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Unprecedented   /ənprˈɛsɪdˌɛntɪd/   Listen
Unprecedented

adjective
1.
Having no precedent; novel.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unprecedented" Quotes from Famous Books



... head to wind, wallowing in mountainous seas. Such a storm, witnessed from a large vessel, would be an inspiring sight, but was doubly so in a small craft, especially where the natural buoyancy had been largely impaired by overloading. With an unprecedented quantity of deck cargo, amongst which were six thousand gallons of benzine, kerosene and spirit, in tins which were none too strong, we might well have been excused a lively anxiety during those days. It seemed as if no ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... which place the King was ultimately removed at the instance of the Prince of Wales, and the effect they produced upon the public and the Opposition, greatly increased the difficulties of the Government in this unprecedented emergency. So long as there was the faintest hope of His Majesty's recovery, Mr. Pitt was enabled to avert extremities between the Administration and the Prince of Wales, by repeated adjournments ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... manufacturing plant in Burnside, one of the little factory hamlets south of the city, asked Sommers to take charge of an epidemic of typhoid that had broken out among the operatives. The regular physician of the corporation had proved incompetent, and the annual visitation of the disease threatened to be unprecedented. Sommers spent his days and nights in Burnside for several weeks. When he had time to think, he wondered why the manager employed him. If the Hitchcocks had been in the city, he should have suspected that ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... land of wonder and mystery, with better opportunities of becoming acquainted with its strange secrets and peculiarities than perhaps ever yet were afforded to any individual, certainly to a foreigner; and if in many instances I have introduced scenes and characters perhaps unprecedented in a work of this description, I have only to observe, that, during my sojourn in Spain, I was so unavoidably mixed up with such, that I could scarcely have given a faithful narrative of what befell me had I not brought them forward in the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... What of the accusations of simony against Innocent VIII, which rest upon a much sounder basis than these against Alexander, and what of those against Sixtus IV? Further, if a simoniacal election was unprecedented, what of Lorenzo Valla's fierce indictment of simony—for which he so narrowly escaped the clutches of the Inquisition some sixty years before ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... given to violent action and decision, he had retained the clearest command of his faculties, issuing coherent and dreaded orders to those about him. Now he had become a raging wild beast. And for the spectators the sight had all the horror of the unprecedented. ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... empty sacks, blankets, and old rags, for warmth, and wound their mufflers two or three times round their necks; they had taken all possible precautions for carrying out their duty to the very last. And although our hearts had been hardened by the unprecedented miseries of this war, we were seized with pity and admiration. Presently one of them turned round and ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... infallibility. The lower clergy, condemned by the State to an intolerable subjection, soon found their only hope in an appeal to Rome, and instinctively worked as the emissaries of the Roman See. The Bishops, who owed their office to an unprecedented exercise of Papal power and to the destruction of religious independence in France, were not the men who could maintain a struggle with the Papacy for the ancient Gallican liberties. In the resistance to the Papacy which had been maintained ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... high and low adventurers, of its tribe of fortune-seekers, and its pushing men and women of every description. And the result was an odd blend of classes and individuals worthy, it may be, of the new democratic era, but unprecedented. It was welcomed as of good augury, for instance, that in the stately Hotel Majestic, where the spokesmen of the British Empire had their residence, monocled diplomatists mingled with spry typewriters, smart ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the Empire that Roman architecture took on a truly national form. True Roman architecture is essentially imperial. The change from the primitive Etruscan style to the splendors of the imperial age was due to the conquest of the Greek states. Not only did the Greek campaigns enrich Rome with an unprecedented wealth of artistic spoils; they also brought into Italy hosts of Greek artists, and filled the minds of the campaigners with the ambition to realize in their own dominions the marble colonnades, the temples, theatres, and propyla of the Greek cities they ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin

... Patty, I am glad to know that this unprecedented behavior is caused by charitable motives. I am sure that when Miss Lord fully understands the case she will feel gratified. Suppose I act as intermediary and lay the matter before her? We may be able to ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... made her prematurely old, and were now renewing her youth. The business prospered to such an extent that, by becoming altogether too wonderful, it ceased to be a matter of wonder altogether to the merchants of the Green Isle. They regarded it as semi-miraculous,—the most unprecedented case of "luck" that had ever been heard of in the annals ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... brilliant campaign of 1805 from an abstract of the reports and letters I received at Hamburg I should, like the almanac-makers, be obliged to note down a victory for every day. Was not the rapidity of the Emperor's first operations a thing hitherto unprecedented? He departed from Paris on the 24th of September, and hostilities commenced on the 2d of October. On the 6th and 7th the French passed the Danube, and turned the enemy's army. On the 8th Murat, at the battle of Wertingen, on the Danube, took ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... of the association. The convention was called to order by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, and Mrs. Caroline McCullough Everhard (O.) was made chairman pro tem. Twenty-six States were represented by seventy-six delegates, the reports showed a year of unprecedented activity and there were requests from every State for speakers and organizers. The treasurer reported receipts for the past ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... art by their parents, and having no gift for it themselves, follow it as the means of livelihood, in an ignoble patience; or, if ambitious, seek to attract regard, or distance rivalry, by fantastic, meretricious, or unprecedented applications of their mechanical skill; while finally, many men, earnest in feeling, and conscientious in principle, mistake their desire to be useful for a love of art, and their quickness of emotion for its capacity, and pass their ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... walking up and down together in the summer twilight till long after every one else was tired out, and had gone in; and when at last they appeared she was leaning on Clarence's arm, an unprecedented spectacle! ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... hoped so too. If he could only make an unprecedented score, restore the fortunes of the day, and show the world what a mistake it was to think Crawley his superior in anything whatever, it would be a glorious triumph. He was not of a patriotic disposition, and did not care for the success of ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... After the lapse of some time, the governor moved the council to take into consideration some measure for restoring vigour and firmness to government. The council replied "that the disorders which happened were occasioned by the violent and unprecedented manner in which the sloop Liberty had been seized by the officers of the customs." And the inhabitants of Boston, in a justificatory memorial, supported by affidavits, insisted that the late tumults were occasioned, principally, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... information that I possess lead to the unhappy conclusion that there is no improvement, but that, on the contrary, there exists, even at this moment, a most extraordinary state of things—a state of things of an unprecedented description—nothing short, in fact, of a state of open war with all forms of authority, and even, I may say without exaggeration, with the necessary institutions ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... instant that saw Amiel lay a commending and fraternal hand on Jennie's curls, the Monster struck. Jealousy had no firmer grip of beak and talons on the Moor of Venice than on the crop-headed Dorothea. In absolute self- defense she did an unprecedented and wholly unexpected thing. Without warning she burst into song, even as Jennie was ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... had saved for after dinner. At that meal, the young men of Mrs. Marsh's grown-up family rallied him on his lack of appetite and general depression. He had not made a pun for four days running, a thing unprecedented. Dinner over, he slipped away to his rooms, lit a pipe, and read the letters, the contents of two of which, three including the Squire's formal one, are already known. Another, in a fine clerkly hand, was ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... I make it out, is that you've achieved something almost unprecedented in the way of getting used to danger. Living with it so long and so closely you've lost your sense of it; you know it's there, but you're indifferent, and you cease even, as of old, to have to whistle ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James

... the favorable impression made upon us by Mr. Durand in a long talk we had with him last night, I would sooner resign my place than pursue this matter against him. Success would create a horror on both sides the water unprecedented during my career, while failure would bring down ridicule on us which would destroy the prestige of the whole force. Do you see my difficulty, Miss Van Arsdale? We can not even approach this haughty and highly reputable Englishman with questions without calling down on ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... before, that it shows me I have taken the root I did take, well. I hope to do much more yet—and that the flower of it will be put into Her hand somehow. I really have great opportunities and advantages—on the whole, almost unprecedented ones—I think, no other disturbances and cares than those I am most grateful for being allowed to have. ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... retreat in the Dobrudja; on 4 January Macin, the last place east and south of the Danube, was evacuated, and on the 5th Braila on the opposite bank south of the Sereth and Danube confluence. On the 23rd the Bulgarians, taking advantage of the unprecedented frost, crossed the marshes at Tulcea, but were annihilated by the Rumanians on the northern bank, and remained content for the rest with the defensive. The same wintry conditions put an end to fighting at the other extremity ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... been possible for me—and I confess I cannot conceive its being so—still less possible would it be now that you know our mind as to the ultimate disposal of things, and that we have been forced to thwart your more than generous, your unprecedented goodness to us.' ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... pure, I swear, for her blue eyes never faltered in looking into mine until one day when—my God! how well I remember it!—they not only faltered, but shrank before me in such terror, that, boy though I was, I knew that something terrible, something unprecedented had happened, and thinking my one thought, I asked if she had received bad news from father. Her answer was a horrified moan, but it might have been a shriek. 'Our father! Pray God we may never see him or hear from him again. If you love him, if you love ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... a week the Pollokshields Fordyces also arrived at their Coast residence, and there began to be a quite unprecedented amount of friendly coming and going between the two families. It became evident before long that George Fordyce appeared to find some great attraction at The Anchorage, though in former years he had only presented himself at rare intervals during the months his people ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... and, foreseeing the progress of modern society, you proclaimed that 'Liberty must be the crowning of the edifice.'' Passing then over the previous gradual advances in popular government, the President came to the 'present self-abnegation, unprecedented in history,' and to the vindication of that plebiscite which I have heard so assailed—viz., Fidelity to the great principle upon which the throne was founded, required that so important a modification of a power bestowed by the people should not be made without the participation of the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the establishment of new public schools and higher educational institutions: we are living in an age which, by ringing the changes on its deafening and continual cry, would certainly give one the impression that there was an unprecedented thirst for culture which eagerly sought to be quenched. But it is just at this point that one should learn to hear aright: it is here, without being disconcerted by the thundering noise of the education-mongers, ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche

... taken the Colonel out of town. But now the necessity of a pass made that awkward, and he went no farther than Glencoe, where he spent an occasional Sunday. Today Mr. Hopper rose from his chair when Mr. Carvel entered,—a most unprecedented action. The Colonel cleared his throat. Sitting down at his desk, he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... retorted lightly. "You don't suppose that I regret these weeks away from civilization. I never was happier in my life. I have, you will agree, proved myself. I can face an unprecedented situation without fainting. I can cook a dinner without killing a man who eats it. I have set a leg successfully, and built a raft that floated safely, and reared two lodges in the wilderness. I have no nerves, whilst nearly every woman I know is just a quivering bundle of them. Yesterday, when ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... to fulfil the terms of the 1860 contract, the mail-trains had to cover the 264 miles between London and Holyhead at an average rate of 42 miles per hour; an unprecedented speed in those days. People then thought themselves most heroic in entrusting their lives to a train that travelled with such terrific velocity as the "Wild Irishman." It was to meet this acceleration that Mr. Ramsbottom, the Locomotive Superintendent ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... marriage availed to call Tom home; and though she had few fears as to dissipation, she did dread hardening and ambition, all the more since she had learnt that Sir Matthew Fleet was affording to him a patronage unprecedented from ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... inspired the said clerks, prompting them to the perpetration of several rash and unparalleled pieces of presumption—such as drinking wine with each other (an act of free-will on their part almost unprecedented), and indulging in sundry sly pieces of covert humour, such as handing the vinegar to each other when the salt was requested, and becoming profusely apologetic upon discovering their mistake. But ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... during its progress the fact is beginning to be visible that the British generals have been from the beginning paralysed not, as anxious observers are always prone to conclude, by any want of knowledge or energy, but by the nature of the implement in their hands. They have to fight an enemy of unprecedented mobility. The Boers are all horsemen and can ride from point to point more than twice as fast as the British infantry can march; they live in British territory by requisitions or loot, and therefore can limit their transport train. But the British forces ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... daughters of an Irish country gentleman, John Gunning, of Castle Coote in Ireland. On their first appearance at court in England, the elder was in her nineteenth, and the second in her eighteenth year. They appear to have excited a most unprecedented sensation in London. Walpole thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... locality. It is said that women first performed on the stage in public at the King's Theatre, in this street. The players were often patronized by Pepys. In 1717 the first English opera was performed here, and in 1727 the "Beggar's Opera" was produced with unprecedented success; but in 1835 the theatre in Portugal Street was taken down to make room for the enlargement of the museum belonging to the ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... uncommon, though not unprecedented; for that indefatigable naturalist, Gilbert White, mentions a tame snake in his meritorious Natural History of Selborne. The greater degree of surprise must be attributed to the case itself, that a child so young should have the courage to approach an animal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various

... Etruria being subdued, and victory and peace procured. With these words he left the senate." On this arose a contention between the plebeian tribunes; some of them declaring that they would protest against his triumphing in a manner unprecedented; others, that they would support his pretensions, in opposition to their colleagues. The affair came at length to be discussed before the people, and the consul being summoned to attend, when he represented, that Marcus Horatius and Lucius Valerius, ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... carry on the dangerous designs of a prevailing party, to preserve them in power, to gratify the immeasurable appetites of a few leaders, civil and military, though by hazarding the ruin of the whole nation: this counsel, desperate in itself, unprecedented in the nature of it, they procure a majority to form into an address,[9] which makes it look like the sense of the nation. Under that shelter they carry on their work, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... justice against the dissent of an important minority in the House of Commons and of the majority of the Lords, the stifling of discussion in the Indian Legislature, which was still more directly interested in the matter, and above all the unprecedented public subscriptions in England and in India for the glorification of General Dyer, whilst the Punjab Government was still haggling over doles to the widows and orphans of Jallianwala—and, having weighed it, found it lamentably wanting, until ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... capture or its destruction. The story of the siege need not here be told; nowhere has it been recorded with more picturesque and energetic brevity than in the glowing pages of Gibbon. Operations were carried on with unprecedented vigour and effect, rendered more terrible by the lavish use of gunpowder and artillery, then almost new elements in the art of war. Constantine did all that a Christian prince and a brave general could ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... She made the most graceful joke of it that I've ever seen made of anything; but it was for all that a great date in her life. She spoke with her mild gaiety of all the other vain times, the long game of hide-and-seek, the unprecedented queerness of such a relation. For it was, or had been, a relation, wasn't it, hadn't it? That was just the absurd part of it. When she got up to go I said to her that it was more a relation than ever, but that I hadn't ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... of them had been sent to the other side, and this put an additional strain upon the railroads. The movement of troops, the heavy building operations in cantonments and shipbuilding plants, the manufacture and transportation of munitions, all put an unprecedented pressure upon them. Everywhere there was great shortage of cars, equipment, and materials. Possibly the railroads might have risen to the occasion except for the fact that the enormous increase in the cost of ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody

... unusually good. Settlers looking for land filled the hotel, and now elevators were to be built, farmers hired extra labor and broke new soil. Household supplies were purchased on an unprecedented scale, and when snow melted the hotel stables were occupied by rough-coated teams, while wagons, foul with the mud of the prairie trails, waited for their loads in front of the store. Sadie felt cheered and encouraged, and although Bob sometimes spent in careless talk an hour or two that ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... character have recently depressed American credit in the stock market of the world to a degree quite unprecedented. I need scarcely mention the condition of the banking institutions of some of the States, the vast amount of foreign debt contracted during a period of wild speculation by corporations and individuals, and, above ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... An unprecedented stroke of luck for such a fellow as I. Yet I doubt very much if I am quite the man for that sort of life. I should be apt to fancy it a kind of gilded slavery, I think, Gil, and there would be some danger of my ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... an unprecedented evening. At the close of it he had four new friends, and had discovered that "Tom" was Thomas Mayernick, one of the attorneys of the Spaceways Commission, and one of the men whom he had gone to ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye

... supervisorial experiences were trying and some were amusing. Discussion was often relieved by rare bits of eloquence and surprising use of language. Pronunciation was frequently original and unprecedented. Amazing ignorance was unconcealed and the gift of gab was unrestrained. Nothing quite equaled in fatal facility a progress report made by a former member soon after his debut: "We think we shall soon be able to bring ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... Legislature, I congratulated you upon the flattering prospects which opened to your view and upon the flourishing and tranquil state of the British empire, then at peace with all the world. Since that period, I am sorry to find its tranquillity has been disturbed by the unjustifiable and unprecedented conduct of the persons exercising the supreme power in France, who, after deluging their own country with the blood of their fellow-citizens, and imbruing their hands in that of their Sovereign, have forced his ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... a serious responsibility to induce him to take up the work of an explorer; yet no man living could be found who was so well fitted to command a great Antarctic Expedition. The undertaking was new and unprecedented. The object was to explore the unknown Antarctic Continent by land. Captain Scott entered upon the enterprise with enthusiasm tempered by prudence and sound sense. All had to be learnt by a thorough study of the history ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... to about two diameters of the Sun. The 1898 Corona yielded four long Coronal streamers reaching much farther from the Sun than any previously seen, the two longest reaching to 41/2 and 6 diameters of the Sun respectively. These dimensions are quite unprecedented. ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... which at present I think it necessary to record. I shall doubtless hereafter have further occasion to take up the pen. Great and unprecedented as my sufferings have been, I feel intimately persuaded that there are worse sufferings that await me. What mysterious cause is it that enables me to write this, and not to perish under the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... depths as better than any thing life could offer. How serenely the water lay in the sunshine, as we looked at it, hearing this news, which had stirred the city to its utmost! Here all secrets are guarded, all perplexities end. The passion for suicide seeks mostly this pathway, though there is an unprecedented number of intentional deaths ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton

... in no mood to reckon the cost, as she prepared for the evening festivities. So great was her energy and enthusiasm, that the contagion spread to the little Snawdors, each of whom submitted with unprecedented meekness to a "wash all over." Nance dressed herself last, wrapping her white feet and legs in paper to keep them clean until the great hour ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... entire church patronage of Ireland as an instrument of administration. The Lord-Lieutenant was authorized to dispense this patronage with one solitary view to merit, professional merit, and the highest interests of Ireland. So noble an act as this, and one so unprecedented in its nobility, needs no praise of ours. It speaks for itself. And it would be injurious to spend words in emblazonry of that which, by a spontaneous movement, both sides of the House received with volleying cheers. That kind of applause is as rare ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... the losing freshman team did something unprecedented in the history of Wellington. They entertained their conquerors at dinner at Rutherford Inn. More, Jane was amazed to find herself the guest of honor and had to respond to the highly complimentary toast, "Right Guard Jane," given by Florence ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... much in accordance with ascertained laws of nature, as the more rapid cooling of a red-hot bar, when it is thrust into cold water, than when it remains in the air. But much more rapid cooling might entail a shifting and rearrangement of the parts of the crust of the earth on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, and bring about "catastrophes" to which the earthquake of Lisbon is but a trifle. It is conceivable that man and his works and all the higher forms of animal life should be utterly destroyed; that mountain regions should he converted into ocean depths and the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... on the citizens. Since the time of Henry IV. no prince had ever shown the slightest interest in the happiness or misery of the lower classes; and the feeling of affectionate gratitude which this unprecedented recognition of their claims to be sympathized with as fellow-creatures awakened was fixed still more deeply in their hearts a short time afterward, when, at one of the hunting-parties which took place at Fontainebleau, the stag charged a crowd of ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... General Burgoyne summoned all the principal officers. Mr. Pellew attended, as commander of the brigade of seamen; and a more decisive testimony to his merits and services could not be afforded, than the unprecedented compliment of calling a midshipman, only twenty years of age, to sit in council ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... was immediate and hearty. Not only were political pamphlets printed and distributed from Cape Cod to the Blue Ridge, but an astonishing number of newspapers were founded to disseminate Republican doctrine. The three or four years before the presidential election of 1800 are marked by an unprecedented journalistic revival. Instead of being mere purveyors of facts, these newspapers became, as a contemporary observes, "Vehicles of discussion, in which the principles of government, the interests of nations, ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... his efforts long after it seemed that the countryside was safe. He tried to pack into twelve short weeks what he would normally have done in twelve long months. He spurred his fellow physicians to increased activities, he urged authorities to unprecedented exertions. He did the work of two men and sometimes of three. And he was so exhausted that he felt that if ever his work was finished he would sleep for a ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... outline, and prepare the sermon for publication, to which he had consented. He wished to ascertain from me, as a publisher, the expense of printing five thousand copies, being sure that the sale of it would be unprecedented, not only throughout the kingdom, but as far as the English language was spoken. In about a week, the copy fairly written was left with me. The text was Hebrews 12:1, 'Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.' After ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of this first winter was a period of unprecedented hardship and suffering. Mild as was the weather, it was far more severe than that of the land of their birth; and the disease contracted on shipboard, aggravated by colds caught in their wanderings in quest of a home, caused a great and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... o'clock; and he sprang up and rushed out. Of course he had not undressed; his life was too strenuous for mere formalities. The stars shone above him as he ran along, wondering whether after all, though late, he could by unprecedented effort make the ordained number of handles before his master tumbled into the cellar at ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... of success were thus loaded heavily against the attackers, and complete victory was rendered impossible by the incredible weather. The great storm which raged throughout the initial attack on July 31st was succeeded by almost unprecedented rain throughout August. The brief improvement of September relapsed into the deluges which made the last stages of the struggle for Passchendaele so heroic a feat of endurance. The last month of the Somme Battle had been terrible, but the whole of the events ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, Thou art free! the moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid light, a ray of the true light of the living, suddenly penetrated within him. But it was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by the idea of liberty. He had believed in a new life. He very speedily ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... better way of providing for the public security, than by marrying the daughter of his chief enemy, the king of the Marcomanni. On this side of Europe, the barbarians were thus quieted for the present; but the Goths of the Ukraine, in three marauding expeditions of unprecedented violence, ravaged the wealthy regions of Asia Minor, as well as the islands of the Archipelago; and at length, under the guidance of deserters, landed in the port of the Pyraeus. Advancing from this point, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... untrue. The sentence was pronounced by artificial light in a stifling poisonous atmosphere. Something edifying was said by the judge weightily, about the retribution overtaking the perpetrator of 'the most heartless frauds on an unprecedented scale.' I don't understand these things much, but it appears that he had juggled with accounts, cooked balance sheets, had gathered in deposits months after he ought to have known himself to be hopelessly insolvent, ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... The entire dependence of the soul upon God is not an exceptional mystery, nor is man's helplessness an arbitrary and unprecedented phenomenon. It is the law of all Nature. The spiritual man is not taxed beyond the natural. He is not purposely handicapped by singular limitations or unusual incapacities. God has not designedly made the religious life as hard as possible. The arrangements for the spiritual ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond

... have cherished—too childish to have borne it so silently. As far as the fisherman was implicated in the affair, even if he had trifled a little for his own amusement with the vague impulses, possibly the affections, of this unsophisticated girl, the act was by no means unprecedented among people of wealth and respectability. It was a diversion in which Arthur Grey and Stephen Montgomery would not have indulged, perhaps, "but this," I mused, "is a sadly commonplace sort of world, viewed in the broad daylight ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... the weekly faculty conference on Monday night had no written petition to consider, the subject of Tom's reinstatement did come before it and in a totally unprecedented manner. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... Beecher said, This act will demonstrate the unfeeling selfishness of the British Government and bring us to a realisation of our national humiliation. This opinion comes from a Christian minister who wishes to obtain a welcome in Liverpool, where operatives are suffering almost unprecedented hardships caused by the suicidal war raging in the States of North America, and which is being urged on by fanatical statesmen and preachers ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold

... if an official was to be persuaded to consent to some unprecedented seizure of the streets, or a diplomat invoked for the assistance of the Army or the Navy, it was the experience and good judgment of Dick Davis that controlled the task. In the field there were his helpful suggestions of work and make-up to the ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various

... one side abrupt and bounded by a wall of almost fathomless precipice, and on the other descends to the plain in a cataract of billowy undulations. It had one feature which, although peculiar, is by no means unprecedented. At one point, where the huge rock wall towers up from the ghastly depth of a broad ravine, there is a lateral ridge—not unlike the Mickeldore of Scawfell Pikes—running right across the valley, and connecting Appenfell with Bardlyn, another hill of much lower elevation, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... and, far more, grief after her long course of worry really did bring on a feverish attack, so unprecedented in her that it upset the whole family, and if Mr. Ogilvie had not been almost equally wretched himself, he would have been amused to see these three great sons wandering forlorn about the house like stray chicks who had lost their parent hen, and imagining her ten ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... seems to work up the lovers to a state of heavenly rapture, and in the final verse of the hymn to night they pray only to be removed from the dangers of returning day; and here the strains swell to an intensity of yearning for peace quite unprecedented in music. And, as we know, their prayer is immediately answered in a fashion they were hardly ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... very commencement of your missionary life, cultivate a spirit of enterprise. Without such a spirit, nothing great will be achieved in any human pursuit; and this is an age of enterprise, to a remarkable and unprecedented extent. In manufactures, in the mechanic arts, in agriculture, in education, in the science of government, men are awake and active; their minds are all on the alert; their ingenuity is tasked; and they are making improvements with the greatest zeal. Shall not the same enterprise be seen in moral ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... the problem how best to assure her safety, was comforted by the certainty that, whatever befell the ship, the national interests would not be gravely compromised if she did meet the enemy. The situation was not novel or unprecedented, and historical precedents are an immense support to the spirit in doubtful moments. Conscious of the power of the ship herself, and confident in her captain and officers, whom it knew well, the Department was assured, to use words of Nelson when he was expecting to be similarly outnumbered, "Before ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... asserted for the Princeton was established during the Mexican War by her performance before Vera Cruz as a blockading ship of unprecedented efficiency, which, having been displayed under the admiring observation of a British squadron, tended more than any other single event to confirm the Admiralty in the conclusions to be drawn from the experiments just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5] says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... That evening an unprecedented and extraordinary thing happened. Brackenfield College stood in a dip of the hills not very far away from the sea. As at most coast places, the rules in the neighbourhood of Whitecliffe were exceedingly strict. Not the least little chink of a light must be visible after dusk, and blinds ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... of that day Molly was depressed and not well. Having anything to conceal was so unusual—almost so unprecedented a circumstance with her that it preyed upon ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... of COUSIN was neither an original discovery nor an unprecedented delusion. It was taught, in a different form, but with equal confidence, by several writers belonging to the era of the first French Revolution. Thus HELVETIUS, in his work on MAN, says expressly: "There is no man of understanding who does not acknowledge an active ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... refuge in the more tolerant territories of the Venetian Republic. His ancestors had dropped their Gothic surname on their settlement in the Terra Firma, and grateful to the God of Jacob who had sustained them through unprecedented trials and guarded them through unheard-of perils, they assumed the name of DISRAELI, a name never borne before or since by any other family, in order that their race might be for ever recognised. Undisturbed and unmolested, they flourished as merchants ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... upon Mr. Matheson and seen the Chief of the Indians there on my way down. I then made all haste to return here, but, owing to contrary winds, only succeeded in reaching the Stone Fort on the 20th September, yet, having made a very quick trip, unprecedented in fact, and in carrying out the mission entrusted to me, travelled in an open boat, thirteen ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... in which it occurred was one of unprecedented destitution and famine. Fuel was both scarce and bad—the preceding crops had failed, and food was not only of a deleterious quality, but scarcely to be procured at all. The winter, too, was wet and stormy, and the deluges of rain daily and incessant. ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... covered her unprecedented emotions by gazing into the oven at the first pie. The pie was doing well, under all the circumstances. In those few seconds she reflected rapidly and decided that to a desperate disease a desperate remedy ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... temperature. One morning the wind shifted to the southwest, the sun was as hot as in June; before night it came on to rain, and, before the following night, nearly the whole vast body of snow had been dissolved into water which had swelled all the streams to an unprecedented height. The streams poured down into the great river, which rose with fearful rapidity, converting all the alluvial ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... reason: That morning, when he brought the engraving of Hero and Leander, Anselme Popinot, whom Constance credited with much intelligence and practical ability, had assured her of the inevitable success of Cephalic Oil, for which he was working night and day with a fury that was almost unprecedented. The lover promised that no matter what was the round sum of Birotteau's extravagance, it should be covered in six months by Cesar's share in the profits of the oil. After fearing and trembling for nineteen years it was so sweet to give herself up to ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... unprecedented event has taken place and thrown us into a state of the greatest alarm. Our sister-artist, Christine Daae, has disappeared before our eyes and ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux

... to the assertion of the old man, knew nothing whatever about proper forms. On the other hand, Anton reasserted his rights at dinner: firm as a post he stood behind Marya Dmitrievna's chair—and yielded his place to no one. The long-unprecedented arrival of visitors at Vasilievskoe both agitated and rejoiced the old man: it pleased him to see, that his master knew nice people. However, he was not the only one who was excited on that day: Lemm, also, was excited. He put on a short, snuff-coloured frock-coat, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... ascertained, that, as a general rule, the practice of polygamy has not the effect of bringing about an abnormal growth of population. However this may be elsewhere, in Natal, owing in great measure to the healthy customs of the Zulu race,[*] the rate of increase is unprecedented. Many writers and other authorities consider polygamy as an institution, to be at once wicked and disgusting. As to its morality, it is a point upon which it is difficult to express any opinion, nor, indeed, does the question enter into the scope of what I have to say; but it must be remembered ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... public did not demand the accomplishment of this promise at the time fixed, and the banks, led on by the thirst of gain, issued an unprecedented amount of bank notes. The general approbation brought about a still further increase in their number: the bank notes of the Bank of Philadelphia were at a discount of 80 per cent.; the others at 75 per cent, and 50 per cent., and metallic ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. I say, we good Presbyterian christians ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... whole month the Government took little notice of the unprecedented excitement and demonstrations. It was not till December 25th that a reply was given to the public demands. On that day the Emperor signed an ukaz in which he enumerated the reforms which he considered ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... very well, eh? That was most unprecedented calamity last night, eh? My royal palace, too, it leaks like the devil, and the crops will also be short all about my country. Now you shall back her out, Hitchcock. I—I do not understand steam engines. You are wet? You are cold, Finlinson? I have ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling

... General T. F. Farrell, described the explosion in great detail: "The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum

... immense advertisements appear in all the daily and weekly papers of Paris, headed by gigantic letters that the fleetest runner may read, announcing extraordinary exhibitions, great exhibitions, and unprecedented spring shows. "Poor Jacques" offers 3000 cashmere shawls at twenty-seven francs each, 2000 silk dresses at twenty-nine francs, and 1000 at thirty-nine francs. "Little Saint Thomas," of the Rue du Bac, has 90,000 French linos, 1000 "Jacquettes gentleman," 500 Zouaves, and ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... by surprise, and threw the city into consternation. No one had dreamed of such daring and audacity. To lead a Roman army against Rome was unprecedented. The senate sent an embassy asking Sulla to halt till the Fathers could come to some decision. He promised to do so, but as soon as the envoys had gone he sent a force that seized the Colline Gate and entered the city streets. Here their progress was stopped by the people, who hurled ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... to be an entertainment so brilliant, so unprecedented; marvels were told about it; there were rumours of princes from a distance with lorgnettes; of ten stewards, all young dandies, with rosettes on their left shoulder; of some Petersburg people who were setting the thing ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the Mediterranean. A French frigate has been taken; and a despatch declaring war has been received from France, ordering the capture of all English vessels, offering commissions to privateers, and by an act of treachery unprecedented among nations, annexed to this order is a command that all the English, from eighteen to sixty, residing in France, should be arrested; the pretext being to answer as prisoners for the French subjects who may have been made prisoners by the ships of his Britannic Majesty, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... long-looked-for trip with his friend that was at the bottom of Mr. Thornton's anxiety to get away. He could not help seeing that Ed needed a rest and needed it very badly. Archie Blair aroused his fears further. For one evening Lawyer Ed did an altogether unprecedented thing and went home to bed early. Mrs. Hepburn, his sister, was so amazed over such a piece of conduct on her brother's part, that she called at the doctor's office the next day to ask if he thought there was anything wrong ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... artistic traditions of the first half of the century. Millais, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and their associates, count to us, to-day, as the representatives of an earlier generation; in 1855 they still stood for all that was daring, unprecedented, and adventurous ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys

... as 'to pass war vessels from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie;' and yet another, the most striking one of all, has been given to us, if we will only understand it, by the enormous expansion of the American army and navy. I will take leave to read to the House a few figures which show the amazing, the unprecedented, growth (which has not, perhaps, a parallel in the annals of the past) of the military power of our neighbours, within the past three or four years. I have the details here by me, but shall only read the results, to show the House the emphatic terms of this most serious ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... had lost their appetites, and taken to shut themselves up in dark bedrooms, and wandering in desolate suburbs with pale faces, and all because of Dolly Varden's loveliness and cruelty! How many young men, in all previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the boxes of rheumatic watchmen! How had she recruited the king's service, both by sea and land, through ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... supporter Colonel Sibthorp has lately, in the most heroic manner, submitted to an unprecedented and wonderfully successful operation. Our gallant friend was suffering from a severe elongation of the auricular organs; amputation was proposed, and submitted to with most heroic patience. We are happy to state the only inconvenience resulting from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... be made famous in literature by the great dinner in honor of the advent of PUNCHINELLO. Mr. PUNCH is talked of to preside. An unprecedented rush for tickets has begun. More about it ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various

... detail the confusion and panic of the government officials who were gathered here in the room where Don, Jane and I stood watching and listening to the excitement of the incoming reports. For quiet little Bermuda the unprecedented situation was doubly frightening. An attack would have to be made upon the invaders. There were only fifty of the enemy; the soldiers and the police could in a few hours be mobilized to rush them and kill ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings

... exemplification of the saying, that 'les Rois et les Valets' are made of the refuse clay of creation, for though such things sometimes happen in the servants' hall, and housekeepers charge still-room and kitchen-maids with frailty, they are unprecedented and unheard of in good society, and among people in high or even in respectable stations. It is inconceivable how Melbourne can have permitted this disgraceful and mischievous scandal, which cannot fail to lower the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... original draft of the book this crocodile was a snake—monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens. A friend of the writer, an African explorer of great experience who read that draft, suggested that the snake was altogether too unprecedented and impossible. Accordingly, also at his suggestion, a crocodile was substituted. Scarcely was this change effected, however, when Mr. R. T. Coryndon, the slayer of almost the last white rhinoceros, published in the African Review of February ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... intellect were strong enough to appreciate the value of what they were told. The investigators were obliged to work with Rolla, Dulnop, and Corrus only; upon these three depended the success of their unprecedented scheme. ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... take some unprecedented occurrence to stir the masses. The firing on Fort Sumter shook the Nation more than the carnage of Gettysburg. The Nation has come to be apathetic on a vital question; even more so than in the ante-bellum days. The dry-rot of Commercialism is consuming us. We are governed by dividend ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... influence on the march of events. Every one is aware, that the excessively rigorous winter of 1788-89 was the cause of severe sufferings to the people. But it may not be so generally known, that on the 13th of July, 1788, a fall of hail of unprecedented size and quantity, in a few hours completely ravaged the two parallel zones lying between the department of the Charente and the frontiers of the Pays-Bas, and that in consequence of this frightful hail, the wheat partly failed, both in the north and in the west of France, until ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... ensued. All this was most irregular, unprecedented, a disgrace to a gentlemen's meeting. The major roared like a bull. If a man would not fight, would not defend his actions, how could a gentleman get at him except by street brawling or assassination, and both of these were repugnant to finer feelings. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... Turnpike acts, sanctioning the construction of new roads, became numerous. Palmer's application of the stage-coaches to the carriage of the mails marked an epoch in 1784; and De Quincey's prose poem, 'The Mail-coach,' shows how the unprecedented speed of Palmer's coaches, then spreading the news of the first battles in the Peninsula, had caused them to tyrannise over the opium-eater's dreams. They were discharging at once a political and an industrial function. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... not committed, but are beginning to see that a finer element, in the body politic would clear the vision, purify the atmosphere and help to settle many vexed questions on the basis of exact and equal justice. In the Senate the unprecedented courtesy was extended to women of half an hour's time on the floor and while this kind of business has usually been transacted with an attendance of from seven to ten senators, it was observed that only two out of the twenty-six who had Sixteenth Amendment ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... populace by signs, as no voice could be heard in such an uproar. At last the friends and relations of the tribunes, seeing that it was impossible to carry out their sentence on Marcius without much bloodshed, persuaded them to alter the cruel and unprecedented part of the sentence, and not to put him to death by violence, or without a trial, but to refer the matter to the people, to be voted upon by them. Upon this Sicinnius, turning to the patricians, demanded ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... combine medical knowledge, simplicity, and purity in an unprecedented way. They are chaste and void of offense to the most delicate natures.—The ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... year are not quite complete yet. What remains will be inconsiderable. The full amount will appear in my annual statement of accounts. What has come to hand from the different stations, including our own, amounts to the unprecedented sum of Two thousand, two hundred, and thirty-six pounds, eighteen shillings. May I add a word of caution with reference to the amount raised by our people this year. It will be wise, I think, for all of us to say very ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various

... each gave promise of a dramatic capacity out of the common way, cannot be with certainty pronounced to be beyond the ability of other men. It was in 'Romeo and Juliet,' Shakespeare's first tragedy, that he proved himself the possessor of a poetic and dramatic instinct of unprecedented quality. In 'Romeo and Juliet' he turned to account a tragic romance of Italian origin, {55a} which was already popular in English versions. Arthur Broke rendered it into English verse from the Italian ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... Oaths Bill, not only giving Members of Parliament the right to affirm, but making Freethinkers competent as jurymen, and relieving witnesses from the insult hitherto put upon those who objected to swearing; he thus ended an unprecedented struggle by a complete victory, weaving his name for ever into the constitutional history ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... thoroughly Slav programme. Also during this war, which has found our nation unprepared like all other peaceful nations, the Czechs have since the very beginning expressed their sympathies for Russia, Serbia and their Allies, notwithstanding the unprecedented Austrian terrorism, suppressing every manifestation of the real feelings of the people. The pro-Austrian declarations are enforced by the government. To-day the leading Czech politicians are in prison, the gallows have become the favourite support of the incapable administration, and Czech regiments ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... authors whom I cannot represent worthily in these brief limits. When, encouraged by the unprecedented popularity of this venture, I prepare an encyclopaedia of the "Wit and Humor of American Women," I can do justice to such writers as "Gail Hamilton" and Miss Alcott, whose "Transcendental Wild Oats" cannot be cut. Rose Terry Cooke thinks her "Knoware" the ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... able to overcome the antagonism of vested interests so far as to get themselves introduced. The nineteenth century, including the last quarter of the eighteenth, was marked by an astonishing and absolutely unprecedented number of great inventions in economic processes. To what was this outburst of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... 18th I found her in a state of unprecedented excitement, squeaking almost incessantly. At first I attributed this to concern at my presence, but after a while it transpired that a young oriole—a blundering, tailless fellow—was the cause of the disturbance. By some accident he had dropped ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... him. Miss Boucheafen, turning from the window, arched her straight brows with an expression of questioning surprise. For Doctor Brudenell to appear in the school-room at that hour in the morning was an unprecedented event. ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford

... were indebted to the nobility of heart and elevation of mind, displayed by Southern and Pro-slavery men in making the vote so overwhelming as to put the question beyond the possibility of controversy forever; yet this was done in the unprecedented vote of six to one, cast in condemnation of ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... of strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since ... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the end of that long rainy day in July, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... resemblance to, differ toto coelo [Lat.]. render unlike &c adj.; vary &c (diversify) 140. Adj. dissimilar, unlike, disparate; divergent; of a different kind; &c (class) 75 unmatched, unique; new, novel; unprecedented &c 83; original. nothing of the kind; no such thing, quite another thing; far from it, cast in a different mold, tertium quid [Lat.], as like a dock as a daisy, very like a whale [Hamlet]; as different as chalk from cheese, as different as Macedon and Monmouth; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... enabling the children of the village choir to put on their best frocks and hats for the important function to which Cicely had summoned them. There was great excitement among these little people. That they should be specially asked to sing to Miss Vancourt was to them an unexpected and unprecedented honour, and filled them with speechless delight and pride. They were all very shy and nervous, however, and it was with quite a trembling awe that they scraped their feet on the polished oak floors of the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... "An earthquake, unprecedented in its violence, occurred in Sparta. In many places throughout Laconia the rocky soil was rent asunder. From Mount Ta-yg'e-tus, which overhung the city, and on which the women of Lacedaemon were wont to hold their bacchanalian orgies, huge fragments rolled ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... of New York, having been but recently elected by an unprecedented majority. I recall him distinctly on this occasion as he responded to the eloquent speech of Colonel Vilas. Standing near him at the time were three men well known at a later date as members of his cabinet and his ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... continued to reside until his death. In 1830 he was elected by the Democratic party to the Senate of Pennsylvania. In the year 1831 he was elected to Congress, and two years after was reelected by an unprecedented majority. During the early part of the administration of Governor Porter he was appointed Judge of the Nicholson Court of Pennsylvania, and in March, 1844, was appointed President Judge ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... unprecedented prosperity and triumph for the baby, as they were for the company. The cabin was half filled with strange things, for all who came gave something to Melisse. There were polar bears' teeth, brought down by the little black ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... his arms, and could never be satisfied with listening to her. He sent for her continually to his presence—he delighted in her conversation, so new, so natural, so spirited—he settled a pension upon her at that time, of unprecedented amount, in the case of a subaltern officer; and by his desire, because the year 1625 was a year of jubilee, she departed in a few months from Madrid to Rome. She went through Barcelona; there and everywhere welcomed as the lady whom the King delighted to honor. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... and secret thought; but before he could dwell upon the conclusion, the unprecedented had happened and Mary was sobbing in a break-down of tears. He would have liked to take her in his arms, after Tom's fashion, but he did not know how. He tried, and found Mary as unschooled as himself. It resulted only in an embarrassed awkwardness ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... due to the undisturbed love for the child and to the joy experienced at the thriving of its charms, become purely artistic; and thus in some sense or another every being will be an artist in truth. The diversity of natural inclinations will develop the most manifold aptitudes into an unprecedented wealth of beauty!"—at all points a Socialist line of thought, and fully in keeping with the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... consequence of some law quite unconnected with the ordinary course of the weather. In the cases of great volcanic eruptions, as that of Coseguina, where torrents of rain fell at a time of the year most unusual for it, and "almost unprecedented in Central America," it is not difficult to understand that the volumes of vapour and clouds of ashes might have disturbed the atmospheric equilibrium. Humboldt extends this view to the case of earthquakes unaccompanied by eruptions; but I can hardly conceive ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... considerable sum had been expended on this work. Ten thousand copies were, by various means, scattered over the kingdom. No more mendacious, more malignant or more impious lampoon was ever penned. Though the government had as yet treated its enemies with a lenity unprecedented in the history of our country, though not a single person had, since the Revolution, suffered death for any political offence, the authors of this liturgy were not ashamed to pray that God would assuage their enemy's insatiable thirst for blood, or ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... having before had no children, though she had been married twenty-two years, his birth was considered as a particular favor from heaven, and he was called the "Gift of God." He is sometimes styled "Louis the Great," is notorious as a period of licentiousness. He left behind him monuments of unprecedented splendor and expense, consisting of palaces, gardens, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... mouth of the cave he stooped low, as he was bound to do, to gain admittance, and in that moment he was brought to a halt by a long, angry, threatening snarl from within. Warrigal was very plainly telling her mate to remain outside, unless he was looking for trouble. This was unprecedented, and he was a very angry and outraged Wolfhound, who withdrew slowly with as much dignity as might be in walking backward with lowered ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... pepper-and-salt shawl, black rigolette, and all, when she finished this unprecedented speech; and when he went to sleep that night in the old north chamber, the one he and Louisa had been born in, the one his father and mother had died in, it was with a little smile of ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... this prediction by falling in love, which he did on a scale and with an abandon unprecedented in the history of Park Row. It was a tempestuous upheaval for the emotional Southerner, and every other interest in his life retired to the remotest background and remained there, unseen and unsuspected. His choice fell on a woman reporter of the Searchlight, a quiet, refined ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... say that Ernest had written to his father, and told him of the unprecedented way in which he was being treated; he even ventured to suggest that Theobald should interfere for his protection and reminded him how the story had been got out of him, but Theobald had had enough of Dr Skinner for the present; the burning of the school ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... property of his subjects. As famine pressed, the people next surrendered their land to avoid starvation,—all but the priests. Pharaoh thus became absolute proprietor of the whole country; of money, cattle, and land,—an unprecedented surrender, which would have produced a wide-spread disaffection and revolt, had it not been that Joseph, after the famine was past and the earth yielded its accustomed harvest, exacted only one-fifth of the produce of the land for the support of the government, which ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... Rumour had a wonderful time. It was stated that not only the libraries but the booksellers also would decline to handle "The New Machiavelli." The reasons for this prophesied ostracism were perhaps vague, but they were understood to be broad-based upon the unprecedented audacity of the novel. And really in this exciting year, with Sir Percy Bunting in charge of the national sense of decency, and Mr. W.T. Stead still gloating after twenty-five years over his success in keeping Sir Charles Dilke out of office—you never ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... Marxist government was overthrown in 1973 by a dictatorial military regime led by Augusto PINOCHET, which ruled until a freely elected president was installed in 1990. Sound economic policies, first implemented by the PINOCHET dictatorship, led to unprecedented growth in 1991-97 and have helped secure the country's commitment to democratic and representative government. Growth slowed in 1998-99, but ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... while the internal taxes, direct and indirect, add fifteen dollars to the cost of each ton of bar-iron. Nor can there be a great fall while there is a prospect that the coal from Nova Scotia is to be excluded or raised in price by the repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty. Freights have risen to the unprecedented rate of four or five dollars per ton between Philadelphia and Massachusetts and Maine; and if we wish for former freights of two dollars per ton and lower prices, we must build steam colliers like those which run between Newcastle and London, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... himself up and away from her. Then there was a cessation of annoyance, flatteringly agreeable: which can come to us only of our having done the right thing, young men will think. He felt at once warmly with the world, enjoyed the world's kind shelter, and in return for its eulogy of his unprecedented attachment to the pledge of his word, admitted an understanding of its laughter at the burlesque edition of a noble lady in the person of the Whitechapel Countess. The world ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... has been suspicion on the part of some of the riparian owners that either the power company or the Government, or both, have been entertaining ulterior motives with the purpose of drawing down the Lake to unprecedented levels and of extracting from the Lake an amount of water greater than the average annual inflow. It may be stated once for all that there has never been such a purpose and that all calculations of ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... Congress Declares the People of Cuba Free and Independent. Minister Woodford Receives his Passports at Madrid. Increase of the Regular Army. Spain Prepares for War. Army Equipment Insufficient. Strength of Navy. The Oregon Makes Unprecedented Run. Admiral Cervera's Fleet in Santiago Harbor. Navy at Santiago Harbor Entrance. Army Lands near Santiago. The Darkest Day of the War. Sinking of the Collier Merrimac to Block Harbor Entrance. Spanish Ships Leave. General Toral Surrenders. Expedition ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... known and friendly character. The other authors of allusions did not need to say WHO their "Shakespeare" was, any more than they needed to say WHO Marlowe or any other poet was. We have examined the possibly unprecedented argument which demands that they who mention Shakespeare as the poet must, if they would enlighten us, add explicitly that he ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... way to speed before her. Those exemplars of male fashion, the dry goods clerks, craned furtively about front doors. Bare-armed and aproned proprietors of grocery stores and their hirelings appeared beneath the awnings and displayed an unprecedented concern in trying to resuscitate, with aid of sprinkling-cans, bunches of expiring radishes and young onions. Owners of amiable steeds that dozed beside the curb hurried out of cavernous doors, the fear ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... movement in the world much remains to be done. Our nation should lead in the crusade for disarmament; no other nation is so well qualified for leadership in this movement so necessary for civilization. The desire for peace, intensified by the agonies of an unprecedented war, ought to be sufficient to bring about disarmament; it should be unnecessary to invoke financial reasons. But national debts have increased so enormously as to have become unbearable and the world must disarm or face universal bankruptcy. The reaction ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... Bourbons, this former officer of the armies of Louis XVI., the former second-lieutenant of artillery, who had suddenly become a Caesar, a Charlemagne, could make this sudden and strange transformation comprehensible only through unprecedented fame and splendor. He desired to have a feudal, majestic court, surrounded by all the pomp and ceremony of the Middle Ages. He saw how hard was the part he had to play, and he knew very well how much a nation needs glory to make it forget liberty. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... Antonia contributing a quite unprecedented alacrity; and then there was a cheerful call from the road. The ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... lightness, seemed fraught with impertinence and irreverence. If ever he kissed Mary, he thought,—and then all the powers of his mind galloped off like wild horses let loose on a sun-baked ranch—if ever he kissed Mary! What a dream!—what a boldness unprecedented! But again—if ever he kissed her, it must be with the kiss of a lover, for whom such a token of endearment was the sign of a sacred betrothal. And he became so lost and abstracted in his musings that he ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... efforts of the bank to control public opinion, through the distresses of some and the fears of others, are equally apparent, and, if possible, more objectionable. By a curtailment of its accommodations more rapid than any emergency requires, and even while it retains specie to an almost unprecedented amount in its vaults, it is attempting to produce great embarrassment in one portion of the community, while through presses known to have been sustained by its money it attempts by unfounded alarms to create a ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson

... libretto it had a run of fifty-six representations, and was then withdrawn from the stage; and the work of remodeling from five to three acts, and other improvements in the dramatic framework, was thoroughly carried out. In its new form the opera blazed into an unprecedented popularity, for of the greatness of the music there had never been but one judgment. Fetis, the eminent critic, writing of it immediately on its production, said, "The work displays a new man in an old one, and proves that it is in vain to measure the action of ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... obvious, evident, or commonplace, and the attorney's heart grew heavy within him. The paternal displeasure was signified in the usual manner—the supplies were cut off. Edmund Burke, however, was no ordinary prodigal, and his reply to his father's expostulations took the unexpected and unprecedented shape of a copy of a second and enlarged edition of his treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful, which he had published in 1756 at the price of three shillings. Burke's father promptly sent the author a bank-bill for 100 ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... an immense sigh of mingled amazement and relief. She had passed! Actually passed! She—Winona Woodward, whose form record had never soared above the most modest average. It was an unprecedented and altogether delightful finale to her school career. For the moment she could hardly believe that it was true. But Miss Bishop had not finished her speech; she held up her hand to stop the burst of ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... followed, tended and directed in all the operations of life that she actually failed to recognise her sensations as those of hunger. But her unwonted exertions, the strain on her flagging brain, the stimulus of this unprecedented day, all combined to flush her cheek feverishly and she felt strangely weak. For the first time it flashed over her cleared faculties that she must go somewhere and at once. New York was too dangerous for her; ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon



Words linked to "Unprecedented" :   unexampled, new, precedented



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