Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Texture   /tˈɛkstʃər/   Listen
Texture

noun
1.
The feel of a surface or a fabric.
2.
The essential quality of something.
3.
The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together.
4.
The characteristic appearance of a surface having a tactile quality.
5.
The physical composition of something (especially with respect to the size and shape of the small constituents of a substance).  Synonym: grain.  "Sand of a fine grain" , "Fish with a delicate flavor and texture" , "A stone of coarse grain"






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





"Texture" Quotes from Famous Books



... regulating the development of their art; it enabled them at once to express their passion for light by executing the faces, hands, and feet of their dark wooden statues in white marble, so that what we look upon only with pleasure for fineness of texture was to them an imitation of the luminous body of the deity shining from behind its dark robes; and ivory afterwards is employed in their best statues for its yet more soft and flesh-like brightness, receptive also of the most ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... Neither Felicity nor Cecily could have worn it; but it became the Story Girl perfectly. In it she was a thing of fire and laughter and glow, as if the singular charm of her temperament were visible and tangible in its vivid colouring and silken texture. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... flail. It would reform and charge again, but now there was confusion. All the field was confused, dismal and dreadful, beneath the orange-tinted smoke. The smoke rolled and billowed, a curtain of strange texture, now parting, now closing, and when it parted disclosing immemorial Death and Wounds with some attendant martial pageantry. The commands were split as by wedges, the uneven ground driving them asunder, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... be for ever lost." This said, Himself my gentle master turn'd me round, Nor trusted he my hands, but with his own He also hid me. Ye of intellect Sound and entire, mark well the lore conceal'd Under close texture of the mystic strain! And now there came o'er the perturbed waves Loud-crashing, terrible, a sound that made Either shore tremble, as if of a wind Impetuous, from conflicting vapours sprung, That 'gainst some forest ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... meaning a deified rainbow, which was given this group of plants by the ancients, shows a fine appreciation of their superb coloring, their ethereal texture, and the evanescent beauty ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... debate which had split the Presbyterian Church from end to end was quite as earnest and copious in New England. But owing to the freer habit of theological inquiry and the looser texture of organization among the Congregationalist churches, it made no organic schism beyond the setting up of a new theological seminary in Connecticut to offset what were deemed the "dangerous tendencies" of the New Haven theology. After a few years the party lines ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... must be admitted to be not wholly satisfactory, what shall be said of the portrait of Lady Meux? The dress is a luminous and harmonious piece of colouring, the material has its weight and its texture and its character of fold; but of the face it is difficult to say more than that it keeps its place in the picture. Very often the faces in Mr. Whistler's portraits are the least interesting part of the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... shrilling airs the vaulted roof rebounds, Reflecting to the queen the silver sounds. With grief renew'd the weeping fair descends; Their sovereign's step a virgin train attends: A veil, of richest texture wrought, she wears, And silent to the joyous hall repairs. There from the portal, with her mild command, Thus gently checks ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... this vessel is allowed to run slowly into the mortar in which the amandine is being made, just as fast as the maker finds that he can incorporate it with the paste of soap and syrup; and so long as this takes place, the result will always have a jelly texture to the hand. If, however, the oil be put into the mortar quicker than the workman can blend it with the paste, then the paste becomes "oiled," and may be considered as "done for," unless, indeed, the whole process be gone through again, starting off with fresh syrup and soap, using ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse

... were not very decently attired. Their bodies and heads were enveloped in ample blue and white muslin drapery, embroidered with gold, and bordered with lace of the same material as broad as a man's hand, but the delicate texture {150} was so ethereal, that every outline of the body was visible beneath it. Besides this, whenever they moved their arms the muslin opened and displayed not only their arm, but a portion of their bosom and body. ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... inspiration remained the same as it had been on the Continent, and the twin threads of its two main impulses, the impulse from the study of the classics, and the impulse given to men's minds by the voyages of discovery, runs through all the texture of our ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... related interests of the country are now scouting around to find some species of tree to use as a substitute for tanning operations. Castanea mollissima is capable of developing into a good sized tree. From an economic standpoint the texture of its lumber is good, while the quality of its fruit is fair, and as an ornamental tree it has a future. It has resistance to the chestnut bark disease. It may become a substitute for C. dentata. Several crosses have been made between C. dentata and C. mollissima and some of them show ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... parts of England, the latter being reproduced almost literally in German, Dutch, and Swedish, while the Danes called the Bat a "Flogenmues," which has about the same meaning, and the Swedes have a second name, "Laedermus," evidently referring to the texture of the wings, as well as to the mouse-like ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... tempo of a haunting waltz that sang clear in the night beyond the open windows wove itself into the texture of Sally's thoughts and set her blood tingling ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... Musgrave, laughing, "that that statement conveys nothing to me. A painter, on that line, would depict nothing, but simply produce a sort of harmony of colour. A picture would become simply a texture of colour-vibrations. My own view is rather that it is a question of accurate observation, followed by an extreme delicacy and suggestiveness of expression. Some people would say that it was all a question of reality; and that the point ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... what you think is the way with me already?" She turned upon him smiling, and he perceived that in her New York version of a Parisian costume, with her lace hat of summer make and texture and the vivid parasol she twirled upon her shoulder, she was not only a very pretty girl, but a fashionable one. There was something touching in the fact, and a little bewildering. To the pretty girl, the fashionable girl, he could have answered with a joke, but the stricken intelligence ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... is no medium for a tenor at the French opera. He must either scream, in order to be heard above the music, or be wholly inaudible. Baroilhet is unquestionably the best of the present opera company. His acting and singing are alike good, and his voice, of a less delicate texture than a tenor, has preserved its vigour and freshness. It would be unfair to estimate his abilities by his performance, some two years ago, at the London Opera-house. He was then in ill health, and was heard to great disadvantage. He has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... sullen and cloudy: most of them avoided their master's eye, and looked intently on the ground. Dr. Wilkinson sought Hamilton's eye, but Hamilton, though perfectly conscious of the fact, was very busily engaged in a deep meditation on the texture ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... the bare-headed multitude, the beauty of their unshorn hair struck me like a new revelation. Some of the heads, of lustrous, flossy gold, actually shone by their own light. It was marvellous that skin so hard and coarse in texture should produce such beautiful hair. The beards of the men, also, were strikingly soft and rich. They never shave, and thus avoid bristles, the down of adolescence thickening into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... had on when he left his father, having been of slight texture, was worn out by the length of the voyage, and he was in the dress of a sailor-boy. Though about the same age with his cousin, he was something taller: and though a strong family resemblance appeared between the two youths, he was handsomer than William; and from a simplicity ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... the little treatise, the literary texture of which is plain and homely, rather than rich, learned, or rhetorical. "Pomp and ostentation of reading," he expressly says, "is admired among the vulgar; but doubtless in matters of Religion he is learnedest who is plainest." It was, we may remember, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... she's handsome, trusting you not to gild my plain words with your imagination. She's handsome, but in a way easily overlooked; a way altogether apart from the charms of color and texture, I judge, or of any play of feeling; not floral, not startling, not exquisite; but statuesque, almost heavily so, and replete ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... hide, the characteristics of a good one for strong purposes are strength in its middle, or butt, as it called, and lightness in the edges, or offal. A bad hide is the opposite of this—thick in the edges and thin in the middle. A good hide has a firm texture; a bad one, loose and soft. A hide improves as the summer advances, and it continues to improve after the new coat of hair in autumn until November or December, when the coat gets rough from the coldness of the season, and the hide is then in its best ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... I was melancholy. I found something strangely sorrowful and submissive in the sleepers all about me, those men who had marched so far, who had left all the established texture of their lives behind them to come upon this mad campaign, this campaign that signified nothing and consumed everything, this mere fever of fighting. I saw how little and feeble is the life of man, a thing of chances, preposterously unable ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... liberality in scientific circles, imagine the reception which would have been accorded to this proposition, if laid down by an American writer fifty or sixty years ago: "The European races, as a whole, show signs of a secondary or derived origin; certain characteristics, especially the texture of the hair, lead us to class them as intermediate between the extreme primary types of the Asiatic and Negro races respectively." This is put forward by the author, not as a mere hypothesis, but as a proposition ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... cornea and iris, were inserted. [Footnote: Marble statues also sometimes had inserted eyes] Finally, the whole was gone over with appropriate tools, the hair, for example, being furrowed with a sharp graver and thus receiving a peculiar, metallic definiteness of texture. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... man to be a fitting companion for a woman of genius, but not a very great one. I am not sure that she will not embroider her ideal better on a plain ground than on one with a brilliant pattern already worked in its texture. But as the very essence of genius is truthfulness, contact with realities, (which are always ideas behind shows of form or language,) nothing is so contemptible as falsehood and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to find a perfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find a perfectly ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... drawing-room door, where he stood as grave and silent as Banquo's ghost. Constance arose at sight of this fantastic figure, barked furiously and darted toward a pair of legs for which she seemed to share the irreverence of the liveried servants; but the texture of the blue stocking and the flesh which covered the tibia were rather too hard morsels for the dowager's teeth; she was obliged to give up the attack and content herself with impotent barks, while the old man, who would gladly have given a month's wages to break ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... small part of the year, when it feeds on the root of the water-lily, which communicates a peculiar flavour to the flesh of the animal, it is said to be very palatable. It is, however, principally for its fur that it is hunted; the skin, even, is of little value, being coarser and looser in texture, and of course less applicable to general uses, than that of many other animals. I dare say you have often seen it ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... discernible in the light of the moon. And from its centre, true north, there grew out a monstrous human arm, reaching higher and higher, up to the zenith, blotting the stars behind it. It looked at first—in texture and rigid outline—as the stream of straw looks that flows from the blower of a threshing machine when you stand straight in its line and behind it. But, of course, it did not curve down. It seemed to stretch and to rise, growing more and more like ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... here does not seem to be of the poet's seeking, but a part of the necessary texture of the fable. He speaks of what he wishes to describe with the accuracy, the discrimination of one who relates what has happened to himself, or has had the best information from those who have been eye-witnesses of it. The strokes of his pencil ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... can see in the world around you, presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors variously shaded.[1] Some of these patches of color have an appearance of lines or texture within them, as a piece of cloth or silk has of threads, or an animal's skin shows texture of hairs: but whether this be the case or not, the first broad aspect of the thing is that of a patch of some definite color; and the first thing to be learned ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... she selected a Roman robe, upper mantle, and sandals—the most common in colour and texture that she could find—and folding them up into the smallest compass, hid them under her own garments. Then, avoiding all those whom she met on her way, she returned in the direction of the king's tent; but when ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... Hawks and pigeons wheel and circle in the air, which is filled with the scent of incense and the sound of the street cries. Everywhere is movement and bustle, and the glowing colour of the buildings and costumes of every tint and texture. ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... free from blemishes, but it is not so fine and compact in its texture; the skies in particular exhibiting a minutely speckled appearance, and the whole picture admitting of much ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various

... if he liked." In fact Gandish was always handing him sweetmeats of compliments and cordials of approbation. He had coat-sleeves with silk linings—he had studs in his shirt. How different was the texture and colour of that garment, to the sleeves Bob Grimes displayed when he took his coat off to put on his working jacket! Horses used actually to come for him to Gandish's door (which was situated in a certain lofty street in Soho). The Miss G.'s would ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... foot of the toilsome, upward-winding trail he dismounted, and led his weary horse. Over his head, and about half-way to the first hilltop, lay a roof of fleecy vapor, faint purple in color and seamless in texture. Through this he must pass, and it symbolized to him the line of demarkation between the plain and the mountain, between ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... former holding a serving-man, and the latter a lady. From a third horse the rider, also a man-servant in livery, had alighted, and he was now coming to help the ladies down. They were handsomely dressed, in a style which showed them to be people of some consequence: for in those days the texture of a woman's hood, the number of her pearls, and the breadth of her lace and fur were carefully regulated by sumptuary laws, and woe betide the esquire's daughter, or the knight's wife, who presumed to poach on the widths reserved ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt

... and of the introduction of 'life,' whilst with more technical skill in the manipulation of screens and exposures he emphasises the subtle shadows of the snow and reproduces its wondrously transparent texture. He is an artist in love with his work, and it was good to hear his enthusiasm for results of the past and plans of ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... are evidently of marine origin, there are many parts which are of sparry structure—that is to say, the original texture of those beds in such places has been dissolved, and a new structure has been assumed which is peculiar to a certain state of the calcareous earth. This change is produced by crystallization, in ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... salts, but later becomes calcified, so that the bones regain their rigidity. This formation of new bone is much in excess of the normal, the bones become large and bulky, their surfaces rough and uneven, their texture sclerosed in parts, and the medullary canal is frequently obliterated. These changes are well brought out in X-ray photographs. The curving of the long bones, which is such a striking feature of the disease, may be associated with actual lengthening, and the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... doctor. "You don't plow the field to plant the wheat that makes your bread. That's a man of a coarser physical fiber than yours, who is strengthened by the effort, and not exhausted as you would be. Why shouldn't the world be so organized that somebody of coarser moral texture than yours should do battle with the forces of materialism and tragic ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... establishment. The more southern States furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval stores—tar, pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of signal importance, either in the view of naval strength or of national economy. Some of the Southern and of the Middle States yield a greater plenty ...
— The Federalist Papers

... gnats and midges, and flitting back again, keeping up through it all the sweetest and gentlest of anxious twitterings, and, when they are clinging to the chequered wood, resembling it so closely in colour and texture as to make it hard to count a dozen birds quickly. Martins near their time for going enter on all kinds of engaging habits, especially just before and just after dusk, when bands of a dozen or so seem suddenly to make up their minds to trial flights of the most amazing ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... presided over by SS. Frigidian and Cardens sentinelled the mouth of the Lough at Moville and Coleraine. The habit of these monks—similar to that of Iona and Lindisfarne, consisted of "[2]the cowl—of coarse texture, made of wool, retaining its natural color and the tunic, or under habit, which was also white. If the weather was particularly severe an amphibalus, or double mantle, was permitted. When engaged at work ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... from a ladder, because this fruit becomes arid when it has been struck and does not yield so much oil: and in picking by hand it is better to do so with the bare fingers rather than with a tool because the texture of a tool not only injures the berry but barks the branches and leaves them exposed to the frost. So it is better to use a reed than a pole to strike down the fruit which cannot be reached by hand, for (as the proverb is) the heavier the blow, the more ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... and taking us sharpened sticks, roasted and charred and toasted the meat in the doorway of the stove and over the gap in its lid. And in time we made a satisfying meal, though the courses straggled, and their texture was savage. And so on to pipes, and water boiled in a pewter flask-cup with whisky added, whilst the injured Se champed over ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... older than either of his mistresses; and, indeed, both he and his garments belong to a by-gone generation. His knees are bent, so is his back; his face is like a Ribston pippin, his coat is a marvel both in cut and in texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and what hair nature has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is, too, in his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of honest good humor that goes far to defy the ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... one of the ladies entered into conversation with the Captain, both leaning against a window; the other sat down in a chair beside me, with her veil low down, so that I could not see her face, except so far as the thinness of the texture allowed. I entreated her to do me the favour to unveil, but I could not prevail, which the more inflamed my desire to have sight of her; but what especially increased my curiosity was that, whether on purpose, or by chance, the lady displayed ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... round, Nothing so firmly good is found, Whose substance, with such closeness knit, Corruption's Touch will not admit; But, spite of all incroaching stains, Its native purity retains: Whose texture will nor warp, nor fade, Though moths and weather shou'd invade, Which Time's sharp tooth cannot corrode, Proof against Accident and Mode; And, maugre each assailing dart, Thrown by the hand of Force, or Art, ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd

... imaginative material, composed from the centre and not arranged with artificial felicity, full of suggestiveness, full of power, abounding in definite sculptural qualities, both moral and technical; it again is Rubens-like in its exuberance, but of firmer texture, more closely condensed. But anything approaching the kind of impressiveness of the Dante portal it certainly does not essay. It is in quite a different sphere. Its exaltation is, if not deliberate, admirably self-possessed. To find it theatrical would ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... she examined it, that it was exactly the same color as the dress she had seen the day before, and reasonably sure regarding the texture; but the great question now to be answered was: Would it fit ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... quality that has not been sufficiently noticed. It has the most wonderful unity of texture and a perfect harmony of tone. From the first line to the last, there is never a sentence or a passage which strikes a discordant note; we are never worried by a spasmodic phrase, nor bored by fine ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... at all. On the first day of her arrival he had spoken kindly to her, asking her how old she was, and how long her mother had been dead, and this was all the attention he had paid to her. He did not even yet know the color of her eyes, or texture of her hair,—whether it were curly or straight, black or brown; but he knew in various ways that she was there—knew it by the sound of dancing feet upon the stairs, which were wont to echo only to Mrs. Peters' heavy tread—knew it by the tasteful air his room suddenly assumed—by the ringing ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... than an acre, the trees standing well apart, and wholly free from brush and undergrowth. Thus even the horses could pass back and forth freely. Over this shaded space the dark-green grass grew luxuriantly, with a soft juiciness of texture which made it the ideal food for cattle and horses. In the middle of the grove bubbled a spring of clear cold water, whose winding course could be traced far out on the plain by the fringe of deeper green which ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... effect. It is not nearly so grand a fall as the upper Yosemite, or so symmetrical as the Vernal, or so airily graceful and simple as the Bridal Veil, nor does it ever display so tremendous an outgush of snowy magnificence as the Nevada; but in the exquisite fineness and richness of texture of its flowing folds ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir

... She had dressed herself, too, in her most becoming breakfast gown—one she had worn when Jack first arrived at Corklesville, and which he said reminded him of a picture he had seen as a boy. There were pink rosebuds woven in its soft texture, and the wide peach-blossom ribbon that bound her dainty waist contrasted so delightfully, as he had timidly hinted, with the tones of ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... thy loving husband, all fresh and in every respect desirable (gentil), clothed in a dressing-gown of very light texture. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... dazzling whiteness; no longer dark with the air and sun, but like one eskiatrofekos—brought up under the shade of Eastern porticoes or pavilions, or in the light that has only reached him softened through the texture of green leaves; honey-pale, like the delicate people of the city, like the flesh of women, as those old vase-painters conceive of it, who leave their hands and faces untouched with the pencil on the white clay. The ruddy god of the vineyard, stained with wine-lees, or coarser colour, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... not for the blue sky overhead, that rays down glorifying light, they would not be much to look at or talk about. The tree has a gnarled, grotesque trunk which divides into insignificant branches, bearing leaves mean in shape, harsh in texture, with a silvery underside. It gives but a quivering shade and has no massiveness, nor symmetry. Ay! but there are olives on the branches. And so the beauty of the humble tree is in what it grows for man's good. After all, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. Furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (Mrs. Draper had told her of the little lake on the Fiske estate) was one of her successes. It had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of Aunt Victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by having coffee spilled down the front breadth. Sylvia had had the bold notion of dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush (the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... to risk the falling lower than most. Women are a cause of dreams, but they are dreaded enemies of his kind of dream, deadly enemies of the immaterial dreamers; and should one of them be taken on board a vessel of the vapourish texture young Woodseer sailed in above the clouds lightly while he was in it alone, questions of past, future, and present, the three weights upon humanity, bear it down, and she must go, or the vessel sinks. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. 1433 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... matter and manner in utterance. Its current is smooth and self-reliant. It carries action and scene buoyantly and unceasingly, even if it does not always expound them deeply or give them adequate external adornment. When it has no real warmth it simulates it admirably. Its texture is well-knit. There is purpose, not deep, not long-sustained, but, so far as it goes, logical, in the composer's application of the system of typical or representative phrases. There is, too, a measure of appositeness in the structure and character of his themes—the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... unintentionally been exposed to culture. The grains differ in size, weight, and colour; in being more or less downy at one end, in being smooth or wrinkled, in being either nearly globular, oval, or elongated; and finally in internal texture, being tender or hard, or even almost horny, and in the proportion ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... perfectly plain, fine in texture, thin, white, unglazed and engraved in simple script without flourishes. Gilt edges, rounded or clipped corners, tinted surfaces or any oddity of lettering, such as German or Old English text, are to be avoided. A ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... little dimples of verdure here and there,—who show not what, with closest cultivation, it might become, but what, under the broad skies and the free winds and the common dews and showers, it is. Our conservatories can boast hues as gorgeous, forms as stately, texture as fine as yours; but don't look for camellias in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... of that singular statesman were the companions or the servants of the arch-conspirator Ballard; for the minister seems only to have humoured his taste in assisting him through this extravagant plot. Yet, as if a plot of so loose a texture was not quite perilous enough, the extraordinary incident of a picture, representing the secret conspirators in person, was probably considered as the highest stroke of political intrigue! The accomplished Babington had portrayed the conspirators, himself ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... distance, and by a skilled hand. There were jewels, as the Boer waggon-driver had said, that had belonged to the dead woman—diamond rings, and a bracelet or two; and there were silk dresses of lovely hues and texture, and cambric and linen dresses, and tweed dresses, in the trunks; and a great cloak of sables, trimmed with many tails, and beautiful underclothing of silk and linen, trimmed with real lace, over which the mouth of the woman of the tavern watered. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... properly understood will essentially aid and assist the farmer. In fact, a knowledge of these sciences is a sure key to wealth for any agriculturist. It gives the modes of preparation, and the effects of all kinds of manures; the origin, texture, divisions, and description of every variety of soil; the economy of sowing, reaping, and mowing, irrigation, and draining; cultivation of the grasses, clovers, grains, and roots; Southern and miscellaneous products, as cotton, hemp, flax, the sugar cane, rice, tobacco, hops, ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... what has now been said it can also be seen that man's mind is the man himself. For the primary texture of the human form, that is, the human form itself with each and every thing thereof, is from first principles continued from the brain through the nerves, in the manner described above. It is this form into ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... a close evergreen hedge of hemlock spruce. In its young way this hedge has been handsome from infancy; though still but a few years old it gives, the twelvemonth round, a note both virile and refined in color, texture and form, and if the art that planted it and the care that keeps it do not decay neither need the hedge for a century to come. Against the intensest cold this side of Labrador it is perfectly hardy, is trimmed with a ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable

... agreed upon first principles and disputing only some minor corollary, but a manifestation of different modes of thought, and of diverging conceptions of the world and of life, which had become thoroughly imbedded in the very texture of the speaker's mind. When it is a question of principles, which have been the battle-ground of generations; when every argument that can be used has been worked out by the subtlest thinkers of all times, a dispute can really come to nothing but saying, I am of this or that turn of mind. ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... frightful to a housekeeper, was presented. One of the breadths of my handsome carpet had the pile so eaten off in conspicuous places, that no remedy was left but the purchase and substitution of a new one, at a cost of nearly ten dollars. In dozens of places the texture of the carpet was eaten entirely through. I was, as my lady readers may naturally suppose, very unhappy at this. But, the evil by no means found a limit here. On opening my fur boxes, I found that the work of destruction had been going on there also. A single shake of the ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... small amount of mental stimulus. Nor were his expectations disappointed. But he found the work to be unexpectedly hard, and very soon he had the sense of panting to keep pace with the demands of the lecturer. It was not merely that the texture of scientific reasoning in the lectures was so closely knit,—although that was a very palpable fact,—but the character of Huxley's terminology was entirely strange to him. It met him on his weakest side, for it presupposed a knowledge of Greek ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... pistillate plants should be set out to insure fertilization. Always I think of the closed door and presently I return to the house and enter the room behind the stove. On the floor is a green veil of firm texture. And at last there are cobwebs on the ceiling of my old house and I still search for ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... with one moral. Through the bruteness and toughness of matter, a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will. The adamant streams into soft but precise form before it, and whilst I look at it its outline and texture are changed again. Nothing is so fleeting as form; yet never does it quite deny itself. In man we still trace the remains or hints of all that we esteem badges of servitude in the lower races; yet in him ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... maid Wished not for marriage. Tender was her heart; Yet though her twentieth year had o'er her flown, And though her tears had dewed a mother's grave, In her there lurked, not flower of womanhood, But flower of angel texture. All around To her was love. The crown of earthly love Seemed but its crown of mockery. Love Divine - For that she yearned, and yet she knew it not; Knew ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... which teaches that each spirit is an integral part of God, that it enfolds all divine possibilities as the acorn enfolds the oak; that by means of many existences in an earthy body of gradually improving texture its latent powers are being slowly unfolded and become available as dynamic energy; that none can be lost but that all will ultimately attain to perfection and reunion with God, each bringing with it the accumulated ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... to the light the ragged tear in the Spanish lace, and noted the width and length of the gash in its delicate texture, her heart sank. She saw at a glance that she could not finish it before closing time, even if she devoted the whole day to its repair. Better complete, thought she, the other and smaller pieces—one ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... conversation, but I have no hesitation in asking the indorsement of my comrades to the statement that we have never found anywhere else as durable garments as those furnished us by the Government during our service in the Army. The clothes were not as fine in texture, nor so stylish in cut as those we wore before or since, but when it came to wear they could be relied on to the last thread. It was always marvelous to me that they lasted so well, with the rough usage a soldier in the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... in whom the purely physical is at all times the sole agent? We do not say that it does not generally predominate. But, in a compound being like man, it seems next to impossible that the nature within should not at times, in some degree, transpire through the most rigid texture of the outward form. We may not, indeed, always read aright the character thus obscurely indexed, or even be able to guess at it, one way or the other; still, it will affect us; nay, most so, perhaps, when most indefinite. Every man is, to a certain extent, ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... and size from the beaten fibres of moss that hangs from the trees in our Southern States. It is cheap, durable, is not in any way affected by sweat, and does not chafe or heat the horse's spine like the woolen blanket. Its open texture allows a rapid evaporation, which tends to keep the back cool, and obviates the danger of stripping and sudden exposure of the heated parts ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... cooked with the sirloin, but always cut off and marinated and braized as we had it yesterday. Thus you get two hot dishes; our particular sirloin has given us three. The parts of this joint vary greatly in flavour, and in texture as well, and by accentuating this variation by treatment in the kitchen, you escape that monotony which is prone to pervade the table so long as the sirloin remains in the house. Mrs. Sinclair is sufficiently experienced as a housekeeper to know that the dish ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... it on the ground when my day's work was done, and saw revealed to me with swimming eyes the birth of new hopes and of a new world of objects. The painter thus learns to look at Nature with different eyes. He before saw her 'as in a glass darkly, but now face to face.' He understands the texture and meaning of the visible universe, and 'sees into the life of things,' not by the help of mechanical instruments, but of the improved exercise of his faculties, and an intimate sympathy with Nature. The meanest thing ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... again. It was a trifle, after all—a childish thing—looking out from a tower and waving a handkerchief. But her new friend had promised, and why should he tease her so? The effect of a blow is as proportionate to the texture of the object struck as to its own momentum; and she had such a superlative capacity for being wounded that little hits ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... indeed, sir,' he replied warmly. 'I think it probable that the thoughts of people you have never seen or heard of drop into your mind and colour it. They lodge there, or are rejected, according to your mood and the texture of your longings—what you want to be, that is. What you want, if I may say so, is emptiness, and that emptiness invites. The flying thought flits in and makes itself at home. Some people overflow with thoughts of kindness and beauty that radiate from them, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... on about the material that the Chinese use for making paper. Their paper is far better than ours, because the raw material is better; and a good deal was said about this thin, light Chinese paper, for if it is light and thin, the texture is close, there are no transparent spots in it. In Paris there are learned men among the printers' readers; Fourier and Pierre Leroux are Lachevardiere's readers at this moment; and the Comte de Saint-Simon, who happened to be correcting proofs ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... even when it is in the body; what its form, and size, and abode are; so that were they able to have a full view of all that is now hidden from them in a living body, they have no idea whether the soul would be discernible by them, or whether it is of so fine a texture that it would escape their sight. Let those consider this, who say that they are unable to form any idea of the soul without the body, and then they will see whether they can form any adequate idea of what it is when it is ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... which constitutes heat be the means of converting phlogiston from that state in which it makes a part of solid bodies, and eminently contributes to the firmness of their texture into that state in which it diminishes common air; may not that peculiar kind of vibration by which Dr. Hartley supposes the brain to be affected, and by which he endeavours to explain all the phenomena of sensation, ideas, and ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... long hairs are also found on them. Each of these spikelets consists of four green membranous structures called glumes. The first two glumes are unequal, the first being very small. The second and the third glumes are broadly ovate-oblong with acute tips. Both are of the same height and texture, but the second is 7-nerved and the third 5-nerved. The fourth glume is membranous when young, but later on it becomes thick, coriaceous and rugose at the surface. Just opposite to the fourth glume there is a flat structure with two ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar

... in fruit is a most interesting sight. The nuts are pinkish. They have the pinkness of the peach, almost, without the fuz and they are covered with a thin skin which is taken off usually with the fingers. The nut inside has a texture that makes it very attractive. When they are first gathered it is very difficult to crack them with the fingers but if they are put in the oven and roasted they open up and leave a little suture into which you put your thumb nails and pry the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... slight frame, yet he had not only grace of movement, but prodigious strength of wrist and shoulders. For walking he was not much, but he rode like a knight. He was of strictest neatness and method concerning his clothes; not so much, let me explain, as to their original texture, for they were always plain, ordinary garments, but regarding their cleanliness and order. He had a swift and ready temper, and could not brook to be disputed by his equals, much less by his inferiors, yet had a most perfect and winning ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... few faint freckles, that suggested sunny fields and the wholesome associations of country life. When excited, her grey eyes shone with a luminous brightness, as if all her vitality were gathered there, while an unexpected colour came and went beneath the delicate texture of ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... I saw what I thought was a swelling on one part of the flower, but a closer look showed it was a living spider. Here was protective colouring carried to a wonderful degree. The body of the spider was white and glistening, like the texture of the white flower on which he rested. On his abdomen were two pink, oblong spots of the same tint and shape as the pinkened tips of the false petals. Only by an accident could he be discovered by a bird, and when I focussed ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... with eyes full of liquid light, with dainty bonnets nestling on their soft hair; their faces were like petals of flowers; the curves of their chins were more beautiful than chalices of lilies; their dresses, soft, shapely, of exquisite tones and texture, draped their perfect bodies. Their slender fingers held gold-and-pearl opera glasses. The young men who sat beside them wore the latest fashions in clothing cut from the finest fabrics. Heavy men of brutal bulk slouched beside their dainty daughters, the purple blotches on ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... through the ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for declamation (like drama or lyric) has depths and subtleties of art which were not possible for the primitive poet. Accordingly we find that, on the whole, in comparison with "literary" epic, the texture of "authentic" epic is flat and dull. The story may be superb, and its management may be superb; but the words in which the story lives do not come near the grandeur of Milton, or the exquisiteness of Virgil, or the deliciousness of Tasso. Indeed, if we ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie

... now, I do not say by our florists, but by our village gardeners. These flowers, though then already cultivated, were still not far above their wild condition. They had a single row of petals only, long pistils, colours hard and false; they had little velvety texture, variety, or gradation of tints, and, in fact, presented all the characteristics of untamed nature. Of herbs there was a single kind of endive, and two of lettuce—both bad—while we can now reckon more than fifty lettuces and endives, all excellent. We can even name ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... to be, I must set down a few jottings on things that belong to the texture of my story. To begin with, the Colonel, though pardoned, was still in France, looking after his affairs there, for before starting to join the Prince he had wisely shifted all ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... too weary to hold himself erect, pitching headforemost, half lying on the air;" "half lying on the air,"—the phrase rings in the ear, lingers in the memory, attaches itself to Emerson, and fits like a garment of soft and yielding texture. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... feeling of responsibility lessened. Besides, the magazine covers took most of her day. She gave a tea for her father and mother at her own studio, and Mrs. Brewster's hat, slippers, gown, and manner equalled in line, style, cut, and texture those of any other woman present, which rather surprised her until she had talked to ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... of which they are made is of the closest texture, and as the hair has never been dressed or dyed it retains all its natural oil and original colour, the latter varying from a very pretty yellow fawn to a pale cream-colour. The majority of the ponchos worn here are, however, made at Manchester, of a ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... hands, denoted her European extraction. Her dress was entirely Indian, however; consisting of a machecoti with leggings, mocassins, and shirt of printed cotton studded with silver brooches,—all of which were of a quality and texture to mark the wearer as the wife of a chief; and her fair hair, done up in a club behind, reposed on a neck of dazzling whiteness. Her eyes were large, blue, but wild and unmeaning; her countenance vacant; and her movements ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... said he laughing; "it appears of so tender a texture, that it is likely to be torn piece-meal, if not remedied in time. Besides, I must protect my own, should it be necessary: a good pilot, even in a calm, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... was in its texture as coarse as that of the meanest of the people, but it was strictly clean, as if it had been the intention of the wearer to exhibit poverty, or carelessness and contempt of dress, avoiding, at the same time, every particular which implied anything ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... all clothed in drab, but Of texture the coarsest, hair shirt and no shoes (His mitre and ring, and all that sort of thing Laid aside), in yon cave ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... fortunes, dimly foreshadowed on the horizon; the fatality of distant events, the stream of national tendency, the salient framework of causation. And all this thrown upon the flat board—all this entering, naturally and smoothly, into the texture ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... unadulterated of either race. While the mulatto and octoroon may reveal the Saxon in the fairness of the skin, the Negro reinforcement shows itself generally in the slight inclination of the lips toward thickness, the lustrious black of the eye and hair which is generally abundant and slightly woolly in texture. This is brought out plainly in the case of the Jew. Although centuries have passed since the Jews very extensively amalgamated with the dark races of Egypt and Canaan, their dark complexions, lustrous black ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... parks are Yosemite, Sequoia, including the proposed Roosevelt Park, General Grant, Rocky Mountain, and Mount McKinley. Granite, as its name denotes, is granular in texture and appearance. It is crystalline, which means that it is imperfectly crystallized. It is composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica in varying proportions, and includes several common varieties which mineralogists distinguish scientifically ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... of the flute, blending the whole into harmony. The dancers seemed to follow and imitate by their action each change of the music: at first, and with wonderful grace and elegance, they fell into a group or tableau, their silken scarfs, of transparent texture and bright and varied colours, floating in the air like rainbows, behind which glanced the houri-like forms of the women. Presently the music glided from the adagio into the allegro; the steps of the dancers became quicker, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... me most is that, when a child under nine, the flight of roses was light, slow, soft, close to my eyes, roses so large and brilliant and palpable that I tried to touch them; the scent was overpowering, the petals perfect, with leaves peeping here and there, texture and motion all natural. They would stay a long time before the sparks came, and they occupied a large area in black space. Then the sparks came slowly flying, and generally, not always, effaced the roses at once, and every effort to retain the roses failed. Since an early age the flight ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... too, was distinctly attracted by Gorham, though his eyes rested more often on the girl facing him across the small table, who seemed even more lovely to him now, in a soft, clinging gown of exquisite texture. His memory of Gorham had been indistinct, but he had heard so much of him through his father and others during these intervening years that he was prepared to see a man who would intimidate him by his severity ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... majestic pine formed a roof to our encampment. Dragging our provisions and blankets as near as possible to the stem of the tree, we covered them up with one of our oiled-cloths, which were somewhat similar in appearance and texture to the tarpaulings of seafaring men, though light in colour. Then we ran down to the lake, carried all our goods hastily to the same spot, covered them up in like manner, and finally dragged our boat as far up on ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... never returns; the course of events, old in its texture, is ever new in its colouring and fashion. England and Ireland are not what they once were, but Rome is where it was, and St. Peter is the same: his zeal, his charity, his mission, his gifts are all the ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... and supporting life. It is distributed from the left side of the heart all over the body by means of a great artery, which subdivides in its course, and ultimately terminates in myriads of very minute ramifications closely interwoven with, and in reality constituting a part of, the texture of every living part. On reaching this extreme point of its course, the blood passes into equally minute ramifications of the veins, which in their turn gradually coalesce, and form larger and larger trunks, till they ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... odour, it may be considered wholesome; if, on the contrary, it have an offensive smell, a bitter, astringent, or styptic taste, or even if it leave an unpleasant flavour in the mouth, it should not be considered fit for food. The colour, figure, and texture of these vegetables do not afford any characters on which we can safely rely; yet it may be remarked, that in colour, the pure yellow, gold colour, bluish pale, dark or lustre brown, wine red, or the violet, belong ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... asters were blooming in profusion everywhere. The air had the cool, crisp clearness of autumn. The sky had become that deep blue which marks the passing of summer, and the clouds seemed thicker in texture. The girls drank in the air in great draughts like strong new wine, rejoicing in the glorious weather, yet it made them feel sad, because it meant that this most wonderful of all summers was very near its end. This would probably ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... get to know a fellow, know his every mood and whim, You begin to find the texture of the splendid side of him; You begin to understand him, and you cease to scoff and sneer, For with understanding always prejudices disappear. You begin to find his virtues and his faults you cease to tell, ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... colour in their faces was in his represented by the palest tinge of pink. His bare arms were soft and white and thin. Their abundant straw-coloured hair had in his case become palest gold, of silky texture, falling in curling locks almost on to his shoulders. He was, in short, a smaller, weaker, more delicate edition of these two elder ones. They looked the very embodiment of health and strength, he fragile, timid, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... which the way must be picked with caution. Where there are hills, there is much rain, and the torrents pouring down into the intermediate spaces, seldom find so ready an outlet, as not to stagnate, till they have broken the texture ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... the loose bodice of it back, critically examining her bare neck, the swell of her beautiful bosom, the firm contours of her arms from shoulder to elbow. Her skin was of a clear, golden whiteness, smooth, fine in texture, as that of a child. Placing her hands on the gilded frame of the mirror, high up on either side, she observed her face, exquisitely healthful in colour, even as seen in this mournful, afternoon light. She leaned forward, gazing intently into her own eyes—meeting in them, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... of texture and hue, Bathed in a soft, sunny light, Pearled with a silvery dew. Fair as a flower to the view, Ripened by summer's soft heat, Basking beneath Heaven's blue,— This ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells

... cap of the same. The coat removed, she stood revealed in a clinging gown of silk; and her feet were shod in little amber colored slippers with green buckles. The bodice of her dress opened in a surprising V, displaying the satin texture of her neck and shoulders, and enhancing the barbaric character of her appearance. Her jet black hair was confined by no band or comb, but protruded Bishareen-like around the shapely head. Without doubt, this was the Lady of the Poppies—the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer



Words linked to "Texture" :   makeup, character, make-up, musicalness, raggedness, marbleisation, marbleising, beaux arts, lineament, fine arts, nap, marbleizing, composition, feel, grain, coarse, constitution, tactile property, visual property, roughness, musicality, harsh, physical composition, fine, smoothness, marbleization, quality



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com