of birth and breeding from the common sort. Indeed, from common men and things she shrank almost with horror. The entrance of "trade" into ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... and not in the starch of many roots, and seeds, according to the observation of M. Parmentier, the wholesome or nutritive parts of some vegetables may be thus separated from the medicinal parts of them. Thus if the root of white briony be rasped into cold water, by means of a bread-grater made of a tinned iron plate, and agitated in it, the acrid juice of the root along with the mucilage will be dissolved, or swim, in the water; while a ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... government. Civil and religious liberty are so commonly associated in people's mouths, and are so rare in fact, that their definition is evidently as little understood as the principle of their connection. The point at which they unite, the common root from which they derive their sustenance, is the right of self-government. The modern theory, which has swept away every authority except that of the State, and has made the sovereign power irresistible by ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... root of all the trouble with their pestilent doctrines; but it is too late now, the mischief is done. If we had a king strong and determined all might yet be well; but Louis is weak in decision, he listens one moment to Mirabeau and the next to the queen, who is more firm and courageous. And ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... me if I digress a little, to shew why we cannot reasonably expect Prophets now. And it seems to me, that there are several Reasons to be given why there should be Prophets during the time of the Mosaical Dispensation, rather than after the Gospel had taken Root. For, the Promises made to the Jews having Relation to their possessing the Land of Canaan, God was pleas'd to send them Prophets to quicken their Memories, and keep them in mind of their Duty, that thereby ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... young tendrils and its leaves. The Vine said: "Why do you thus injure me and crop my leaves? Is there no young grass left? But I shall not have to wait long for my just revenge; for if you now crop my leaves, and cut me down to my root, I shall provide the wine to pour over you when you are led as a victim ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

... infuriates the very child in its mother's arms. The promise, the word, the oath of a king are become equivalent to a lie and to perjury. Faith in the morality of kings is plucked out, even to the last root, from the people's heart. ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... first-rate for an invalid," he called out from the door, and then, advancing, took one of her thin hands with much gentleness, and said, "Getting well, ain't you? That's right. I am so glad. Creepin' through mercy, eh? as Father Root ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various

... a word, formed from its root by means of the termination ize, afterwards assumes a prefix, to make a secondary derivative: thus, organ, organize, disorganize. In such a case, the latter derivative must of course be like the former; and I assume that the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... to submit themselves to the heat. In this way they sweated themselves four times, keeping all the time a perfect silence, until they emerged for the last time, when the old man directed his daughters to dig some soap root and make a lather. In this he bade his sons wash their hair and the entire surface of their bodies well. When they were thoroughly cleansed, he sent them out to set twelve stone fall traps, a task which occupied all the rest of the day. ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews

... investigate things in the gloomy interior and, while its brethren were busy outside found an undisputed field for activity in the cavity. Swooping low it dug its sharp, strong beak into Warruk's back just above the root of the tail. ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... we look on the effort of sectarians to divide the school fund, as an insidious attempt to lay the axe at the root of our noble public school system, the benefits of which are every day manifested in ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... leader of a team of dogs working as if the load was being drawn by him alone. He goes along, his head bent over and tugging in his harness, his mouth open and tongue lolling out, while his ears are ever ready to hear the word of command from the driver. To go to the left, the command is given, "Ah'-root," and to the right, "Why-ah'-wah-ha." Then he sometimes, to encourage or urge to greater exertion, says, "Ah-wah-hagh-oo-ar." To stop the team he says "Woah," as one says when driving horses. It is the noisiest method of travel ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... to Paris and had the decayed spot drilled out. The tooth is sound at the root. The dentist made the hole as large as possible and then we moulded the rubber caps to close it. You see how ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... met at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and had a love feast; to praise together our dear and gracious Lord for all his goodness bestowed on us during this year full of troubles. Indeed these times have been a time of shaking, and what had no root is dropped off. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... weight: Giue some supportance to the bending twigges. Goe thou, and like an Executioner Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprayes, That looke too loftie in our Common-wealth: All must be euen, in our Gouernment. You thus imploy'd, I will goe root away The noysome Weedes, that without profit sucke The Soyles ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... potatoes, wheat, corn, the general cereals and root crops are supposed to be impossible productions. Gold, wild cattle, and wilder mustangs are the returns of El Dorado. Cultivation ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... art's sake! We see it nowhere revealed so clearly as in the Exhibition, where it masks as "Decorative Art." Art answering no claim of practical life and obeying no law of contemplative preference, art without root, without organism, without logical reason or moral decorum, art for mere buying and selling, art which expresses only self-assertion on the part of the seller, and self-satisfaction on the part of the buyer. ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... current. Sails were but of casual assistance, for it required a strong wind to conquer the force of the stream. The main dependence was on bodily strength and manual dexterity. The boats, in general, had to be propelled by oars and setting poles, or drawn by the hand and by grappling hooks from one root or overhanging tree to another; or towed by the long cordelle, or towing line, where the shores were sufficiently clear of woods and thickets to permit the men to ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... it is not in the power of human nature to resist, and few know what would be their case if driven to the same exigencies. As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is, I believe, the worst of all snares. But I waive that discourse till I ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... written about the year 1802, {87} in which he says: "Nothing in it can grow self-sown, for the deer bark all the young trees. Vast droves of hogs are allowed to go into the woods in the autumn, and if any fortunate acorn escapes their search, and takes root, then flocks of sheep are allowed to go into the Forest, and they bite off the tender shoot." He speaks of "a set of people called Forest free miners, who consider themselves as having a right to dig for coal in any part they please," adding that "trees which die of ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... the biography he talked to her about her work (nobody else had ever been the least interested in Miss Quincey's work). Then Miss Quincey sat up in bed and became lyrical as she described the delirious joy of decimals—recurring decimals—and the rapture of cube-root. She herself had never got farther than cube-root; but it was enough. Beyond that, she hinted, lay the infinite. And Dr. Cautley laughed at her defence of the noble science. Oh yes, he could understand its fascination, its irresistible appeal to the emotions; he only wished ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... brought within these few years from the South Seas, where they are said to be very numerous; this is, we believe, the only one that as yet has flowered in this country: our drawing was made from a plant which blossomed toward the close of last summer at Lord CREMORNES, the root of which had been sent from Botany-Bay; previous to this period we have been informed, that the same species flowered both at Kew and Sion-House: as it is without difficulty raised both from seeds and cuttings, young plants of it are to be seen in most of the Nurseries near ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... infamous characters, the instruments of exciting dissensions and doctrinal controversies, with a view to obscure and finally to extinguish it. And now he continues to attack it both ways; for he endeavours to root up this genuine seed by means of human force, and at the same time tries every effort to choke it with his tares, that it may not grow and produce fruit. But all his attempts will be vain, if we attend to the admonitions of the Lord, who hath long ago made ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... a delicate 'wild rabbit' supper. A species of grass was cooked as a vegetable and it gave a relish to the horseflesh. Tea being exhausted, the soldiers boiled bits of ginger root in water. Latterly aeroplanes dropped some supplies. These consisted chiefly of corn, flour, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... creature, tall as an ox and slow, raged and fought and broke its teeth on the strange thing that bit to the bone with its relentless jaws, and tore along the white silence dragging its hindering ball, that, catching on bush and root, skinned down the flesh from the shining bone. And presently the wild trail narrowed to undisturbed snow, with naught save two great footprints, one after the other. With the cunning of a man, M'sieu, the ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... palm oil, rubber, tea, quinine, cassava (tapioca), palm oil, bananas, root crops, corn, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness, which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily! And saintly men, who walk with God on earth, would fain be away, to walk with him on the golden pavements ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... are still a very important industry and shiploads of lumber are sent out from its wharves. All the cereals and grasses yield abundant crops; root crops are extensive; fruit of great variety and fine flavor is very prominent. Dairying is flourishing, the county having more dairies than any other in the state. Coal mining is in its infancy, but has progressed ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell

... searchingly, wondering if they could possibly guess the state of her finances, concluded they couldn't and said smilingly: "Indeed I will gladly let you saw for an hour or two if you'll come and sit by the fire on Saturday night, when we are going to play spelling games and have doughnuts and root beer." ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... move their fields of yams or camotes (on which they live well) from one place to another without much effort, pulling them up by the roots—for, because of the dampness of the country, these take root wherever they are placed. In the same manner, they carry their ornaments or bones; [58] and since their arms and clothes are but little or nothing, they are not embarrassed, because they always carry these with them. Yet it is known that, if those called Ygolotes ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... had been colonised from the mainland by the Norsemen who had fled thither to escape the oppression of Harold Fairhair after his crushing victory of Hafrsfirth. These people brought with them the poetic genius which had already manifested itself, and it took fresh root in that barren soil. Many of the old Norse poets were natives of Iceland, and in the early part of the Christian era, a supreme service was rendered to Norse literature by the Christian priest, Saemund, who industriously ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... that those creatures acted thus, for, close on their heels, gasping and glaring, the army burst forth and fell on them— literally fell on one of them, for Otto in his anxiety to catch the hindmost pig, a remarkably small but active animal, tripped over a root just as he was about to lay hold of its little tail, and fell on the top of it with fearful violence. The mechanical pressure, combining with the creature's spiritual efforts, produced a sudden yell that threw the cries of its companions quite into the shade. It might ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... get rid of them!" wrote Podge. "My boys at school are dirty by inclination. They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe to slippery elm and liquorice root. One piece of liquorice will demoralize a whole ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... up. Axel marks it, but goes on with his work. It is long past noon, and he has not yet eaten. Then, felling a big fir, he manages to get in the way of its fall, and is thrown to the ground. He hardly knew how it happened—but there it was. A big fir swaying from the root: a man will have it fall one way, the storm says another—and the storm it is that wins. He might have got clear after all, but the lie of the ground was hidden by snow. Axel made a false step, lost his footing, and came down in ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... the Zor [Arabic], which is the name of the broad valley of the Euphrates, on its right bank, from Byr down to Aene and Hit. There are sources in the Bishr, and ruins of villages. It produces also a tree which is about eight feet high, and whose root has so little hold, that the smallest ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... and which owe the place that the world half-unconsciously yields to them to nothing but that indestructible sympathy of man with man, that eternal answering of feeling to feeling, which is one of the great principles, perhaps the greatest principle, at the root of literature. M. Scherer naturally was the first among the recognized guides of opinion to attempt the placing of his friend's Journal. "The man who, during his lifetime, was incapable of giving us any deliberate ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... took root at a time when profound social and religious changes were occurring in England. Churchmen and dissenters were at war with each other; autocracy was struggling to survive the representative system; and agrarianism was contending with a newly ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... Silius and Sabinus, two strong oaks, Flat on the earth; besides those other shrubs, Cordus and Sosia, Claudia Pulchra, Furnius and Gallus, which I have grubb'd up; And since, have set my axe so strong and deep Into the root of spreading Agrippina; Lopt off and scatter'd her proud branches, Nero. Drusus; and Caius too, although re-planted. If you will, Destinies, that after all, I faint now ere I touch my period, You are but cruel; and I already have done Things great enough. All Rome hath been my slave; ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... a Sail on the famous River Deben, to pass by the same fields of green Wheat, Barley, Rye, and Beet-root, and come back to the same Dinner. Positively the only new thing we have in Woodbridge is a Waxen Bust (Lady, of course) at the little Hairdresser's opposite. She turns slowly round, to our wonder and delight; and I caught the little Barber the other day in the very Act ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... spread of its branches; to apply fertilizers rich in nitrogen; to keep the whole of the cultivated space mulched with good barn-yard manure, increasing the thickness of the mulch with coarse stuff in the fall, so as to lengthen the season of root activity; and to draw the mulch aside about St. Patrick's Day, that the sun's rays may warm the earth as early as possible. Moderate pruning, nipping back of exuberant branches, and two sprayings of the foliage with Bordeaux mixture, to keep fungus ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... the two boys now stood their guns up against the nearest trees and let themselves sink together upon the thin bed of moist leaves that had not been eaten up, as it were, by the root action of the trees, glad of the relief to their now weary limbs, and for some time they sat in the silent darkness, utterly stunned—minutes and minutes, possibly half an hour, before Mark started to his feet, and, nerved by his cousin's ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... there for three days an three nights. I began to think we must be goin home by the overland root. The only reason we didnt murder nobody was because we didnt have room. Every once in a while wed stop at a stashun an some red cross nurses would bring around coffee. Only they wasnt red an they wasnt cross. Most of us was so glad to ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter

... else you recollect of the kind. On the other the ornament is concave: those are Corinthian, Early English, Decorated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The transitional form, in which the ornamental line is straight, is the center or root of both. All other orders are varieties of these, or fantasms and grotesques, altogether indefinite ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... offensive to God. The reason is that God sets a high value upon peace and harmony. Therefore the generation of the deluge, who gave themselves up to depredation, and bore hatred to one another, were extirpated, root and branch, while the generation of the Tower of Babel dwelling amicably together, and loving one another, were spared alive, at least ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... of the greatest danger to obtain it. If not taken up from the root, clean out of the soil, it is altogether valueless, and he who makes the experiment wantonly risks his life. The moment the earth is struck with the spade, the bitterest cries and shrieks burst forth from it, and while the roots are being laid bare demons are heard ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... but it never hurts us. There is a fallen willow across the stream that just seats the eight of us, only the ones at the end can't get their feet into the water properly because of the bushes, so we keep changing places. We had got some liquorice root to chew. This helps thought. Dora broke a ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... with every thing which could flatter vanity or excite the passions. Musicians, male and female dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and gladiators, exhibited while the guests reclined at table. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws of ivory or Delian bronze, and cost immense sums. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting table. These tables were waited upon by an army of slaves, clad in costly dresses. In the intervals of courses they played with ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... them," continued his uncle. "They bite off every blade of grass near the root, some seize it with their fore-legs, and twist and pull at it, while others run up to the top of the blade, and bend it down with their weight. It is not long before the great tree, as it must seem to the ants, comes toppling down. The roots are left in the ground to die out, just as a Western wood-cutter ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... point of calling, as witnesses, not only the usual officials, but also as many outside economists and statisticians as might be able to throw light upon questions which, as he rightly conceived, lay at the root of any proper consideration of the problem before the Committee. He attached special importance to all the evidence bearing upon foreign and colonial methods and principles in the taxation of income ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... itself almost upon him, he gained the bank ten feet farther downstream, where the sides were more gently sloping. They saw him climb to a little shelf of rock a yard above the bottom of the creek. They saw his hands thrust out above his head, grasping at the root of a stunted tree. One ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... teach the same thing. In the Talmud it is said that Abel's soul passed into the body of Seth, and then into that of Moses. Along with the spread of the Cabala this doctrine (which was known as Transmigration and Metempsychosis) "began to take root in Judaism and then it gained believers even among men who were little inclined towards Mysticism. Juda ben Asher (Asheri) for instance, discussing this doctrine in a letter to his father endeavored ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda

... they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... charge in these articles are not lapses, defects, errors of common human frailty, which, as we know and feel, we can allow for. We charge this offender with no crimes that have not arisen from passions which it is criminal to harbor,—with no offences that have not their root in avarice, rapacity, pride, insolence, ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper,—in short, in [with?] nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of heart, dyed in grain with malice, vitiated, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... members of Arthur Emerson's former church (Mrs Stuart always spoke of her son in that manner), and that is how my son became interested in the daughter—an interest I supposed to be purely that of a rector in his parishioner, until of late, when I began to fear it took root in deeper soil. But I am sure, dear Baroness, you can understand ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... a Mannering, what do I mean to the people here? You scarcely begin to take root in this blessed country under half a century. Mannering is exceedingly unpopular; the people think him a selfish idler; but if he chose he could whistle them back with a hundredth part of the trouble it would take me! And if ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a narrow-chested man with longish sandy hair and thin features. His eyes were large, blue, and protruding, his forehead very high and white. There was a pinkness about the root of his nose, and a scanty yellow moustache upon his upper lip, while his chin was partly hidden by a beard equally scanty and even more yellow. He had extremely long white hands; one could not help observing them as they clasped his ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... or toadstools were very numerous along the wood-paths and by the roadsides, especially after rain. Some were of spotless white, some yellow, and some scarlet. They are always mysteries and objects of interest to me, springing as they do so suddenly from no root or seed, and growing one wonders why. I think, too, that some varieties are pretty objects, little fairy tables, centre-tables, standing on one leg. But their growth appears to be checked now, and they are of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... Jake, and I know that the collision will be forced upon you; and, further, when the trouble comes, Jake will take no chances. But you must not think too well of me. Believe me, there is selfishness at the root of my anxiety. Do you not see what trouble it will cause to ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... Thibet by some air-borne Ariel. The discovery in 1884 of Madame Blavatsky's trickery ended the exhibition of "psychical powers," and also apparently the Buddhist period of the society. That the society itself survived the exposure is proof that it had a deeper root than any mere cult of Buddhism or Spiritualism could give. Its appeal, as we have said, was to the new patriotic feeling in the sphere of religion. To Madame Blavatsky succeeded Mrs. Besant as leading spirit, and to the cult of Buddhism again succeeded the glorification of ancient ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... forge, staring at the Ironworker, giving a look of challenge which the other seemed not to understand. Not a word, not a greeting! The senor walked on, but once outside the square he stopped near one of the first trees and sat down on a projecting root, holding ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... lad, Who knows it from the root, sir;— He sucks in all that's to be had, And always ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... smooth and high polished, the hands slip off; you can't get a grip of it. Now, take Lord First Chop, who is the most fashionable man in London, dress him in the last cut coat, best trowsers, French boots, Paris gloves, and grape-vine-root cane, don't forget his whiskers, or mous-stache, or breast-pins, or gold chains, or any thing; and what have you got?—a tailor's print-card, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... Each burgh had exclusive rights of trading in its area, and of taking toll on merchants coming within its Octroi. An association of four burghs, Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling, was the root of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... anti-German ring, as also their friends in the press, are dissatisfied and are endeavoring to put obstacles in the President's way. In these circles, which are always under English influence, the belief has taken root, that Mr. Wilson has fallen under German spell. The well-known anti-German Republican, Senator Lodge, boldly expressed this view in the Senate; but he could not prevent the Senate from voting in favor of Mr. Wilson's Peace Note, by a ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... listened politely, and said carelessly, 'It all seems rather sad—Pilate is a nice name, but not Pontius.' Then Jock laughed at him learning, 'What is your name, A or B?' and Mhor himself preferred to go to the root of the matter with our Shorter Catechism, and answer nobly if obscurely—Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever. Indeed, he might be Scots in his passion for theology. The other night he went to bed very displeased with ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... of men, she must expect in an instant to fall into utter darkness, into a place where shall be weeping howling, and gnashing of teeth: that the and of death was upon her, the axe was laid to the root of the tree, the throne of the great Judge of heaven was erected, the book of her life was spread wide, and the particular sentence and judgment was ready to be pronounced upon her: and that it was now, during this important moment, in her choice, either to rise to the resurrection of life, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... gouty, with little knowledge of her history or her civil institutions, with a tendency to fall under the control of a small social set, whose interests are different from or adverse to those of the great majority; that it will only strike deeper root if the governor is given as his advisers not such an irresponsible council, but the popular {61} leaders, men strong in the confidence ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... not) often under the Influence of God's Grace, which, as it tends to humble the Soul, and render it more loving and humane than before, naturally prevents the Spirit of Persecution from taking such deep Root as otherwise it might. And here, though I do not pretend to be a nice Judge of the spiritual Part of Religion, yet I have heard such as have been accounted Men of the best Experience say, that when the Grace of God operates on the Soul, the ardent Love of Mankind is ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch

... he said, as they sat in the park, that she had a weak face. Her thoughts were far away; he had caught her face, as it were, napping, and had seen through it to the root of her being. The conclusion at which he had arrived was that she was not capable of ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... easy thing in England to lead an old man or woman to Christ, even though the only 'root' which holds them from Him is love of the world. As the Tamil proverb says, 'That which did not bend at five will not be bent at fifty,' still less at sixty or seventy. When a soul in India is held down, not by ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... FIBROUS POLYPUS.—This form is fortunately much more rare than the other. It is almost invariably single, is attached to the posterior margin of the nares by a narrow but very strong root, is extremely firm in consistence, may grow to a large size so as to obstruct both nostrils, generally gives rise to severe and frequent haemorrhages. The haemorrhage during any attempt to remove it is generally ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... the moment any body wants to render you a service, or manifest some token of friendship, he commences by striking at the very root of your digestive functions? Is it not exacting a little too much of human nature to require a man to consider himself a large sponge, in order that hospitality may be poured into him by the gallon? ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... most part, into a halting and one-sided kind of stoicism, meaning indifference to blame and ridicule, and never indifference to praise. It is very convenient to the disappointed authorling; very effective, in the established writer; but it is mere vanity at the root, and equally contemptible in both. For my part, I confess that I came to my trial as tremblingly as any poor caitiff to the fiery ordeal, and finding myself miraculously clear of the burning ploughshares, was quite as full of wonder ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... heard it called; is there not some connection between these words and panis? Yes, I think there is; and I should not wonder if morro, manro, and panis were connected, perhaps derived from the same root; but what is that root? I don't know—I wish I did; though, perhaps, I should not be the happier. Morro—manro! I rather think morro is the oldest form; it is easier to say morro than manro. Morro! Irish, aran; Welsh, bara; English, bread. I can ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... put the most obvious question, and ask, in explanation of its escapades, what the true nature of this personality is, we shall find ourselves quite out of our reckoning on the vast sea of metaphysics. To know what personality IS, "root and all, and all in all," is to "know what God and man is." Fortunately, our problem is much more simple. It is not the personality, its reality, its meaning, that vanishes; no, nor even the psychological system of dispositions. We remain, in such a moment ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... embryonic development—in spite of their astonishing differences in external appearance and habits of life—is so palpably significant that modern zoologists are agreed in the hypothesis that they have all sprung from a common root, and that this root may be sought in ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... covered the plains with grass for the animals to feed on. He marked off a piece of ground, and in it he made to grow all kinds of roots and berries,—camas, wild carrots, wild turnips, sweet-root, bitter-root, sarvis berries, bull berries, cherries, plums, and rosebuds. He put trees in the ground. He put all kinds of animals on the ground. When he made the bighorn with its big head and horns, he ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... of his birth and power; his associations with them are associations of pride and wealth and triumph; the poor man's attachment to the tenements he holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or precious stone; he has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... legislator who deserves the name to 'increase the influence of sympathy at the expense of that of self-regard and of sympathy for the greater number at the expense of sympathy for the lesser number.'[472] He tries to reconcile these views by the remark 'that even sympathy has its root in self-regard,' and he argues, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has done more fully, that if Adam cared only for Eve and Eve only for Adam—neither caring at all for himself or herself—both would perish in less than a year. Self-regard, that is, is essential, and sympathy ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... convinced that the education of the poor children of England is indebted more than to almost any other. We have but been working out under new conditions the great problem which De la Salle perceived to lie at the root of elementary education: the forming of the instrument wherewith to do the work was, as he clearly perceived, the great thing to be accomplished; and for that purpose personal influence was needed; it was necessary to stir up in each young aspirant ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... bonnie bay, as a sign to seamen to be gentle and devout. The night when they were lost was a harvest evening of uncommon mildness and beauty: the sun had newly set; the moon came brighter and brighter out; and the reapers, laying their sickles at the root of the standing corn, stood on rock and bank, looking at the increasing magnitude of the waters, for sea and land were visible from Saint Bees to Barnhourie. The sails of two vessels were soon seen bent for the Scottish coast; and with a speed outrunning the swiftest ship, they approached ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... conclusions; he had the talent of a fly which drops plumb upon the best bit of meat in the middle of a kitchen. In this way he came to be regarded as an indispensable helper to statesmen. A belief in his capacity had taken such deep root in all minds that the more ambitious public men felt it was necessary to compromise des Lupeaulx in some way to prevent his rising higher; they made up to him for his subordinate public position ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... I am taking. [The Mid[-e]/ has pulled up a medicinal root. This denotes his possessing a wonderful medicine and appears in ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman

... may be described as broad, flat, bridgeless, with prominent arched alae almost as high as the central cartilage of the nose and with the nostrils invariably visible from the front. The nasal index obtained by dividing the nasal breadth by the height from the root of the nose to the septum and multiplying the quotient by 100 serves to indicate the group to which the individual belongs. Thus it will be seen that races with a nasal index of more than 100 have a nose wider than it is ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed

... the Termination with the Root was overlooked in the older editions of the Gaelic Psalms; as pronnfidh, cuirfar, molfidh, innsam, guidham, coimhdar, sinnam, ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... lower forms of plants there is very little distinction between the various parts—no differentiation into root, stem, or crown. Often the lower forms of animal and vegetable life are so similar that one cannot discriminate between them. But as we ascend in the scale, the various plant forms become more and ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... clods. One day I set Philetus to work among my flowers; and the first thing I knew he had pulled up a fine passion-flower which didn't make much shew above ground and was displaying it to me with the grave commentary, 'Well! that root did grow ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... similar institutions, with many of the same usages and customs. However little we may be interested in the American Indians personally, their experience touches us more nearly, as an exemplification of the experience of our own ancestors. Our primary institutions root themselves in a prior gentile society in which the gens, phratry, and tribe were the organic series, and in which the council of chiefs was the instrument of government. The phenomena of their ancient society must have presented many points in common with that ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... It had its root in the growing prosperity of the Danish city. The Irish had no towns. Town life was introduced among them by the Norsemen. And of their towns Dublin was always the chief. By this time it had become so important that it had good right to be called the metropolis of the country. ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... protection of your honour's party in these kittle times. Ah! your honour has a notable faculty in searching and explaining the secret,—aye, the secret and obscure and incomprehensible causes of the backslidings of the land; aye, your honour touches the root o' the matter.' ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... O God! Strike and spare not! Cut them off root and branch who have despoiled thy people Israel. They have taken the sword and may they perish by it as was promised ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady



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