Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Supernumerary   Listen
Supernumerary

noun
(pl. supernumeraries)
1.
A person serving no apparent function.
2.
A minor actor in crowd scenes.  Synonyms: extra, spear carrier.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Supernumerary" Quotes from Famous Books



... gentleman en mufti, but wearing a military cap with an oil-skin cover, was revealed. Until now he had seemed an impassive supernumerary. But he was biding his time, and—with due respect be it said—saving his wind, and now in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... on the coast, we returned to Kuchin on Saturday the 19th, when we found that death had deprived us of our only musician on board the ship, a loss which was much felt by the crew, as he contributed much to their amusement. One of the supernumerary boys had also fallen a victim to the dysentery; but, although we deplored our loss, we had great reason to be thankful that it had been no greater, as on the day we left Kuchin, we had upwards of seventy men on the sick report. The same day, at noon, the anchor was weighed, and we dropped down ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat

... expressed in terms of functionary clothes they had hoped to soothe their vanity. White cotton and a tinted tie would have been smilingly honoured; and the mere man was not flattered to perceive that he was less in esteem than the drapery common to the species. I never will be content to be a supernumerary ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... their due. But it was not so pleasant to look at Crosbie, who was fidgeting to get away to his office, to whom no power of choosing in the matter was really given, and whom the men regarded as being altogether supernumerary. The ladies had promised to be at the shop by half-past ten, so that Crosbie should reach his office at eleven—or a little after. But it was nearly eleven before they left the Gazebee residence, and it was very evident that half-an-hour among the carpets would be ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... the flower-like head is supported upon a rounded stem, the joints of which are elaborately articulated with one another; and the fringed arms are composed each of a double series of alternating calcareous pieces. The Palaeozoic Urchins, with their supernumerary rows of plates, the Cystideans, and the Pentremites have finally disappeared; but both Star-fishes and Brittle-stars continue to be represented. One of the latter—namely, the Aspidura loricata of Goldfuss (fig. 143)—is ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... not the habit of listening to words without understanding them, yawn and writhe with manifest symptoms of disgust, whenever they are compelled to hear sounds which convey no ideas to their minds. All supernumerary words should be avoided in cultivating the power ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... than most tales of the kind, as I have it at second-hand from the lips of Dolph Heyliger himself. He never related it till towards the latter part of his life, and then in great confidence, (for he was very discreet,) to a few of his particular cronies at his own table over a supernumerary bowl of punch; and, strange as the hobgoblin parts of the story may seem, there never was a single doubt expressed on the subject by any of his guests. It may not be amiss, before concluding, to observe ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... arguments to show the policy of this measure, even with reference to agriculture, arising out of the general positions I have stated, such as the advantage husbandmen find in a manufacturing country, in placing their weak or supernumerary children to trades, and procuring a number of hands on a short notice, at any of those critical periods, which so frequently occur in the culture of land, without being compelled to maintain them all the year, which increase their profit though ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... General Hooker. Shortly after that battle he asked to be transferred to some other command, and was assigned to the Department of the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania, where the duty was merely administrative. In reducing these organizations in the fall of 1864, he became a supernumerary. See Walker's Second ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... replied: "To grant the possible putting forth of a supernumerary arm and hand would make physiological science foolish. It is easier to imagine these ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland

... the phrase Used in politest circles to express This supernumerary slave, who stays Close to the lady as a part of dress, Her word the only law which he obeys. His is no sinecure, as you may guess; Coach, servants, gondola, he goes to call, And carries fan and tippet, gloves ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... commanded the waiter to find another chair somewhere, even at the risk of being obliged to compress his ample form against the wall; but now he retained his seat in deliberate helplessness, hoping that the situation would presently be adjusted by the tactful withdrawal of the only supernumerary of the party. Unhappily for this hope, the supernumerary was not disposed to regard himself as such. He may have known that Cobbens would have left his hat outside had he intended to remain, but at all events, it needed only Miss Wycliffe's smile of welcome ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... play in the future. We know the friends, the godfather, the priest, in whom we find an admirable sketch from a decomposed and dying society. He who, in a proper state of things, would have been the representative of living spiritual principles, is a mere supernumerary. He makes signs of the cross, pronounces accustomed formulas, but he never once thinks of examining into the strange and contradictory relations existing between the husband, forced by his very being into the Future, and the wife, fettered by the conventions and chains of the Past. Neither ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... together with the commanding officer of the Southern army, be empowered to incorporate the several Continental battalions of their States with each other respectively, agreeably to the arrangement of the army, as established by the resolutions of May 27, 1778; and to appoint such of the supernumerary officers to command the said negroes as shall choose ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... possessed of a legal mind, has employed in the sequence of institutional change hitherto. The legal mind that dominates in the current deliberations on peace is at home in exhaustive specifications and meticulous demarkations, and it is therefore prone to seek a remedy for the burden of supernumerary devices by recourse ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... other kinds of monstrous births, which neither depend on deficiency of parts, or supernumerary ones; nor are owing to the conjunction of animals of different species; but which appear to be new conformations, or new dispositions of parts in respect to each other, and which, like the variation of colours and forms of our domesticated animals, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... soldier, with nothing but a few hundred yards of desert between himself and death, Jack's first impulse was to raise his rifle and blaze away at random as fast as he could load; but the clear, calm voices in the supernumerary rank, and the old habit of discipline, held ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... stems the vine may have in its first growth, but now one only, if strong, or two at the most, should be suffered to rise and cling to the prop: more would be superfluous and only weaken the whole. The supernumerary shoots however are usefully employed, being either conducted through narrow trenches to adjacent chinkareens whose vines have failed, or taken off at the root and transplanted to others more distant, where, coiled round and buried as ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... Aristocrat Lameths once thundered: whom gradually your Brissots, Guadets, Vergniauds, a hotter style of Patriots in bonnet rouge, did displace; red heat, as one may say, superseding light. And now your Brissots in turn, and Brissotins, Rolandins, Girondins, are becoming supernumerary; must desert the sittings, or be expelled: the light of the Mighty Mother is burning not red but blue!—Provincial Daughter-Societies loudly disapprove these things; loudly demand the swift reinstatement of such eloquent Girondins, the swift 'erasure of Marat, radiation de Marat.' ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... having inherited bases, owe their expression almost wholly to outside influences. Professor Morgan, for example, has found a strain of fruit flies whose offspring in cold weather are usually born with supernumerary legs. In hot weather they are practically normal. If this strain were bred only in the tropics, the abnormality would probably not be noticed; on the other hand, if it were bred only in cold regions, it would be set down as one ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... or pupal stage of female Coccidae; also to a supernumerary stage before the formation of the pupa, ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... for several years, and had become learned in many arts, when one day the gardener Sent, from whom I was accustomed to buy plants for my mixtures—he rents a plot of ground from the temple of Seti—Sent brought me a new-born child that had been born with six toes; I was to remove the supernumerary toe by my art. The pious mother of the child was lying ill of fever, or she never would have allowed it; I took the screaming little wretch—for such things are sometimes curable. The next morning, a few hours after sunrise, there was a bustle in front of my ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... form, both as regards the vascular, the muscular, and the osseous systems of the human body, are analyzed by comparison through the animal series. Numerous cases are on record of the subclavian artery being found complicated with supernumerary ribs jutting from the 5th, 6th, or 7th cervical vertebrae. [Footnote] To these I shall add another, in respect of the carotid arteries—viz., that I have found them complicated with an osseous shaft of bone, taking place of the stylo-hyoid ligament, a condition which obtains permanently in ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise

... impulse, provoked by the liking he inspired; and the renewed sense of power in handling men, while it consoled her wounded vanity, helped also to obscure the thought of the claim at which his manner hinted. He was a coarse dull man who, under all his show of authority, was a mere supernumerary in the costly show for which his money paid: surely, to a clever girl, it would be easy to hold him by his vanity, and so keep ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... Koken. To meet the expense of building temples and casting images, men of substance in the provinces were urged to make contributions of money, cereals, or land, and in return for this liberality they were granted official posts. It resulted that no less than thirty-one supernumerary provincial governors were borne on the roll at one time, and since all these regarded office as a means of recouping the cost of nomination, taxpayers and persons liable to the corvee fared ill. In 774, Koken issued an edict that provincial governors who had held office for five years or upwards ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... body of inmates subsisting on food far exceeding both in kind and amount, not merely the diet of the independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who contributed to their support. The farmer paid 10 s. in the pound in poor-rates, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary labourers not required on his farm, at a cost of from 100 l. to 250 l. a year; the labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all the slave's security for support, without the slave's ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... just behind him, outside the fence calls out, "Where's the sentinel here?" and there stood the Major. "Here I am, Sir!" "Get down and walk your post, Sir!" "All right, Sir!" But very shortly after, the Corporal came from the guardhouse, with a Supernumerary of the guard and relieved our friend, who was marched off to guard quarters ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little

... place. Perhaps that may help you—perhaps not. Then what I have told you about the tarkeean, if you want to transact offeecial business with a strange man. Of course, at present, you have no offeecial business. You are—ah ha!—supernumerary on probation. Quite unique specimen. If you were Asiatic of birth you might be employed right off; but this half-year of leave is to make you de-Englishized, you see? The lama he expects you, because I have demi-offeecially informed him you have ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... it is, that the Hebrew ladies, like those of Greece, were no strangers to the half-mantle—fastened by a clasp in front of each shoulder, and suffered to flow in free draperies down the back; this was an occasional and supernumerary garment flung over the regular upper robe—properly ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... pleased to approve of the promotion of Colonel (local Lieutenant-General) Sir W. P. Symons, K.C.B., commanding 4th Division Natal Field Force, to be Major-General, supernumerary to the establishment, for ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... to command which Sir John Warren, then first lieutenant of the Victory, was appointed, and Mr. Saumarez was ordered in his stead to join the Victory, then bearing the flag of Sir Charles Hardy, at whose request he was continued in that ship, where he was third lieutenant in seniority, but supernumerary on the books. Besides the commander-in-chief of the Channel fleet, Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt, as first, and Captain Collings, as second captain, were both on board the Victory detached to cruise off Brest, commencing in June 1779, and returning ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... sending its most splendid products for the gratification of Mademoiselle Cabirolle, now called Florentine. The magnificence which suddenly burst upon her apartment in the rue de Vendome would have satisfied the most ambitious supernumerary. After being the master of the ship for seven years, Cardot now found himself towed along by a force of unlimited caprice. But the luckless old gentleman was fond of his tyrant. Florentine was to close his eyes; he meant to leave her a hundred ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... imputation of excess in some popular absurdity—duels are courted by the daring, and vaunted by the coward—he who trembles at the idea of death and a future state when alone, proclaims himself an atheist or a free-thinker in public—the water-drinker, who suffers the penitence of a week for a supernumerary glass, recounts the wonders of his intemperance—and he who does not mount the gentlest animal without trepidation, plumes himself on breaking down horses, and his perils in the chace. In short, whatever order of mankind we contemplate, we shall perceive ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... deformities are all transmissible from parents to offspring, equally with diseases and peculiar proclivities. Among such blemishes may be mentioned moles, hair-lips, deficient or supernumerary fingers, toes, and other characteristics. It is also asserted that dogs and cats that have accidentally lost their tails, bring forth young similarly deformed. Blumenbach tells of a man who had lost his little finger, having children ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... were exploded under the windows of the Tuileries, the police made a sudden investigation of the palace at four o'clock in the morning; when a scene of the most whimsical confusion ensued. Hosts of supernumerary inhabitants were found foisted into the huge edifice; every rat-hole had its occupant; and places which had been considered as tenanted only by spiders were found crowded with a surreptitious population. It is added that many ludicrous accidents occurred; great scampering ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... weather or weak swarms. Temperature above 70 deg. for the production of young. Thin hives, their insufficiency. Brood combs, danger of exposure to low temperature, 49. Cocoons of drones and workers perfect. Cocoons of queens imperfect, the cause, 50. Number of eggs dependent on the weather, &c. Supernumerary eggs, how disposed of, 51. Queen bee, fertility diminishes after her third year. Dies in her fourth year, 52. Drones, description of. Their proper office. Destroyed by the bees. When first appear, 53. None in weak hives. Great number of them. Rapid increase of bees ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... Peterborough hastened to explain, 'was almost entirely supernumerary. The circumstances being so, I the more readily acquiesced in the title of private chaplain, prepared to fulfil such duties as devolved upon me in that capacity, and acting thereon I proffered my occasional ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Coldstream Guards, and was soon quartered in London. In 1792, as a sergeant, he was transferred to the West Norfolk Regiment of Militia, with headquarters at East Dereham. A company of players from Norwich frequently visited that nice little town, and in one of them appeared, as a supernumerary, Ann Perfrement, the pretty daughter of a small farmer of Dumpling Green, on the outskirts of the town. This maiden, of Huguenot descent, fascinated the Cornish soldier, and the two were married at Dereham Church on February 11th, ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... and waste of aliment absolutely incapable of calculation. It is only the wealthy that can, to any great degree, even now, indulge the unnatural craving for dead flesh, and they pay for the greater license of the privilege, by subjection to supernumerary diseases. ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... there were three state-rooms for these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in one of those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess, with shame, that I busied myself in a variety of ill-bred and preposterous conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary state-room. It was no business of mine, to be sure, but with none the less pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve the enigma. At last I reached a conclusion which wrought in me great wonder why I ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... seeing apparitions and hearing death-watches; and was the other day almost frighted out of her wits by the great house-dog that howled in the stable, at a time when she lay ill of the toothache. Such an extravagant cast of mind engages multitudes of people not only in impertinent terrors, but in supernumerary duties of life, and arises from that fear and ignorance which are natural to the soul of man. The horror with which we entertain the thoughts of death, or indeed of any future evil, and the uncertainty of its approach, fill a melancholy mind with innumerable ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... as Larry relaxed in relief. "Whoever this practical joker is, we will show him he is wasting his talents—even though it means carrying a supernumerary for the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... of inventing as a remedy for the inconveniences resulting from this situation a supernumerary conceptual object called an absolute, into which you pack the self-same contradictions unreduced, I will say something in the next lecture. The absolute is said to perform its feats by taking up its other into itself. But that is exactly what ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... happened that her negro husband possessed a sixth digit on each hand, but there was no peculiarity of any kind in the white man, yet when the mulatto child was born it actually presented the deformity of a supernumerary finger.' Taruffi, the celebrated Italian teratologist, in speaking of the subject, says: 'Our knowledge of this strange fact is by no means recent for Fienus, in 1608, said that most of the children born in adultery have a greater resemblance to the legal than to the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... added] Adjunct — N. adjunct; addition, additament^; additum [Lat.], affix, appelidage^, annexe^, annex; augment, augmentation; increment, reinforcement, supernumerary, accessory, item; garnish, sauce; accompaniment &c 88; adjective, addendum; complement, supplement; continuation. rider, offshoot, episode, side issue, corollary; piece [Fr.]; flap, lappet, skirt, embroidery, trappings, cortege; tail, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... expression, would have become metaphysical dogma. I should have connected the given fact with imagined facts, which even if by chance real—for such a goddess may, for all we know, actually float in the fourth dimension—are quite supernumerary in my world, and never, by any possibility, can become parts or extensions of the experience they are thought to explain. The gods are demonstrable only as hypotheses, but as hypotheses they ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... watching a critical case; and by the time I reached Great Stanhope Street I found Hilda Wade, in her nurse's dress, there before me. Sebastian, it seemed, had given her leave out for the evening. She was a supernumerary nurse, attached to his own observation-cots as special attendant for scientific purposes, and she could generally get an hour or ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... was secured in a stable, before which the constable kept guard; mine host, and the waiter, and the ostlers acted as a sort of supernumerary police, to repress the multitude; while Peter held the real pony by the bridle, whose identity, which he frequently attested, was considered by all present as an incontrovertible evidence of ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... years wore on, the influence of the young fellow's superior intellect made itself felt. Prom the position of a mere supernumerary, he worked his way upwards, taking on to his shoulders one duty after another—bearing the weight, quietly and confidently, of one responsibility after another. This exactly suited Mr. Bodery and his sub-editor. There was very little of the slave in the composition ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... we see it, is only made up of such supernumerary arguments against an independent power in the church, as he could not, without nauseous repetition, scatter into the body of his book: And it is detached, like a forlorn hope, to blunt the enemy's ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... of the status of Bachelor as a degree, but originally it is doubtful if the description would have been deemed accurate. Like the Master, the Bachelor might be a teacher, but his lectures were, for the most part, of an "extraordinary" or "supernumerary" character, and not allowed to compete with the "ordinary" lectures of the Master or Doctor. The number of bachelors so privileged—instances even occur of such half-finished clerks officiating as Principals ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... "burr" means the lobe, or lap of the ear; and those who can fancy such a resemblance between this and the covering of our acorn, are at liberty to use the two final consonants. Having commenced stereotyping with this supernumerary, for the sake of uniformity that mode of spelling, wrong as we think it, has been continued ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... assignment of commissions; cases accepted must not be thrown up; requests of parties for summoning of witnesses are not to be entered on the record; testimony is to be taken before local magistrates, if so desired; rights of commissioners-in-ordinary and of supernumerary commissioners to assignments.] ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... "and I literally began to prepare myself for the examination only one week in advance." He obtained his degree of candidate, or bachelor of arts, and returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived until 1851, when he entered the Forty-fourth Battery of the Twentieth Brigade of Artillery as "yunker" or supernumerary officer, with no official rank, but eligible to receive a commission as ensign, and thence advance in the service. This battery was stationed on the Terek River, in the Caucasus, and there Tolstoy remained with it until the Crimean War broke out. Thus during the first twenty-six years ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... succeeded in making his escape at the fatal defeat of the Moravian Village, with a few men of his company, had in the absence of his Regiment, (then prisoners of war) and from considerations of personal esteem, been attached as a supernumerary to his staff. With him at this moment was the light hearted De Courcy, and as the young men rode a little in rear of their Chief, they were so rapt in admiration of his fine form and noble daring, (as he still kept dashing ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... perceptive faculties to the force of the expected articulations, is clear from the fact that we are balked by halting versification. Much as at the bottom of a flight of stairs, a step more or less than we counted upon gives us a shock; so, too, does a misplaced accent or a supernumerary syllable. In the one case, we know that there is an erroneous preadjustment; and we can scarcely doubt that there is one in the other. But if we habitually preadjust our perceptions to the measured movement of verse, the physical analogy above given renders it probable that by so doing we economize ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer

... been implanted in the Roman temperament with a strong hand. An unsophisticated American is wonderstruck at the number of persons, of every age and various conditions, whom it costs nothing in the nature of an ingenuous blush to walk up and down the streets in the costume of a theatrical supernumerary. Fathers of families do it at the head of an admiring progeniture; aunts and uncles and grandmothers do it; all the family does it, with varying splendour but with the same good conscience. "A pack of babies!" the doubtless too self- conscious alien pronounces it for its pains, and tries to ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... began to tell upon a strong constitution, so that in 1812 he was compelled to become a supernumerary, though not desisting altogether from rendering whatever service his health would permit in extending the cause that lay so near his heart. Along with the Rev. William Bennett he was delegated by the British Conference to attend the Conference in the United States, ...
— William Black - The Apostle of Methodism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada • John Maclean

... asked an explanation of the meaning of the term, when Mr. Howel informed him that an 'extra' in America meant a supernumerary coach, to carry any excess of the ordinary number of passengers; whereas an 'exclusive extra' meant a coach expressly ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... Slade, who had taken a great fancy to Will—"Billy, this is a hard life, and you're too young to stand it. You've done good service, and in consideration of it I'll make you a supernumerary. You'll have to ride only when ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... if the palace is blown up, the Casa de Moneda will most certainly keep it company. When the proclamation came out in the morning, various were the opinions expressed in consequence. Some believed it to be a mere threat, and others that it would take place at eleven at night. An old supernumerary soldier who lives here (one of those who was disabled by the last revolution) assured us that we had better leave the house, and as we refused, on the plea of having no safer house to go to, he walked off to the azotea, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... regiment, under the command of Wolfe. In his regiment he continued a private, corporal, and sergeant for seven years, was present at the siege of Belleisle, and saw service in Portugal, Gibraltar, and Minorca. At the end of the war he returned home as a supernumerary excise-man. About 1761 his friends placed him in the King's Head inn at Canterbury where he soon failed. Parker went upon the stage in Ireland, and in company with Brownlow Ford, a clergyman of convivial habits, strolled over the greater part of the island. On his return to London ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... in which the United States may become involved the Army shall be reduced to a peace basis by the transfer in the same arm of the service or absorption by promotion or honorable discharge, under such regulations as the Secretary of War may establish, of supernumerary commissioned officers and the honorable discharge or transfer of supernumerary enlisted men; and nothing contained in this act shall be construed as authorizing the permanent increase of the commissioned or enlisted force of the Regular Army beyond that now provided ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... employments of the State, political, military, ecclesiastical, judiciary, administrative and university, all the honors and dignities which it dispenses, all the grades of its hierarchy from the lowest to the highest, from that of corporal, college-regent, alderman, office—supernumerary, assistant priest up to that of senator, marshal of France, grand master of the university, cardinal, and minister of State. It confers on its possessor, according to the greater or lesser importance of the place, a greater or lesser portion ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... aligned: the N.C.O.'s retire to the supernumerary ranks. The battalion stands rigid, facing a motionless figure upon ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... disunion in which we lived, it was every man for himself, and God, I am sorry to say, seemed to have very little to do with any of us. So complete was our disorganisation, and so great our destitution as a mess, that, after the first week, the supernumerary sick young gentlemen were relieved from this candlelight den of starvation and of dirt, and distributed ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... bull Juancho had to kill was of formidable breed; seven horses, stretched lifeless upon the sand, their bowels protruding from hideous wounds, told of his fury and vigour. The two picadores had left the arena, sorely bruised and crippled by numerous falls, and the supernumerary waited in the corridor, foot in stirrup and lance in fist, ready to replace them. The chulos prudently kept themselves in the vicinity of the palisade, one foot on the wooden ledge which aids them to leap ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... member of the Richmond Howitzers who was dying. Our course was along a by-road in the direction of Hagerstown. In the afternoon, after joining the wagon-train, I found "Joe," the colored cook of my mess, in possession of a supernumerary battery-horse, which I appropriated and mounted. Our column now consisted of ambulances loaded with wounded men, wounded men on foot, cows, bulls, quartermasters, portable forges, surgeons, cooks, and camp-followers in general, all plodding gloomily ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... Malthus recognized over-population as a necessity of modern industry, though, after his narrow fashion, he explains it by the absolute over-growth of the laboring population, not by their becoming relatively supernumerary." A few pages later, however, Marx comes back again to the question of over-population, failing to realize that it is to the capitalists' advantage that the working classes are unceasingly prolific. "The folly is now patent," writes the unsuspecting Marx, "of the economic wisdom that preaches to ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse. So as theology consisteth also of history of the Church; of parables, which is divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept. For as for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is but divine history, which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration may be before the fact as ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... I sometimes wished I had something to do, but we had supernumerary servants, and if I found any employment it must have been similar to that of Jack the bean-boy, who poured his beans on the floor and then picked them up again. I was fond of sewing. But the wardrobe of a young bride is generally ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... I noticed a curious trifle. The fence along my road had good cedar posts, placed about fifteen feet apart. But at one point there were two posts where one would have done. The wire, in fact, was not fastened at all to the supernumerary one, and yet this useless post was strongly braced by two stout, slanting poles. A mere nothing, which I mention only because it was destined to be an important landmark for ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... you the first company which may fall vacant in his regiment. If a vacancy should not occur shortly I will place you in another regiment until one may happen in your own corps. To you, sergeant, I give a commission as officer. You will take that rank at once, and will be a supernumerary in your regiment till a vacancy occurs. Such promotion has been well and worthily won by ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... you are making, depends how many pairs of bobbins you will have to use. But as one part of the lace is often made before the other, or you have to put on supernumerary bobbins, you fasten up those not in use on one side with pins, as shown in ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... be entered in the Rattlesnake under the provisions of the Act of Parliament. The books of the Bramble are to be closed, and she is to be considered as no longer in commission; and you are here by authorised, after being joined by her and by the Castlereagh, to enter ten supernumerary seaman for wages and victuals in the Rattlesnake (making her total complement 190) to enable you effectively to ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... "Why, a supernumerary. I want a number of people to take part in the production, as Green Mountain Boys or British soldiers or the mob, or roles like that, where good actors are not needed. I have a big battle scene as a climax. I'll need you ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump

... great economy of such a measure must be obvious to everyone, seeing that, instead of each coach changing horses between London and Edinburgh, say twenty-five times, requiring a hundred horses, besides the supernumerary ones kept at every stage in case of accidents, the whole journey of several coaches would be performed with the simple expense of one steam engine. No animal strength will be able to give that uniform and regular acceleration to our commercial intercourse which may be accomplished by railways; ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... soldier will be silent and attentive, wait for orders, and reserve his fire till he is sure of its doing execution;—the officers to be particularly careful of this. The colonels and commanding officers of regiments are to see their supernumerary officers so posted as to keep their men to their duty; and it may not be amiss for the troops to know, that, if any infamous rascal shall attempt to skulk, hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... second fingers slightly expanded; fingers from shortest to longest, 1-2-4-3, first only slightly shorter than second; three palmar tubercles; inner palmar tubercle about one third size of large median tubercle; outer tubercle about one tenth size of large median tubercle; four supernumerary palmar tubercles; tips of toes slightly wider than narrowest part of digits; toes from shortest to longest, 1-2-5-3-4, second only slightly shorter than fifth; inner metatarsal tubercle about four times size of small outer metatarsal tubercle; supernumerary ...
— A New Species of Frog (Genus Tomodactylus) from Western Mexico • Robert G. Webb

... growth—for example, cancer—are known to occur with undue frequency in certain families. The same influence is more striking in the case of certain innocent tumours—particularly multiple osteomas and lipomas—which are hereditary in the same sense as supernumerary or webbed fingers, and appear in members of the same ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... more assured public. There were indeed other publics, publics downstairs, who glimmer before me seated at the open folding-doors of ancient parlours, but all from the point of view of an absolute supernumerary, more or less squashed into the wing but never coming on. Who were the copious Hunts?—whose ample house, on the north side, toward Seventh Avenue, still stands, next or near that of the De Peysters, so that I perhaps confound ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... collaboration with divers celebrities, had now produced a piece professedly entirely his own. It had been specially composed for the leading lady, a young actress who began her stage career as a supernumerary at the Gaite, and had been promoted to small parts for the last twelvemonth. But though Mlle. Florine's acting had attracted some attention, she obtained no engagement, and the Panorama accordingly had carried her off. Coralie, another ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... and the children in the pantomime of the "New Circus" laugh most, was the incessant quarrel between an enormous Danish hound and a poor old supernumerary, who was blackened like a negro minstrel, and dressed like a Mulatto woman. The dog was always annoying him, followed him, snapped at his legs, and at his old wig, with his sharp teeth, and tore his coat and his silk pocket-handkerchief, whenever he could get hold of it, to pieces. And the man ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... up, and the car caught and pushed before it. Andrews tried the device a second time, another car being dropped. It was picked up by Fuller in the same manner as before. On reaching a siding at Resaca station, the Confederate engineer switched off these supernumerary cars, and pushed ahead again ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... teeth may also show irregular wear from similar causes, or from a disease or malformation of the jaw. Their edges may become sharp, or it may happen that a molar tooth has been accidentally fractured. It may also occur that a supernumerary tooth has developed in an unusual position, and that it interferes with the natural and regular mastication ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... as may be Mme. Charman's profession, she has more than once had business with M. Lecoq; she has need of him and fears him as she does fire. She, therefore, welcomed the detective and his companion—whom she took for one of his colleagues—somewhat as the supernumerary of a theatre would greet his manager if the latter chanced to pay him a visit ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau

... and the woman he had stolen. There we were—the rightful avenger, according to the code, and the supernumerary who writes these words. ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... harm to the public service, as well as to individuals, had prevailed for many years in Bavaria in almost all the public departments of the state, that of appointing a great number of supernumerary clerks, secretaries, counsellors, etc. who, serving without pay, or with only small allowances, were obliged, in order to subsist till such time as they should come into the receipt of the regulated salaries annexed to their offices, to contract debts to a considerable ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... during the whole of the great Soldiers' Chorus? Is this the reason why nowadays the ever-popular Soldiers' Chorus is seldom encored? As this monotonous action on the part of the Bannerman (not CAMPBELL of that ilk, but the ensign-bearing supernumerary) suggests "flagging interest," hadn't it better be ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various

... were placed on the road again, and the Express was resumed. Slade, who was greatly pleased with our exploit, now assigned me as special or supernumerary rider. Thereafter while I was with him I had a comparatively easy time of it, riding only now and then, and having plenty of opportunity for seeking after the new ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... up his coat-cuffs, as if to be ready for a fight; Madame Filomel glided, or rather rolled, towards the door; while Kerplonne put his hand into his pocket, as if to assure himself that his supernumerary optic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... it had ever been before." Of course there was an outcry against the Superintendent of Finance; "he rather wondered that the clamor was not more loud and tremendous." He remembered that "one hundred and forty-six supernumerary officers were brushed off in one day, who had long been sucking the vital blood and spirit of the nation. Was it to be wondered at, if this swarm should raise a buzz about him?" Gerry fought on almost singlehanded, but he could not refute ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... ranks. They stood aloof—very suspicious, not without reason, of her new political friends—no admirers of the newspapers which she patronized, and not in the least able to perceive the nature of the interest which she had begun to take in supernumerary bishops and the Irish Establishment. And now, when once more in a position worthy of her old character, and when her Tory friends—converted at once into the bitterest and most ungenerous of enemies—were turning upon her to rend her, she had at once to encounter the hostility ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... one of the bad-news items. There had been government-spending reforms before, almost all of which had resulted in confusion, panic, loss of essential services—and twice as many men on the payroll, since the government now had to hire useless efficiency experts, accountants and other such supernumerary workers. ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... paused in his whistle to listen to the strain. Mr. Tressle's man, who had been professionally occupied, ceased his tap-tap upon the coffin which he was getting in readiness. The greengrocer (there is always a greengrocer in those narrow streets, and he goes out in white Berlin gloves as a supernumerary footman) was standing charmed at his little green gate; the cobbler (there is always a cobbler too) was drunk, as usual, of evenings, but, with unusual subordination, never sang except when the refrain of the ditty arrived, when he ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... will maintain each his own freedom. Hence the absence, very commonly, in domestic society, of the attentiveness, the tone of civility, the promptitude of compliance, the habit of little accommodations, voluntary and supernumerary, which are so observable in the intercourse of friends, acquaintance, and often, as we have ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... 'mostwards'; leastwise so I find, for a black region it is, and if you ain't in the same field with the hounds, you don't know whether you are in the same parish, what with hedges, and trees, and woods, and all supernumerary vegetations. Actually I was pounded in a 'taty-garden,' so awful is the amount of green stuff in these parts. Come and see me, and take the old mare out, and if you don't break her neck, she ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... down at a bracelet which she was turning idly round her arm. Get on without him! Alas, what part had Daniel Granger played in her life of late beyond that of some supernumerary king in a stage-play?—a person of importance by rank and title in the play-bill, but of scarcely any significance to the story. Her guilty heart told her how little he had ever been to her; how, day by day, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... horse with golden dapples—a slim, proud thing which suited Runyon in every detail. When you saw him mounted you thought of a parade; you wondered where the rest of it was—the supernumerary complement. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... his Ten Thousand, according to contract; sends, over and above, a beautiful stock of "copper pontoons" to help the Imperial Majesty in that River Country, says Fassmann;—sends also a supernumerary Troop of Hussars, who are worth mentioning, "Six-score horse of Hussar type," under one Captain Ziethen, a taciturn, much-enduring, much-observing man, whom we shall see again: these are to be diligently helpful, as is natural; but they are also, for their own behoof, to be diligently ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... anything but lands and cattle, the only real goods which men can possess. But when estates increased so much in number and in extent as to take in whole countries and touch each other, it became impossible for one man to aggrandise himself but at the expense of some other; and the supernumerary inhabitants, who were too weak or too indolent to make such acquisitions in their turn, impoverished without losing anything, because while everything about them changed they alone remained the ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... suppose he was inclined for a little sight-seeing like the rest of us." Cartlett's interest in Jude whatever it might have been when Arabella was new to him, had plainly flagged since her charms and her idiosyncrasies, her supernumerary hair-coils, and her optional dimples, were becoming as a tale ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... burning with desire to make their fortunes in the New World. They caught much more eagerly than the old and wary colonists at the golden bait held out to them; and with their addition, and that of a few supernumerary stragglers who hung about the town, Almagro found himself at the head of a reinforcement of at least eighty men, with which, having laid in a fresh supply of stores, he again set sail for the Rio ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... Hell-tantrum, and his rider's lips drew tight over clenched teeth as he mastered self, agony and horse in one man's effort. Fight how he would, heel, tooth and eye all flashing, Bagh was forced to hold his rightful place in front of the squadron, precisely the right distance behind the last supernumerary of the ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... the pains to lower the curtains. I passed over in my mind all that the Duchess had said to me. It was very easy for me to understand that the monarch's heart had escaped me, and that, owing to his character, all resistance, all contradiction would be vain. The figure, as it had been supernumerary and on sufferance, which the Duchess had made in the midst of the Court when she ceased to be loved, returned to my memory completely, and I felt I had not the courage to drink a similar cup ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... satisfaction and content. They were mine. Hildreth was my woman, Daniel had been my child for the space he was with us. And I held Darrie in friendly tenderness, much as the bourgeois business man holds the supernumerary women of his household, though she was by no means that, nor was she in any ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... however, so determinedly but that he was induced at last to allow his name to be entered in Fred's note-book as a supernumerary. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... take this letter which I am signing to the Palace of the Louvre, where you will ask for the third supernumerary private Secretary of the Minister, to whom you are to hand it with the money there on the table, and say that it is sent by the Marquis de Lotbiniere. Repeat the name twice very distinctly to him, and see ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall

... observed that sir John Chickwell might very well afford to keep more servants than were found in the family of a man who had not half his fortune. Mrs Baynard ate no supper that evening; but was seized with a violent fit, which completed her triumph over the spirit of her consort. The two supernumerary servants were added — The family plate was sold for old silver, and a new service procured; fashionable furniture was provided, and the whole ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... Harrington was also in America, a captain in the 29th foot, and a supernumerary aid of general Burgoyne. He was very soon exchanged, and in two years after, we heard of his surrender at discretion to the fair heiress of Brompton park. He has recently been most distinguished as the father of that eminent fop, Lord Petersham, the envy of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various

... those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess with shame that I busied myself in a variety of ill-bred and preposterous conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary stateroom. It was no business of mine, to be sure; but with none the less pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve the enigma. At last I reached a conclusion which wrought in me great wonder why I had not arrived at it before. "It is a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... been augmented by the stagnant state of promotion, caused by the reductions in 1829, when one-fifth of the infantry, and one-fourth of the cavalry, native commissioned and non-commissioned officers, became supernumerary, thus effectually closing the door of promotion to the inferior grades for years to come. Hopeless of advancement, the sepoy from that time became gradually less attentive to his duties, less respectful to his superiors, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... residence in the convent, had time to forget her and lose his preference for her. She was not discharged, but except for taking her turn as a nursery-maid when the Prince was at St. Germain, she was a mere supernumerary, nor was there any salary forthcoming. The small amount of money she had with her had dwindled away, and when she applied to Lady Strickland, who was kinder to her than any one else, she was told that the Queen was far too much distressed ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to the faubourg du Temple, found the house, and asked to see Mademoiselle Turquet, who during the summer was substituting for the leading horsewoman at the Cirque-Olympique, and a supernumerary at a ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... mean a supernumerary, Footelights," said Mr. Cheke, the gentleman Commoner of Corpus, "then the Pet isn't one. He's the leading character of what you would call the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... intrusion, and left the old gentleman, still motionless, looking vacantly at the wall. The old Duke saw no Mount Ararat rising from the troubled waters; all that made life worth living for him had passed away, and he lagged superfluous on the stage; a supernumerary with a pasteboard coronet; laughed at and ranted about in the pantomime at which the world had laughed, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... with your Catullus; For, to ensure the dishes' savour, Yourself shall cater, and shall cull us Best fruits—and wines of choicest flavour. And with you bring your lass—fun—laughter— All plenty: nor confine your wishes To supernumerary dishes;— Bring all—and pay the piper after. Rich be your fare—and all fruition, Taste, elegance, and sweet discourses Familiar, on that one condition. For, truth to tell, my wretched purse is In its last stage of inanition, And not a single coin disburses: A cobweb's over ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... coincidence of chronology, the Christian persecutor celebrated the birth of his Saviour? Through misty eyes she saw her husband's face, stern and rugged, yet made venerable by the flowing white of his locks and beard, as with the supernumerary taper he prepared to light the wax candles in the nine-branched candlestick of silver. He wore a long, hooded mantle reaching to the feet, and showing where it fell back in front a brown gaberdine clasped by a girdle. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... affected blindness, as if, with a reminiscence of her old parts, she was only required to figure as a supernumerary. ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... as decently as circumstances would admit, in graves dug on the Fleet side of the beach, beyond the reach of the sea, where a pile of stones was raised on each, to mark where they lay. Twelve coffins were sent to receive the bodies of the women, but nine only being found, the supernumerary ones were appointed to receive ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... was needed partly on the contributions of her friends, partly on the resources of the principal inn at Kirkandrew. Mr. Bishopriggs, serving at the time (in the absence of any better employment) as a supernumerary at the inn, made one among the waiters who could be spared to assist at the garden-party. The name of the gentleman by whom he was to be employed for the day had struck him, when he first heard it, as having a familiar sound. He had made his inquiries; and had then ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... which the male plays in the reproduction of the race is small in comparison with the role of the female. He is merely a supernumerary who steps on the stage for a moment and speaks one word announcing the arrival of the queen. The queen is the mother. She plays the star role in the drama of Heredity. She is never off the stage for a single moment. We inherit the most obvious physical traits ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... hour of negligence, hear the bursts of thoughtless merriment, and observe the starts of unguarded passion. He therefore augmented the pay of all his attendants, and requited every exertion of uncommon diligence by supernumerary gratuities. While he congratulated himself upon the fidelity and affection of his family, he was in the night alarmed with robbers, who, being pursued and taken, declared that they had been admitted by one of his servants; the servant immediately confessed, that he unbarred the door, because ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... Church—and from their children. Acknowledging a gift of money which had been partly contributed by a family of a deceased brother in the ministry, he says: 'I received the Spanish and British angels, equalling in number the Apostles, the Graces, and the Elements, with a supernumerary one of the Seraphic order.... I do not rejoice so much in them (although these commutable pieces of money are at present very useful to me) as I do at the renewing of the memory of my deceased friends, and the prospect of our friendship being perpetuated in their posterity, ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... on 13th July, and with a north-west breeze the two ships sailed for Madeira. When well out in the Channel the Resolution's crew was mustered, and it was found that, owing to a mistake of the clerk, there was one man more than the complement, so John Coghlan was entered on the Supernumerary List for ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... by attending to the dressing out of the window, executing orders of the day before, receiving fresh ones, or supplying the wants of chance customers. Before dusk the important arrangement of the window is completed. Then the gas is turned on, with supernumerary argand lamps and manifold waxlights, to illuminate countless cakes, of all prices and dimensions, that stand in rows and piles on the counters and sideboards, and in the windows. The richest in flavour and heaviest in weight ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... detail of officers of the guard will be limited to the necessities of the service and efficient instruction; inexperienced officers may be detailed as supernumerary officers of the guard for purposes ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... reader continually the mere aeriality of the entire speculation, furnishes the surest means of disenchanting him from the horror which might else gather upon his feelings. Let me remind such objectors, once for all, of Dean Swift's proposal for turning to account the supernumerary infants of the three kingdoms, which, in those days, both at Dublin and at London, were provided for in foundling hospitals, by cooking and eating them. This was an extravaganza, though really bolder and more coarsely practical than mine, which did not provoke any reproaches even to a dignitary ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... he can easily outrun her. He allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... [Footnote: Joseph Goerres, a German mystic and disciple of Schelling. He published, among other works, "Mythengeschichte der Asiatischen Welt," and "Christliche Mystik."] transplanted to Franche Comte, a sort of supernumerary prophet, with whom his nation hardly knows what to do, seeing that she loves neither enigmas nor ecstasy nor inflation of language, and that the intoxication ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... without Greek at all, and with military ideas not a little fantastic here and there. Of Captain Guichard, were his Book once read, and himself a little known, there will be more to say. For the present, fancy him retained as supernumerary:—and in regard to Friedrich's Winter generally, accept the following small hints, small ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... knives, or drawing forth extra tables from their dusty repose; and the Biddys, and Judys, and Nellys, were washing up plates, scouring pans, and brightening up extra candlesticks, or doing deeds of doom in the poultry-yard, where an audible commotion gave token of the premature deaths of sundry supernumerary chickens. ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover



Words linked to "Supernumerary" :   histrion, excess, somebody, individual, player, person, spare, role player, mortal, supererogatory, surplus, unnecessary, someone, soul, thespian, unneeded, actor



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com