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Demonstrative   Listen
adjective
Demonstrative  adj.  
1.
Having the nature of demonstration; tending to demonstrate; making evident; exhibiting clearly or conclusively. "Demonstrative figures." "An argument necessary and demonstrative."
2.
Expressing, or apt to express, much; displaying feeling or sentiment; as, her nature was demonstrative.
3.
Consisting of eulogy or of invective. "Demonstrative eloquence."
Demonstrative pronoun (Gram.), a pronoun distinctly designating that to which it refers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Demonstrative" Quotes from Famous Books



... showman pulls the strings of his puppet as the whim of the moment may suggest. The question is, how far Miss Anderson is able to realize for us the mental agony and the characteristic self-command of such a woman as Clarice in such a state as hers. The answer, as given on Saturday by a demonstrative audience, was wholly favorable; as it suggests itself to a calmer judgment the kindly verdict must be qualified by reservations many and serious. We may admit at once that Miss Anderson deserves all praise for her exhibition of earnest ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... The cities and towns that he visited furnished fetes, illuminations, parades and every variety of entertainment that could be thought of or invented for his amusement or glorification. Lest the parade might not be sufficiently gorgeous or demonstrative he secretly sent agents to prepare the programme and size of his reception, always at the expense of the city he intended to honor with ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... more demonstrative, and wailed as one lost to all hope and life. She appealed to us all to do miracles to save the struggling men in the waves, though two hours had already passed, and to have gone out then among those heavy breakers, with an inexperienced crew, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... Mabel was not demonstrative. She had no enthusiasms and no sympathies. Enthusiasms and sympathies in other people made her laugh with her characteristic burst of sudden laughter. It was not, as with some persons, that matters calling for sympathy made her impatient,—as very robust people are often ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... occasion Isobel's eyes were red and swollen, and by no means improved by weeping. Mrs. Bright, too, although three years had done little to alter her character, seemed to be less demonstrative and much more sincere than usual in her grief at ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... for emphatic negation. This consists of the palm turned to the person addressed with the index somewhat extended and separated from the other fingers, the whole hand being oscillated from right to left. This gesture appears on ancient Greek vases, and is compound, the index being demonstrative and the negation shown by the horizontal oscillation, the whole being translatable as, "That thing I want not, won't have, reject." The sign is virtually the same as that made by Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians (see EXTRACTS FROM DICTIONARY, page 440, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... "First truths are those which obtain belief, not through others, but through themselves, as there is no necessity to investigate the 'why' in scientific principles, but each principle ought to be credible by itself."[682] They are also necessary and eternal. "Demonstrative science is from necessary principles, and those which are per se inherent, are necessarily so in things."[683] "We have all a conception of that which can not subsist otherwise than it does.... The object of science has a necessary existence, therefore it is eternal. For those things which ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... to be in her selfishness, a child never denied, and careless and unfeeling of the rights of others from this long indulgence. She doubted Nola's sincerity, even in the face of such demonstrative evidence. There was no pity for her, and ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... are growing more demonstrative. More frequently, and with less fear of reproof, the sound of their mirth is heard throughout the silent house. Only this very morning the boy Lovat—the eldest born, his father's idol—went whistling through the hall. No doubt it was in a moment of forgetfulness he did it; no ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... is placid the depths are turbulent. If Dublin is simmering, Belfast is boiling. The breed is different. The Northerner is not demonstrative, is slow to anger, but being moved is not easily appeased. The typical Irishman, with his cutaway coat, his pipe stuck in his conical caubeen, his "sprig of shillelagh," or bludgeon the Donnybrook Fair hero ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... mildly expressed wish. She was willing to be to Felicita anything that Felicita pleased—her servant and drudge, her fond mother, or her quiet, attentive companion. Since her return from her mysterious journey she had been very tender to her, as tenderly and gently demonstrative as Felicita would ever permit her ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... encouraged the blind bard to apply to higher speculations what we willingly submit to in common life: in short, he gave him more familiarly the able and fair reasoning of Butler's Analogy: 'Why, sir, the greatest concern we have in this world, the choice of our profession, must be determined without demonstrative reasoning. Human life is not yet so well known, as that we can have it. And take the case of a man who is ill. I call two physicians: they differ in opinion. I am not to lie down, and die between them: I must do something.' The conversation ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... It seemed that he, too, felt for the first time a difference between himself and these men about him who were so much less demonstrative than he. But he recovered his ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the Irish beauty, and doubtless also something of the Irish spirit and glee, had vanished with the rags and the tumbledown cabins. The douce, comfortable people of Ulster were less picturesque and less demonstrative. ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... given, is very similar to the preceding. Both these gentlemen seem to concur in opinion with Cook, in maintaining Dr Franklin's theory. Mr Jones, in his Philosophical Disquisitions, mentions a circumstance which is no less curious in itself, than strongly demonstrative that the tube, as it has been called, is formed from below, and ascends towards the clouds, and not the contrary, as the appearances would indicate. "In the torrid zone, (says he,) the water-spout is sometimes attended with an effect which appears supernatural, and will scarcely find credit in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... of several seconds it seemed to the lad that his head was whirling on his shoulders like a top. Then, with all the rudeness of his greater strength, he flung the demonstrative girl aside and rushed from the house. One idea alone was clear in his troubled brain: that he must get away from everything feminine and go where there were "men." The fishing-pool. Uncle Moses and the boys. The ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... produced by Mademoiselle Breval's entrance was instantaneous. But a moment before, the audience had been noisily demonstrative. As the ministerial party entered, to the music of the "Marseillaise," everybody had roared; there were more roars when the music changed (as it usually does change in France, nowadays) to the Russian Anthem; there were ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... mind she reached Spring Bank, where by some strange coincidence, if coincidence it can be called, old Densie Densmore was the first to greet her, asking, with much concern, what was the matter. It was a rare thing for Densie to be at all demonstrative, but in the suffering expression of Mrs. Worthington's face she recognized something familiar, and attached herself at once to the weak, nervous woman, who sought her bed, and burying her face in the pillow cried herself to sleep, while Densie, like some white-haired ghost, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... for himself, and the question was, how to find it. Of all forms of human thought, one only, he reflected, would admit of the certainty which he required. If certain knowledge were attainable at all, it must be looked for under the mathematical or demonstrative method; by tracing from ideas clearly conceived the consequences which were formally involved in them. What, then, were these ideas—these verae ideae, as he calls them—and how were they to be obtained? If they were to serve as the axioms of his system, they ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed until he was weak and ached from it, the furious, helpless laughter which comes after the sudden release from a terrible strain. He was not, as a rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would like to dance and sing, and probably he would have done both if it had not been for the servant ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman

... natural harmony, and the result, to my own mind is a demonstrative truth, which I presume it right to make known, though perhaps at the hazard of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... was always effusive to her when evil things went well with him. At first she had supposed that this effusiveness was the outcome of affection for her; but when she began to know him, she perceived that it was only the expression of some personal gratification. He had been quite demonstrative in his attentions to her during the time that Bertha ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... bedridden; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the lace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down. There was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, the visitor could easily see; but each made it, for the other's sake, retiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive or acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a very few moments Lamps was taking another rounder with his comical features beaming, while Phoebe's laughing ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... much to my astonishment, for I quite expected that his displeasure would have been kindled by his daughter's demonstrative reception of me—"yes, we have; but not from precisely the same motives, I fancy. However, let that pass. Come in, Leo, my boy, come in; why, you look as frightened as if it were you, and not that wilful headstrong daughter ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... The demonstrative hand-shakings and praises and gratitude of the men whom he had snatched from a frightful death seemed to confuse him. He took it at first for chaff, and said, humbly, that "Bein' as sis wanted him to git thar in time, ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... her hair up, and is at once in her father's arms. Then she wants to leap into the arms of the mother who craves for her. But Alice is afraid of being too demonstrative, and restrains herself. She ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie

... Wednesday at 8 p. m. It was illustrated by stereopticon views, and in the most remarkable manner. The pictures were thrown upon an immense canvas, were marvellously realistic, and were so much admired by the great audience, which overflowed the large lecture hall, that the word demonstrative does not describe their enthusiasm. But the lecture! Description, experience, suffering, adventure, courage, torrid heat, wild beasts, poisonous insects, venomous serpents, half-civilized peoples, thirst,—almost enough of torture to justify the use of Coleridge's ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various

... poyson with the spider. They will doo nought, yet all is naught but what they doo; they snuff our lampes perhaps, but sure they add no oyle; they will heale us of the toothache, but are themselves sick of the fever-lourdane. Demonstrative rethorique is their studie, and the doggs letter they can snarle alreadie. As for me, for it is I, and I am an Englishman in Italiane, I know they have a knife at command to cut my throate, Un Inglese ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... Fillmore, the cheering ceased and the audience became seated. He then introduced Fern Fenwick by a neat little speech which provoked another storm of applause more demonstrative than the first. ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... sympathy with the rebellion. The young men were very generally in the Confederate army; the young women were full of the most romantic devotion to their absent brothers and friends, and made it a point of honor to avow their sentiments. The older people were less demonstrative, and the men who had a stake in the country generally professed acquiescence in the position of West Virginia within the Union, and a desire to bring back their sons from the Confederate service. The necessity of strict watch upon the communications ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... give the reader a false impression, as we feel that we have done, of our friend Kekupoopi, but a regard for truth compels us to shew the worst of her character first. She was not demonstrative; and the few words and signs by which she endeavoured to communicate the state of her feelings to the outward world were not easily interpreted except by those who knew her well. There is no doubt whatever that Poopy was—we scarcely like to use the expression, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... fling. He was a big man, who always endeavoured to make an effect by deportment, and was therefore customarily conspicuous in his movements. He was desirous now of being as he was always, neither more nor less demonstrative;—but, as a matter of course, he exceeded; and it seemed to those who looked at him that there was a special impudence in the manner in which he walked up the House and took his seat. The Under-Secretary of State, who was on his legs, was struck almost dumb, ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... the level and position of my glass. When the glass was horizontal, I could see only about half of his head, with one eye regarding me fixedly, for that was usually the critical moment—the one, also, when the wails and restraints were most demonstrative of the anxious fear ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... insists that philosophy and reason are not adequate means for the solution of all problems, and that the actual solutions as found in the writings of the Aristotelians of his day are in many cases devoid of all demonstrative value. Then there are certain matters in theory as well as in practice which do not at all come within the domain of reason, and the philosophers are bound to be wrong because they apply the wrong method. Revelation alone can make us wise as to certain aspects of God's nature ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... unnecessarily rush to the aid of his chief, was tumbled over by the bishop with relentless gayety, to the infinite delight of Lady Corisande, who only wished it had been that dreadful Monsignore Catesby. But, though less demonstrative, apparently not the least devout, of his lordship's votaries, were the Lady Flora and the Lady Grizell. These young gentlewomen, though apparently gifted with appetites becoming their ample, but far from graceless, forms, contrived to satisfy all the wants of nature without ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... "Yankees" had escaped, and seriously impeded our movements. A buxom, comely dame of some five and thirty summers, with bright eyes and tight ankles, and conscious of these advantages, was especially demonstrative, exclaiming, "Oh! you are too late—too late!" Whereupon, a tall Creole from the Teche sprang from the ranks of the 8th regiment, just passing, clasped her in his arms, and imprinted a sounding kiss on her ripe lips, with ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... criticasters of his day. Dryden acted with greater prudence than any of those we have named, except indeed Bentley, who, being assailed upon points involving the integrity of his scholarship, and on which demonstrative contradiction was possible, felt himself compelled to leave his lair, and to rend his enemies in pieces. But Dryden—feeling on this occasion, at least, that a squib, however personal and severe, cannot harm any man worthy ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... for intelligent answers, and at home, in Sydney, before I left, many experienced politicians confessed it to be the one thing needful. I am sure it is gaining ground among our quiet, sensible people. The stir may not be so demonstrative in cities as formerly, but through the country there is a general awakening. If we can only have patience to wait, we shall not be disappointed. Right, sooner or later, will come into its kingdom. Women are ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... of intimacies formed by Lord Byron, not only at the period of which we are speaking, but throughout his whole life, it would be difficult to advance any thing more judicious, or more demonstrative of a true knowledge of his character, than is to be found in the following remarks of one who had studied him with her whole heart, who had learned to regard him with the eyes of good sense, as well as of affection, and whose strong love, in short, was founded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various

... blunders, and never has to apologize for important mistakes committed. He is remarkable for insight to the character of all with whom he has to do. This trait gives him influence with many who care little for the gospel which he preaches. Though not conspicuously demonstrative in his outward life, and though free from all approach to obtrusiveness, so earnest and direct are his ways, that he becomes known to thousands with whom ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... argument upon any matter, however grave or momentous. In a cause in which he was employed as associate counsel with General Hamilton, an incident occurred, in relation to Chief Justice Yates, not unworthy recording. It speaks a language that cannot he misunderstood, and is demonstrative of the influence which he had over the feelings as well as the minds of his hearers. It was the celebrated case of Le Guen vs. Gouverneur and Kemble, one of the most important, in regard to the legal questions and amount of property involved, which at that day had been brought before our tribunals, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... day, was to become his brother-in-law-he was not likely to interfere with Leicester's authority. The character of the young Count was developing slowly. More than his father had ever done, he deserved the character of the taciturn. A quiet keen observer of men and things, not demonstrative nor talkative, nor much given to writing—a modest, calm, deeply-reflecting student of military and mathematical science—he was not at that moment deeply inspired by political ambition. He was perhaps more desirous of raising the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... matters amid which it seemed really to help to give her a clue—an almost terrifying strangeness, full, none the less, after a little, of reverberations of Ida's old fierce and demonstrative recoveries of possession. They had been some time in the house together, and this demonstration came late. Preoccupied, however, as Maisie was with the idea of the sentiment Sir Claude had inspired, and familiar, in addition, by Mrs. Wix's anecdotes, with the ravages that in general such a sentiment ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James

... carried at any price. The spirits of the English-speaking half-breeds were raised to a pitch of discontent, quite equal to that of the French half-breeds, although the latter were more noisy and demonstrative. James Sinclair became the "village Hampden" who stood for his rights and ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... were not "demonstrative," as fine ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag contained little ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... "Strike!" They translated and proclaimed it in Polish and Bohemian and Italian and Greek. Men waved their caps, women waved their aprons—in the semi-darkness it was like some strange kind of vegetation tossed by a storm. Men clasped one another's hands, the more demonstrative of the foreigners fell upon one ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... him, Daddy," wrote Janice. "He has been the dearest man—so kind to me, as they all have been; but Uncle Jason particularly. He is not naturally demonstrative. His actions speak louder than words. He backed me up, you know, when I was arrested for speeding my car that time. And when Nelson was in trouble over those stolen gold coins Uncle Jason went on his bail bond and hired the lawyer to ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... famous—Tricoupi, Delyannis, Commoundourus and Zaimes. Illuminations of the city ensued, and in the morning, after a Royal reception, the Prince left Athens through crowds of people, who seemed a little more demonstrative than had been the case at first. On October 20th the Piraeus was left behind after a farewell visit from the King and at dawn the next day Crete was in sight. The ship steered steadily ahead and three days later was welcomed at Port Said by Egyptian frigates on sea and Egyptian infantry ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... Saint-Dominique. The Prince talked in whispers to Micheline, but every now and then he was obliged to speak to Jeanne. These were painful moments to Serge. He was always in dread of some outburst, knowing her ardent and passionate nature. Thus, before Jeanne, he made Micheline behave in a less demonstrative manner. Mademoiselle Desvarennes was proud of this reserve, and thought it was tact and good breeding on the part of the Prince, without doubting that what she thought reserve in the man of the world was the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... All the demonstrative friendliness of mother and daughter was lined with a formidable longing for revenge, evidently postponed. For the first time in Amelie de Marville's life she had been put in the wrong, and that in the sight of the husband over ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... so much better that he thought he could venture to make a parting call on Daddy Tuggar. He found the old man smoking on his porch, and his reception was as warm and demonstrative as his first had been a month ago, though of a different nature. Gregory lighted a cigar and sat ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... his attitude," replied Imogen, feeling a flush that made her ears tingle. "That is, I fancy he is more appreciative than he seems. A man can't be very demonstrative about those things—not if he is a real man. I should not think you would care much about saving the feelings of people who are too narrow to admit of any other point of view than their own." She stopped, finding herself in the impossible position of attempting ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... Madonna, and the Cure came oftener to the Manor House with a fear in his heart that all was not well. Yet he was met by her cheerful smile, by her quiet sense of humour, by the touching yet not demonstrative devotion of the wife to the husband, and a varying and impulsive adoration of the wife by the husband. One day when the Cure was with the Seigneur, Madelinette entered upon them. Her face was pale though composed, yet her eyes had a look of abstraction or detachment. The Cure's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... manoeuvres which in July, 1908, were carried out in the North Sea, close to our coastline, were participated in by a combination of the canal fleet and the so-called home fleet, and they bore a very provocative and demonstrative character. At this time, moreover, appeared that widely read book by Percival A. Hislam, entitled "The Admiralty of the Atlantic," the expositions of which culminated in the statement that a war between England and Germany was unavoidable, and that the sooner it broke out the shorter it would be ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... getting plenty of fun anyway," John said, as he climbed into an empty carriage. He did not wish to join Willie's party. He knew too well what Willie was like: a noisy, demonstrative fellow, indiscriminately amorous. "Nearly every girl's worth kissing," Willie had said to him on one occasion. "If you can't get your bit of fun with one woman, sure you can get ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... some constraint in his domestic relations. But at the best of times she was not demonstrative; and perhaps that very coldness was part of her charm in the placid Davidson's eyes. Women are loved for all sorts of reasons and even for characteristics which one would think repellent. She was watching him and nursing ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... and differentiation, leading up to the beginning of organic life, and its steady progress from the lowest to the highest stages. Is there not an inward and intellectual world also which has to be studied in its historical development, from the first appearance of predicative and demonstrative roots, their combination and differentiation, leading up to the beginning of rational thought in its steady progress from the lowest to the highest stages? And in that study of the history of the human ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... made to the eastward of here, between the 38th and 40th parallels, I observed glacial phenomena equally fresh and demonstrative on all the higher mountains of the White Pine, Golden Gate, and Snake ranges, varying from those already described only as determined by differences of elevation, relations to the snow-bearing winds, and the physical ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... her of the subject of his conversation with, the General-in-Chief to Egypt. That Junot's testimony, however, notwithstanding the countenance it obtained from Bonaparte's relations, ought to be cautiously received, the following passage from the Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, vol. i. p. 250, demonstrative of the feelings of irritation between ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... obduracy yielded to their entreaties; but before he explained the cause of his conduct, the boats were seen to put off from the ship, and Hannah immediately hurried to the beach to kiss the old man's cheek, which she did with a fervency demonstrative of the warmest affection. Her apology for her companions was rendered unnecessary by their appearance on the steep and circuitous path down the mountain, who, as they arrived on the beach, successively welcomed us to their island, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... captain, also smiling, but even his manner of saying "Ha!" was less demonstrative than that of most persons. "I believe I am getting hungry, if I may be allowed the remark," and again he seemed asking Tom's pardon ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... Christ is, that it is not a thing indifferent to omit the repetition of those words, "This is my body," enunciatively and demonstratively in the act of distributing the eucharistical bread; and far less is it indifferent so to omit this demonstrative speech in the distribution, as in place of it to surrogate a prayer to preserve the soul and body of the communicant unto everlasting life. Our reason is, because Christ (whose example herein we ought to follow) used no prayer in the distribution, but that demonstrative enunciation, "This ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... according to reports of the time, was an appalling mixture of grandeur and effeminacy with respect to its architectural lines. Surrounding that portion where the legislators actually sat was the great amphitheatre which for three years was occupied by a curious, vociferous public, more demonstrative, even, than those that had attended the former theatrical ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... easy certitude which had always marked her movements. The town was of recent establishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... with many interjections, and with sundry pauses in the speech, during which Michel caressed his niece, and pressed her to his breast, and signified his joy by all the outward modes of expression which a man so demonstrative knows how to use. This was a moment of great triumph to him, because he had begun to despair of success in this matter of the marriage, and had told himself on this very morning that the affair was almost hopeless. ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope

... horrified, too, by Mr. Wilmarth's sudden death. Violet's heart swells with pity as she sees the pale, tired face and heavy eyes. She would like to fly to his arms with infinite sympathy, but he is never very demonstrative, and now it seems ill-timed. She starts to follow him up-stairs, but Briggs intercepts her,—cook wants to know something, and she has to give a few orders. There seems some difficulty about dessert, and she attends to its arrangement, then the ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Diane was less demonstrative than most of her countrywomen. She had had time to recollect the uselessness of giving vent to her indignant anguish, and her brother's derisive look held her back. The family tactics, from force of habit, recurred to her; ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... gladly take one's impressions of the Duchess of Gordon's character from Beattie, rather than from the pen of political writers, who knew her but as a partisan. The duchess, according to Beattie, was feelingly alive to every fine impulse; demonstrative herself, detesting coldness in others; the life of every party; the consoling friend of every scene of sorrow; a compound of sensibility and vivacity, of strength and softness. This is not the view that the world took of her character. Beattie always quitted Gordon Castle "with sighs and tears." ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... with the Rochesters. Each team had won and lost a game, and, as I was climbing close to the leaders in the pennant race, I wanted the third and deciding game of that Rochester series. The usual big Saturday crowd was in attendance, noisy, demonstrative ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey

... he asked, was the sense of saying, that what was just and reasonable ought not to be done, because the electors of some other place had refused to do what was wicked? Lord John Russell then entered into various details demonstrative of the growing greatness of the towns in question. In continuation he remarked that he could not discover any sound reason why so many citizens, and so much wealth, should remain unrepresented, when the principle as well as the practice of the constitution, had pointed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... sections; and although it is said that the poor have the best part of the church allotted to them, the conspicuousness of its position gives a brand to it neither healthy nor pleasant. They are seated down the centre aisle; but the place is too demonstrative of their poverty. If half the seats were empty, situated excellently though they may be, you wouldn't catch any respectable weasle asleep on them. If some doctor, or magistrate, or private bib-and-tucker lady had ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... the star of Napoleon had set forever. Madame Hugo had been a royalist always, although she had not been allowed to influence the minds of the children in that direction; but after the fall of the Emperor she openly proclaimed her sympathy with the Bourbons, and was so demonstrative in her enthusiasm that it led to a complete estrangement between herself and her husband. Victor as a boy sided with his mother, and was royalist to the core; but as soon as he became a man he gravitated at once to his father's ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... named Vashti, who was a spark of the fire of the lower regions wrapped round in long silky fur, and who never let him alone one moment: who was full of tail-lashings and racings and leapings and fury, and of the most demonstrative love for her mistress. Once I made them collars with breastplates of tiny dangling bells, nine or ten; it excited them nearly to madness, and they flew up and down stairs like unchained lightning till ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... was not of a demonstrative nature; but although she had said little at the time, she had felt deeply the care and devotion which Ned had exhibited to her and her daughters during the siege, and knew that had it not been for the supplies of food, scanty as they ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... he said sincerely, "that at last your earthly happiness is complete. It was poor gratification to you, to trust to me for an ample return for all your unmerited kindness. You deserved some one more faithful and more demonstrative than I. This new tie you have formed will, of course, exclude me from a great portion if not from all of your heart, but, at least, I can still continue to appreciate and love you as though there had ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... the Laurentian Rocks of Canada with an ancient, colossal, and in some respects abnormal type of the Foraminifera. In the words of Dr Carpenter, it is not pretended that "the doctrine of the Foraminiferal nature of Eozooen can be proved in the demonstrative sense;" but it may be affirmed "that the convergence of a number of separate and independent probabilities, all accordant with that hypothesis, while a separate explanation must be invented for each of them on any other hypothesis, gives it that high probability ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... I have beaten him so far. He is very demonstrative, and acts as if I belonged to him. Did I not manage to always meet him in company with others, he would come at once to an open declaration. As it is, I cannot prevent it much longer. He is coming this evening, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... English grey—that of a prolonged November, to which we are reconciled by occasions for the hunt and the gun. She was, nevertheless, an impassioned woman. The feeling for her brother helped to satisfy her heart's fires, though as little with her brother as with her husband was she demonstrative. Lord Ormont disrelished the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... am surprised that no one has advanced this demonstrative case of neuter insects, against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as advanced by Lamarck."—[Origin of Species, ed. ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... was not very demonstrative, so that this "dear" was exceedingly precious to the warm-hearted Charlie, as was also a small hug that she gave him. While she was preparing his breakfast Charlie lay quietly in bed, and heard the sound of the rain on the slanting roof. To a tired boy in bed, and longing to ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... a stern father, neither was he a very demonstrative one. Even his closest relations were tinged with something of the artist's detachment, and innate respect for the individual even in embryo. But at sight of Roy's distress and delicacy of feeling, his heart melted in him. Without a word, he slipped ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... occurrence would be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel... What ground of reason can we assign for an expectation that any part of the course of nature will be the next moment what it has been up to this moment, i.e. for our belief in the uniformity of nature? None. No demonstrative reason can be given, for the contrary to the recurrence of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No probable reason can be given; for all probable reasoning respecting the course of nature is founded upon this presumption of likeness, and therefore cannot be the foundation of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... principal possession of these residential chambers by day, while the biscachas occupy them by night. This arrangement answers wonderfully well, and I have proved over and over again that they are exceedingly fond of each other. The biscachas themselves are not very demonstrative, either in their fun or affection, but if one of them be killed, and is lying dead outside the burrow, the poor owl often exhibits the most frantic grief for the murder of his little housekeeper, and will even show signs of a desire ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... arrival by fierce barking, and the inmates of the tent came out to see who the strangers were. They recognized my friends and received them with demonstrations of joy, which was the more remarkable as the Lapps are far from being demonstrative. ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... and made a ridge beneath the pendant branches of the trees, as if to establish a contrast between the sombre tints of the jungle and the blueness of the sea. Midway along the curve of vegetation a bingum flaunts its mantle—a single daub of demonstrative colouring. Away to the north stand out the Barnard Islands, and the island-like ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... new regime. The old Kittredge had sought only his own aggrandizement, and his son was his son. The new Clay Kittredge had gone to public school with Rudd and they continued to be "Clay" and "Will" to each other; no one would ever have called Rudd by so demonstrative a name as "Bill." ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... as awkward and as angular as the ideal old maid, vastly inferior to Prince, who was a fine-looking chap, yet his admiration for her was unbounded. She cared for him, I'm sure, but she was less demonstrative; more coquettish, I would say, if she hadn't been too homely a beast to think of, in connection with such ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... were both mixtures of reserve and frankness; both speaking as often out of a shut heart as an open heart. But when Marjorie could open her heart, oh, how she opened it! As for Hollis, I think he had never opened his; demonstrative sympathy was equally the key to the hearts ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin

... his appearance most eccentric; indeed, his legs show a tendency to stride to all points of the compass. In colour he is cream; his eyes are grey, with pink lids; and he has white eyelashes like an albino. His manners are not demonstrative, but coldly courteous. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... individual member. And I bear a willing testimony to the zeal and devotion of some dear friends, who, lamenting the low condition and worldliness too apparent among us, seek to awaken a stronger religious life by the partial adoption of the practices, forms, and creeds of more demonstrative sects. The great apparent activity of these sects seems to them to contrast very strongly with our quietness and reticence; and they do not always pause to inquire whether the result of this activity is a truer type of practical Christianity than is found in our select gatherings. I think ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... long-headed, shrewd, careful, canny, active, persistent, but reserved and blunt, and without demonstrative enthusiasm. They have a physiognomy distinct from the rest of the Scottish people, and have a quick, sharp, rather angry accent. The local Scots dialect is broad, and rich in diminutives, and is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... rather than demonstrative, but any one who will seriously follow out these lines of thought, or, still better, study the attitude of the hard-headed modern physicist towards our classical geometry and mechanics, cannot fail to realize how conventional, artificial—even phantasmal—are ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... Report to facts witnessed by them in their collective capacity, which facts were palpable to the senses, and their reality capable of demonstrative proof. ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett

... clung to them with effusive ardor, incomprehensible to those less sensitive and romantic. With Titus Woyciechowski he was heart to heart in closest intimacy, and wrote him the most adoring letters when they chanced to be separated. Titus was less demonstrative, but ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... naturally to the man who feels life escaping him, and the grave opening before him. The depths of his nature are then revealed; the divine within him need no longer hide itself. Oh, do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or demonstrative toward those we love until they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death! Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... man, may have been sufficient for the humble vocabulary of the earliest ages, and there exists no gulf, no impassable barrier, between the language of birds, dogs, anthropoid apes, and human speech."[253] "The warning or summoning cry, the germ of the demonstrative roots, is the parent of the names of number, sex, and distance; the emotional cry of which our interjections are but the relics, in combination with the demonstratives, prepares the outlines of the sentence, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... letter, which was at once sober and eager. He said that he would stay at Merriston House for 'just as long as ever she would let him.' Merely to be near her was to him, separated as he was from her for so much of his life, an unspeakable boon. Franklin rarely dealt in demonstrative speeches, but, in this letter, after a half-shy prelude to his own daring, he went on to say: 'Perhaps, considering how long it's been since I saw you, you'll let me kiss your beautiful hands when ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... promised. She was thirty years old, with the eyes and the smile of a girl of seventeen, and she was extremely light and graceful, elegant, exquisite. Mrs. Westgate was extremely spontaneous. She was very frank and demonstrative and appeared always—while she looked at you delightedly with her beautiful young eyes—to be making sudden confessions ...
— An International Episode • Henry James

... quite unexpectedly on a visit to the Queen. In his honour great festivities and military reviews were held, in which our King, much against his will, was obliged to participate, and he was consequently compelled to receive the enthusiastic acclamations of the English crowd, who were most demonstrative in showing their preference for him, as compared with the unpopular Tsar. This preference was also reflected in the newspapers, so that a flattering incense floated over from England to our little Saxony which filled us all with a peculiar pride in our King. While ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... action of the Council-General during the six years of his term, and on what it had been spent, and with what results. If they liked the picture, well and good; if not, the remedy was in their own hands at the next election. He had forewarned me to expect nothing demonstrative in the attitude of his audience. 'They listen most attentively,' he said, 'but they give you no sign either of agreement or disagreement, of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. At night, after the meeting is over, they ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... somewhat of the same modest and confiding spirit as animates those youthful geometricians who leacn their Euclid by heart. With this proviso I will, as briefly as may be, trace the course of the dialectic by which Mr. Green seeks to make the Coleridgian metaphysics demonstrative ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... Milton has succeeded best" (Macaulay). We see this in Par. Lost (e.g. ii. 666). Compare the use of the word 'shape' (Lat. umbra) in l. 207: also L'Alleg. 4, "horrid shapes and shrieks"; and Il Pens. 6, "fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess." Milton's use of the demonstrative those in this line is noteworthy; comp. "that last infirmity of noble mind," Lyc. 71: it implies that the reference is to something well known, and that ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... know that he had her deepest, her kindliest, her truest sympathy, and this had nothing to do with any secret feeling she might, or might not, entertain for him. Indeed, but for the unpleasant, latent consciousness of that very feeling, Lucy would have made her sympathy more demonstrative. The outbreak seemed to check her; to throw her friendship back upon herself; and she stood irresolute; but she was too single-minded, too full of nature's truth, to be angry with what had been a genuine outpouring of his inmost heart, drawn from him in a moment ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... Language of the world. If at any time you divert your selfe with reading Novels; you will here meet with notions that are both Philosophicall and Airy, and in order to the maine designe for the most part purely scientifick and demonstrative; and after if all you shall think that you have not mispent your time by observing something that is either a usefull or pleasurable I shall have my designe ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier

... exclamation of astonishment at my audacity. No foreigners were permitted to see the king, he said. It was death to enter without permission the inner apartments of the palace where the king lived. But when I produced one of my rubies he became less demonstrative in his protestations ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... approach. But Page was not a collector of delegates to nominating conventions; not his the art of manipulating these assemblages in the interest of a favoured man; yet his services to the Wilson cause, while less demonstrative, were almost as practical. His talent lay in exposition; and he now took upon himself the task of spreading Wilson's fame. In his own magazine and in books published by his firm, in letters to friends, in personal conferences, he set forth Wilson's achievements. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... looked distressed, Adelaide, who naturally suffered more than did her mother, kept her own counsel so bravely that no one could have told how hard she had been hit. If she betrayed herself in any way, it was in being rather more attentive and demonstrative to her guests than was usual with her; but she behaved with the Spartan pride of the English gentlewoman, and deceived all who were present ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... first two days Mrs. Robarts did not make much of her sister-in-law. Lucy, indeed, was not demonstrative: and she was, moreover, one of those few persons—for they are very few—who are contented to go on with their existence without making themselves the centre of any special outward circle. To the ordinary run of minds it is impossible ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... and children, have begun the war-dance in the canoe, so delighted were they with the magnificent present of the rum and dollars. As it was, they shook and mauled Doughby till he was fain to jump back into his boat, and escape as well as he could from their wild caresses and demonstrative gratitude. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... several times during the day; at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry's friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by some perception of ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... of happy infancy was not to last long; for doubtless Godwin felt it irksome to have to consider whether the house-linen was in order, and such like details, and was thus prepared, in 1801, to accept the demonstrative advances of Mrs. Clairmont, a widow who took up her residence next door to him in the Polygon, Somers Town. She had two children, a boy and a girl, the latter somewhat younger than Mary. The widow needed no introduction or admittance to his house, ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... more than fifty years officiated as rector of St. John's Church in Manchester. In fact, the golden [2] jubilee of his pastoral connection with St. John's was celebrated many years after with much demonstrative expression of public sympathy on the part of universal Manchester—the most important city in the island next after London. No men could have been found who were less fitted to act as champions in a duel ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... a start, and caught his hand above the robe in her demonstrative way. "Why, who can sleep on Christmas Eve? there's too much to do, isn't there, mamma? Twenty stockings to fill and I don't know how many bundles to tie up. Oh, no, I shan't ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... years ago, in discussing Hume's essay on "Miracles," I had quoted, with entire assent, the following passage from his writings: "Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... Berlin but two days, and Pollnitz had already made a visit to his beautiful Anna. Never had he been so demonstrative and so tender; never before had he been seriously occupied with the thought of making her his wife; never had he looked upon it as possible. The example of Count Rhedern gave him courage; what the king had granted to the daughter of the merchant, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... isles.[4] Their fishing instruments are the same; that is, hooks made of mother-of-pearl, gigs with two, three, or more prongs, and nets made of a very fine thread, with the meshes wrought exactly like ours. But nothing can be a more demonstrative evidence of their ingenuity than the construction and make of their canoes, which, in point of neatness and workmanship, exceed every thing of this kind we saw in this sea. They are built of several pieces sewed together ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... in the evening, she could not restrain expressions of child-like joy, very unlike her usual manner, which was rather reserved than demonstrative. As soon as day broke, she was astir before anyone else, and her constant uneasiness lasted all day until the hour of return home ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... catch me if I know what H * * means or meaned about the demonstrative pronoun[68], but I admire your fear of being inoculated with the same. Have you never found out that you have a particular style of your own, which is as distinct from all other people, as Hafiz of Shiraz from ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... the dupes of their government: for if the battle was never fought at all, or was not decisive on either side, in that case both parties were deceived. This instance, I conceive, is absolutely demonstrative ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately

... fresh farinha; and I hoped to kill a toucan, or a brace of parrots, on our way, which would afford us sufficient food. As no time was to be lost, we set off at once. Duppo showed some affection when parting from his mother. She was certainly less demonstrative, however, than a European would have been. He was evidently very proud of being allowed ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... not the less a gossip, and it was his solemnity that made him gossip. He listened to himself talk, and when, his chest bulging, his pink chin freshly shaved resting on his white cravat, his be-ringed hand describing in the air noble and demonstrative gestures, one could, if one had the patience to listen to him, make him say all that one wished; for he was convinced that his interlocutor passed an agreeable moment, whose remembrance would never be forgotten. His patients might wait in pain or anguish, he did not hasten ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... much lain among Books of natural History, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this Occasion the several Remarks which I have met with in Authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own Observation: The Arguments for Providence drawn from the natural History of Animals being in my Opinion demonstrative. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele



Words linked to "Demonstrative" :   gushy, pronoun, undemonstrative, gushing, unreserved, illustrative, demonstrative pronoun, informative, instructive, demonstrate, epideictical, demonstrativeness, effusive, epideictic, demonstrative of



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