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Elasticity   Listen
noun
Elasticity  n.  
1.
The quality of being elastic; the inherent property in bodies by which they recover their former figure or dimensions, after the removal of external pressure or altering force; springiness; resilience; tendency to rebound; as, the elasticity of caoutchouc; the elasticity of the air.
2.
Power of resistance to, or recovery from, depression or overwork; usually referred to as resilience(3).
Coefficient of elasticity, the quotient of a stress (of a given kind), by the strain (of a given kind) which it produces; called also coefficient of resistance.
Surface of elasticity (Geom.), the pedal surface of an ellipsoid (see Pedal); a surface used in explaining the phenomena of double refraction and their relation to the elastic force of the luminous ether in crystalline media.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Elasticity" Quotes from Famous Books



... hamper from the tops, sent the watch below to the berth-deck with a round shot apiece in their hammocks, moved a couple of carronades about the spar-deck till we got the ship in the best sailing trim, and then we went skipping and springing through the water with the elasticity of an ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... when pursued, and circle round and round with an easy and graceful motion, amid the thin and bare twigs, five or six feet from the ground, as a bird flits from bough to bough, or hang in festoons between the forks. Elasticity and flexibleness in the simpler forms of animal life are equivalent to a complex system of limbs in the higher; and we have only to be as wise and wily as the serpent, to perform as difficult feats without the vulgar assistance ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... bureaucracy, however, are not directed mainly against the ineffectiveness of the machinery of control, but against the way in which public work is conducted by government officials—the formalism and red-tape by which it is hampered, the absence of elasticity and enterprise; and the methods of government departments are often compared, to their disadvantage, with those of business firms. But the comparison disregards a vital fact. The primary function of ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... prematurely gained, he lacked much of that degree of power of which his frame gave promise. For though his limbs were well formed they were scarcely set, or furnished, as we should say in speaking of an animal; and the strength, which he in truth possessed, was that of elasticity and youthful vigor, capable rather of violent though brief exertion, than that severe and trained robustness, which can for long continuous periods sustain the strongest ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... for a time the elasticity of his mind, the latter very soon recovered its natural vigor and showed itself in all its glowing energy in the eighth and ninth stanzas, which are most delicate emanations from a beautiful soul. The first stanzas alone, however, continued to occupy the ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... at full length his thrice unhappy name—had been from infancy a ball for fortune to spurn at; but nature had given him that elasticity of mind which rises higher from the rebound. His form was tall, manly, and active, and his features corresponded with his person; for, although far from regular, they had an expression of intelligence and good humour, and ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... friendless, and getting always more friendless, as Miss Baring. The world had put its veto on the risk of her marriage with Gervase Norgate, in so far as its excusable element—the reformation of Gervase Norgate—was concerned; but with commendable elasticity it had allowed itself to be considerably influenced by the advantages which the marriage had obtained and secured for Diana, as well as by her conduct in their possession, and had awarded her the diploma of its ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... servants; and yet I fancy she is not happy. That somewhere hidden out of sight there is a worm eating at the core of her life. She has a way of dropping her eyes and an absent look about her that I do not fully understand, but it seems to me that I miss the old elasticity of her spirits, the merry ring of her voice, the pleasant thrills of girlish laughter, and though she never confesses it to me I doubt that Jeanette is happy. And with this sad experience in the past can you blame me if I am slow, very slow to let the broken tendrils ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... headed by the King of Saxony. Napoleon embraced the old gentleman with an expression of genuine tenderness. "Sire," said the king, "you see you have made my heart young again—you have restored the elasticity of youth to my old body. I hastened hither with courier-horses in order to greet you first, and in the impatience of my heart I have been at the window for several hours to have the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... Horse Guards, weedy to a man! fit for a doll-shop they are, by my faith! And their Foot Guards: Have ye met the fellows marching? with their feet turned out, flat as my laundress's irons, and the muscles of their calves depending on the joints to get 'm along, for elasticity never gave those bones of theirs a springing touch; and their bearskins heeling behind on their polls; like pot-house churls daring the dursn't to come on. Of course they can fight. Who said no? But they 're not the only ones: and they 'll ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... beneath the satellite and by a reversed direction of gravitational pull as the satellite passes onwards. These stresses rapidly replace one another as the satellite travels along. They are resisted by the inertia of the crust, and are taken up by its elasticity. The nature of this succession of alternate compressions and rarefactions in the crust possess some resemblance to those arising in ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... recollect how long his ill health lasted, but I well remember how his flesh went away—how pale he was—how he perspired at night, from nervous prostration, and how his skin seemed to cleave to his bones. He was still amiable and uncomplaining; but his elasticity, his free-hearted ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... which has a back as elastic as an india-rubber ball, would jump clean out of the water and give the whale a whack in the ribs that must have taken all the elasticity out of him; and then, on the poor leviathan of the deep fluking his tail to dive so as to escape from his aerial antagonist, his chum the swordfish would tickle up the whale from below by sending a yard or two of his long saw-like ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... she was she found herself not merely under Anna's sway, but in love with her, as young girls do fall in love with older and married women. Anna was not like a fashionable lady, nor the mother of a boy of eight years old. In the elasticity of her movements, the freshness and the unflagging eagerness which persisted in her face, and broke out in her smile and her glance, she would rather have passed for a girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and at times mournful look ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... unfriendly. Occasionally the natives murdered hut-keepers and stockmen, but in most instances they had been provoked to do so by ill-treatment. With saddle-bags and holsters well filled, a blanket, a tin kettle and pot, strapped to the saddle before him, he set forth on his journey. There is an elasticity in the atmosphere and a freedom from restraint which makes travelling on horseback in Australia most delightful. James Gilpin enjoyed it to the full. He also found it good to be alone occasionally, to commune with his heart; and this journey ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... appropriation and power. His art here got entirely into a new element; for, as he was forced to show the fishes out of water, he was deprived of his favourite excellence, motion; yet such motion as a fish new-landed has, he has given with elasticity and life: brilliance to the scaly, and lubricity to the smooth; so as to remind the naturalist of excellent old Chaucer's touches ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... his thoughts were keenly bent on the various projects that presented themselves as modes of evading the designs of his enemies, and he again became the quick witted, ingenious and determined woodsman, alive to all his own powers and resources. The change was so great that his mind resumed its elasticity, and no longer thinking of submission, it dwelt only on the devices of the sort of warfare in which ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... then one longitudinal slit from one of these to the other; the workman next lifts up the bark on each side of this slit, and detaches it from the trunk, taking care not to break it, until the whole comes from the tree. The elasticity of the bark makes it assume the form it had before; the slit is sewed or pegged up with wooden pins, and ends made of coiled grass-rope are inserted, one of which has a hole for the ingress of the bees in the centre, and the hive is complete. These ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... coffee and frying meat arose. Sergeant Whitley stood up and by the moonlight and the fires scanned the country about them with discerning eye. Dick looked at him with renewed interest. He was a man of middle years, but with all the strength and elasticity of youth. Despite his thick coat of tan he was naturally fair, and Dick noticed that his hands were the largest that he had ever seen on any human being. They seemed to the boy to have in them the power to strangle a bear. But ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... up innumerable obstacles to it; which will sanctify it and brand it as infamous; which will identify it with virtue and with sin simultaneously. Obviously it is useless to look for any consistency in such institutions; and it is only by continual reform and readjustment, and by a considerable elasticity in their enforcement, that a tolerable result can be arrived at. I need not repeat here the long and elaborate examination of them that I prefixed to my play entitled Getting Married. Here I am concerned ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... human spring is not broken at Venice, it is seen insensibly losing its elasticity. The government, changed into a suspicious despotism, elects a Mocenigo doge, a shameless speculator profiting on the public distress, instead of that Charles Zeno who had saved the country; it holds Zeno prisoner two years and entrusts ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... brought with it a certain amount of inconvenience. After attending Mr. H. M. Stanley's wedding, for example, in 1890, Mr. Gladstone went on one of his second-hand book expeditions, this time to Garratt's, in Southampton Row. The right hon. gentleman walked with his customary elasticity, and was followed to the shop by a large crowd of admirers, chiefly consisting of working men, whose enthusiasm was kept in order by three policemen. Outside the bookseller's several hundred people gathered, and they were not disappointed in their wish to see the Grand Old Man, for ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... his body with oil and, if he was to wrestle, had sprinkled himself with sand. Now, his exercise over, he is removing oil and sweat and dirt with the instrument regularly used for that purpose. His slender figure suggests elasticity and agility rather than brute strength. The face (Fig. 167) has not the radiant charm which Praxiteles would have given it, but it is both fine and alert. The eyes are deeply set; the division of the ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... filled away upon the cutter again, upon such a course as would take us up through the thickest cluster of islands; and, such is the elasticity of the human mind, before night closed down upon us we appeared to have almost forgotten everything connected with the treasure-island, and thought and spoke of nothing but the chances in favour of and against the finding ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... he returned with a bundle of clothes, which Gawtrey, who always regained his elasticity of spirit wherever there was fair play to his talents, examined with great attention, and ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... France, and of 1859 in Italy, attest the danger of a practice which requires for its support the doctrines of another religion, or the circumstances of a different age. Not till the Church had lost those props in which Mr. Goldwin Smith sees the secret of her power, did she recover her elasticity and her expansive vigour. Catholics may have learnt this truth late, but Protestants, it appears, have yet to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... so far therefore, as a Christian is led by the Spirit, he is a conqueror. A Christian in full possession of his privileges is a man whose very step ought to have in it all the elasticity of triumph, and whose very look ought to have in it all the brightness of victory. And just so far as a Christian suffers sin to struggle in him and overcome his resolutions, just so far he is under the law. And that is the key to the whole doctrine of the New Testament. From first to last the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... his head with iron-brown hair tinged with gray. He is a larger man than the portraits indicate; and his figure, while that of a strong man in good health and form and well nourished, is not stout and, though full, is firm; and his step has elasticity in it. His clean-shaven cheek and chin are massive, and drawn on fine lines full of character—no fatty obscuration, no decline of power; a stern but sunny and cloudless face—a good one for a place in history; no show of indulgence, no wrinkles; not the pallor of marble, rather the glint of bronze—the ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... the Northwest Passage. But suppose some more fortunate adventurer should discover there, even at the very pole itself, a veritable 'fountain of youth and beauty,' whose rejuvenating waters could restore the elasticity of youth to the frame of age, smoothing away its wrinkles, and imprinting the bloom of childhood upon its cheeks, bringing back the long-lost freshness and buoyancy to the soul; would not the navigators of those dangerous seas be multiplied in the ratio ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... somebody to answer for, that so little has been yet published. The two executors of Burke were Dr. Lawrence, of Doctors' Commons, a well-known M. P. in forgotten days, and Windham, a man too like Burke in elasticity of mind ever to be spoken of in connection with forgotten things. Which of them was to blame, I know not. But Mr. R. Sharpe, M. P., twenty-five years ago, well known as River Sharpe, from the [Greek: aperantologia] of his conversation, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... forehead, and unmistakable pools were left in her eyes by the ebb-tide of tears. In her service, notwithstanding, she was nowise less willing, scarcely less cheerful. The signs of her discomfort grew deeper, and showed themselves oftener as the days went on. She moved about her work with less elasticity, and her smile did not come so quickly. Both Hester and her mother saw the change, and marked even an occasional frown. In the morning, when she was always the first up, she was generally cheerful, but as the day passed the clouds came. Happily, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... height in the judicial world, and by his various decisions established the Constitution in its unique position as applicable to all manner of political and commercial questions—the world's marvel of combined firmness and elasticity. To quote Winthrop, as cited by Dr. Lord, it is "like one of those rocking-stones reared by the Druids, which the finger of a child may vibrate to its centre, yet which the might of an army cannot move from ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... her form inclining to fulness, her face childlike in dimpled smiles and innocent blushes,—betraying no lack of intellect, but most expressive of a quiet, almost indolent amiability. Zelma was large, but lithe, supple, and vigorous, with a pard-like freedom and elasticity of movement,—dark, with a subdued and changing color,—the fluttering signal of sudden emotion, not the stationary sign of robust health. She had hair of a glistening blackness, which she wore turned back from a strong, compact forehead, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... these tendencies was connected, it seems to me, with the accumulation of capital in the hands of the villains under a system of customary dues. When rents and services became settled and lost their elasticity, roughly speaking, in the course of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the surplus of profits from agriculture was bound to collect in the hands of those who received them directly from the soil, and it was natural ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley

... equally apparent that behind it lay hid nothing shameful, only the sad, perhaps the painful. Of all the periods of life youth is the best fitted to bear deep sorrows, for then the spirit has its full measure of elasticity. Yet a shadow upon youth is always more moving than the shadows of maturer years—those shadows that do not lie upon the surface but are heavy and corroding stains. When Norman saw this shadow upon her youth, so immature-looking, ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... only in his face and head, but in his whole demeanour. He was about the medium height, strong in the shoulders, but slender at the waist, and his movements expressed a combination of vigour and elasticity." Mrs Browning with her slight figure, pale face, shaded by chestnut curls, and grave eyes of bluish gray, is also described; and presently entered to the American visitor Pen, a blue-eyed, golden-haired boy, who babbled his ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... dinners, free-and-easies, concerts, and Martinmas tea-meetings. They sang for the glory, and when there was no demand for their services, they sang to themselves, for the sake of singing. Each of them was a star in some church or chapel choir. And except Arthur Smallrice, they all shared a certain elasticity of religious opinion. Big James, for example, had varied in ten years from Wesleyan, through Old Church, to Roman Catholic up at Bleakridge. It all depended on niceties in the treatment accorded to him, and on the choice of anthems. Moreover, he ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... interior gloom of the shabby old building, could be seen piles of broken, twisted, and rusty things—twisted iron rods, broken cam-shafts, cog wheels with missing teeth, springs that had lost their elasticity—a miniature mountain of scrap iron each piece of which at some time had been a part of some smoothly working machine. In another pile were discarded household utensils—old pots and pans and burnt-out kettles, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... and spirits of the Lady of Walderne sank into a state which gave great anxiety to her maidens and retainers; she was not indeed very old in years, but still no longer did she possess the elasticity of youth. All her thoughts were absorbed by religion. She heard mass daily, and went through all the formal routine the customs of her age prescribed; went occasionally to the shrine of Saint Dunstan at Mayfield, and to sundry holy wells, notably that one in the glen near Hastings, well ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... palm of the hand, which causes the watery juice to separate (probably by evaporation) from the caoutchouc which remains in the form of small, oblong, or round portions; and by kneading this in the hand, and striking it sharply once or twice with the fist it acquires elasticity, so that an additional test of excellence is at once pointed out. Many incisions are made in one tree, the juice flows rapidly at first, at the rate of sixty drops a minute from an ordinary incision, but this soon becomes so ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... with the migrations of animals, as well as many of their peculiar instincts and habits. It is the atmosphere that enables us to account for the periodical changes in the plumage of birds and the furs of animals, and the variety of colours to be found amongst them. By means also of the elasticity of the atmosphere, sounds and odours are transmitted to sensitive beings. Atmospherical phenomena, it may be safely inferred, attracted the observation of mankind in the earliest ages: we know that the Egyptians and the Greeks wrote upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various

... still one of the four leading varieties in the vineyards of eastern America. The characters whereby its high place is maintained among grapes are: Great elasticity of constitution, by reason of which the vine is adapted to many environments; rich flavor, long-keeping quality, and handsome appearance of fruit, qualities which make it a very good dessert grape; high sugar-content and a rich flavor of juice, so that from its fruit is made ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... agriculture had assumed equal importance in the economy of the tribe as the tending of flocks and herds, one is apt to forget that for centuries—perhaps for thousands of years—the system of agriculture that grew up, still possessed much of the elasticity of the old pastoral methods. Under the open field system, such a custom as that described by Tacitus and in the Welsh Laws, viz. of ploughing up out of the pasture or waste sufficient to admit of each ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm

... comprehend, better than anything else, the immense proportions of the landscape. As for myself, I was alone: I had not even taken a guide, this was too favorite a resort for tourists, for the precaution to be necessary. For a wonder, I felt rather gay, with an elasticity of body and mind which I had not felt ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... then a favourite one for drinking cups and a variety of ornamental work. Old snuff boxes were frequently made of horn impressed or stamped with beautiful designs, such as hunting scenes and mythological figures. Horn can either be cut, moulded, or turned, its natural elasticity making it very durable and difficult to break. Its source of supply is chiefly from the horned cattle, the buffalo and the bison, the horns of these beasts in their natural state frequently being mounted on shields just as in later years the ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess

... visited my mind, and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man could always interest my heart and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be—a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... language. But it is Monsieur le Gros's system to make his pupils thoroughly master of the language before they attempt to converse in it. And his dancing, my dear madam— Oh, it would do your heart good to see him dance. Such grace, such elasticity, and such happiness ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... master was notorious for his fierce and savage disposition, and my only consolation in going to live{160} with him was, the certainty of finding him precisely as represented by common fame. There was neither joy in my heart, nor elasticity in my step, as I started in search of the tyrant's home. Starvation made me glad to leave Thomas Auld's, and the cruel lash made me dread to go to Covey's. Escape was impossible; so, heavy and sad, I paced the seven miles, which separated Covey's house from St. ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... The doctor's elasticity, however, defied depression, especially in the presence of a silk dress and a military coat. Fleda presently saw that he was agonizing her uncle. Mrs. Rossitur had drawn close to her son. Fleda was left to take care of the other visitor. The young men had both seemed ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... heavily upon his mind, that he could not sleep; and then, age having stolen upon him, he felt the strain almost more than he could bear. But that great anxiety once fairly over, his spirits speedily resumed their wonted elasticity. ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... when the polyp dies, emitting ammonia as it rots. Finally nothing remains but the fibers, either gelatinous or made of horn, that constitute your household sponge, which takes on a russet hue and is used for various tasks depending on its degree of elasticity, permeability, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... and whole, just as it always had been. So Rollo perceived that the two halves being joined and held together firmly here, they could only be separated at the other end by the wedge springing them open, and, of course, by their elasticity they tended to spring together again. Then besides, he saw, by looking into the crack, a great number of splinters, large and small, which extended obliquely from one side to the other, and bound the two sides strongly ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... toward the southeast, that is, with the current, and began to do their best with the paddles. They no longer had that horrible fear of a bullet in the back, and muscles seemed to leap together with the spirit into greater strength and elasticity. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... it has its uses. I do not mean, in the world of opinion and morality, that it should be all elasticity and no gravitation; but at least enough elasticity to preserve natural ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... after an exclamation at the heat, offered very courteously to dust my coat, a favor the return of which enabled me to take deliberate survey of his person. He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat buttoned to his chin, and buckskin breeches. Though the instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of familiar lineaments, which indeed ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... near the waggon, one of her conductors approached and motioned aside a young man standing near the king. As the warrior rose to obey the demand, he displayed, with all the physical advantages of his race, and ease and elasticity of movement unusual among the men of his nation. At the instant when he joined the soldier who had accosted him, his face was partially concealed by an immense helmet, crowned with a boar's head, the mouth of which, forced open at death, gaped wide, as if ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... than any storm could ever be. Katharine smiled, and carried her chin high in the air. Brenton's head was bowed between his shoulders; he walked heavily, his eyes upon the ground. Indeed, the two of them were equally lacking in elasticity. Katharine's tension was too great to admit of any margin for spring. Brenton's relaxation was too complete to leave any one aware that a spring ever ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... incrustations; that all ideals gain by a certain amount of vagueness, which allows the beholder to fill in the details according to his own spiritual needs, and that no ideal can be truly universal and permanents unless it have an elasticity which will allow of this process in the minds of those who contemplate it; that it cannot become thus elastic unless by the loss of no inconsiderable amount of detail, and that thus the half, as Dr. Arnold used to say, "becomes ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... the neighbor's boys to Upham Corners to tell his mother of his whereabouts; then he remained all night with young Henry Leeds, and by dint of his medley of herbs, or his tireless bathing and nursing, or because the patient had great elasticity of habit, or because the fever was not, after all, of a dangerous nature, his ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... along a few more steps till they were outside the building and she had returned the key. "Can this be the girl," said Jude when she came back, feeling a slight renewal of elasticity now that he was in the open street; "can this be the girl who brought the pagan deities into this most Christian city?—who mimicked Miss Fontover when she crushed them with her heel?—quoted Gibbon, and Shelley, and Mill? Where are dear Apollo, and ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... one of Newcomen's engines of known dimensions; the quantity of cold water that must be injected into the cylinder to give a certain force to the piston's descending oscillation; and finally the elasticity of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... used for bread making unless they are mixed with white flour. Wheat and rye have been used for bread making for a very long time, and their universal use today is due to the fact that they contain considerable protein in the form of gluten. This is the substance that produces elasticity in the dough mixture, a condition that is absolutely essential in the making of raised bread. In fact, the toughness and elasticity of bread dough are what make it possible for the dough to catch and hold air and gas and thus produce a light, ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... good health and in personal appearance he commended himself without delay. He was large in frame, compactly built, and he was furnished with all the flesh and muscle that could be useful to a man who was passing the middle period of life. The elasticity of spirits, the vigor of mind and body that are the wealth of a successful man at sixty were wanting in General Lee. His appearance commanded respect and it excited the sympathy even of those who had condemned his abandonment ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... but in the mere change or in the fact of innovation there is no valid reproach. When one of the plans for the better government of Ireland is described as depriving parliamentary institutions of their elasticity and strength, as weakening the Executive at home, and lessening the power of the country to resist foreign attack, no careful observer of the events of the last seven years can fail to see that all this evil has already got its grip upon us. Mr. Dicey ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... state into which too much work and too much responsibility were bringing Helen Darley, when the new master came and lifted so much of the burden that was crushing her as must be removed before she could have a chance to recover her natural elasticity and buoyancy. Many of the noblest women, suffering like her, but less fortunate in being relieved at the right moment, die worried out of life by the perpetual teasing of this inflamed, neuralgic conscience. So ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the fixed stars have no such tendency towards each other; and, so far is that gravitation from being essential to bodies that in some instances a quite contrary principle seems to show itself; as in the perpendicular growth of plants, and the elasticity of the air. There is nothing necessary or essential in the case, but it depends entirely on the will of the Governing Spirit, who causes certain bodies to cleave together or tend towards each other according to various laws, whilst He keeps others at a fixed distance; ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley

... tell me they experience nought of this elasticity of spirits at the approach of spring! How are such mortals to be pitied! Yet, perhaps, they are less so than we imagine, for the same insensibility that prevents their being exhilarated, may preclude them from the depression so peculiar ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner

... M'Combich, called familiarly Robin Oig, that is Young, or the Lesser, Robin. Though small of stature, as the epithet Oig implies, and not very strongly limbed, he was as light and alert as one of the deer of his mountains. He had an elasticity of step, which, in the course of a long march, made many a stout fellow envy him; and the manner in which he busked his plaid and adjusted his bonnet, argued a consciousness that so smart a John Highlandman as himself would not pass unnoticed among the Lowland lasses. The ruddy cheek, red lips, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various

... leap, bound, saltation, vault, jump; resilience, elasticity, springiness; fount, fountain, source; cause, origin, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... led me up a low flight of steps and waved his hand towards a high magisterial arm-chair which was to be my future throne, I felt a degree of self-confidence that surprised and encouraged me. Every thing was so novel, so fresh, it imparted an elasticity to my spirits I had not felt in Mrs. Linwood's luxurious home. Then there was something self-sustaining, inspiring in the consciousness of intellectual exertion and moral courage, in the thought that I was doing some little good in the world, that I was securing the approbation of Mrs. Linwood ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... Line was built in 1870 she had a second deck, and this novel feature was adopted broadcast and eventually ushered in the many-deck liners now in use. The Servia, built in 1881, was the first steel ship and the advantage of its greater elasticity was instantly seen. Builders were wise enough to grasp the fact that with the increasing length of vessels steel ships would be able to stand a greater strain. Little by little the gain went on in every direction. Nevertheless, in spite of the intelligence of the shipbuilders, ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... say that I have great sympathy with the sentiments I have quoted from the speech of this kilted critic. If it were possible to retain the elasticity and adjustableness of the mind till the end of life, new authors would perhaps fix our attention as much as the old. But only a limited number of articulate-speaking men, such as the omnivorous Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh, preserve their appetite tireless and intact. The ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... long branches or ribs of the whalebone, as I called it before (and indeed for several of its properties, as toughness, elasticity, and pliableness, nothing I have ever seen can so justly be compared to it), which were jointed behind to the upper bone of the spine, and which, when not extended, lie bent over the shoulders on each side of the neck ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... the inlet, as shown in the drawing. This valve is made of sufficient weight to resist the force of a strong current, and is only lifted from its seat by the pressure of the hand on the mouthpiece. It will be apparent from the small size and elasticity of the detecter that the test can easily be made with one hand, and when the ball is allowed to expand a vacuum is formed within it, and a sample of the atmosphere drawn from the breaks, cavities, or highest parts of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various

... autumn grew longer and the days shorter, and with the waning daylight the water in the lake grew colder and colder. But Timar enjoyed bathing in it even more. His frame had regained its former elasticity, all traces of his illness had vanished, nerves and muscles were as steel; but ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... that! for ill I was, and ill of fever, and I anxiously wished that the ailment might turn out to be anything rather than plague. I had some right to surmise that my illness may have been merely the effect of the hot wind; and this notion was encouraged by the elasticity of my spirits, and by a strong forefeeling that much of my destined life in this world was yet to come, and yet to be fulfilled. That was my instinctive belief, but when I carefully weighed the probabilities on the one side and on the other, I could not help ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... which made the last generation of the sixteenth century so strong in itself, and capable of bequeathing so much strength to those who took up its inheritance, was the expanding elasticity, the growing freedom of thought and action. The chivalry of the Middle Ages began to seek more useful fields of adventure in search of new worlds, and fame, and gold. There was an increasing national prosperity, and a corresponding advance of comfort and refinement, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... was a very fine-looking old lady, with keen, though also kind grey eyes, looking out from rather shaggy eyebrows, and an open frank smile on her mouth. The colour of health still bloomed on a cheek that had seen sixty summers and winters, and the elasticity of youth had only been transformed into the dignity and repose of a green old age. It is better to be at the head of the commonalty than dragging in the rear of the gentry, and for substantial comfort, liberal housekeeping, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... the feet of the Queen entered where we were, and addressing a few words to the Princess Julia again retreated. I could not but remark again, what I had remarked before, her graceful beauty, and especially the symmetry of her form and elasticity of her step. There was now also an expression in the countenance which, notwithstanding its dark beauty, I liked not, as I had often before liked it not, when I had seen her in the ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... sophisms, his mind was loaded with errors; intoxicated with fanaticism, he was the declared enemy to reason; for ever prepossessed against truth, the energy of his soul was resisted by shackles too ponderous for its elasticity; the spring gave way, and he sunk into sloth and wretchedness: from this humiliating state he could never again soar; he could no longer become useful either to himself or to his associates: the importance he attached to his imaginary science, or rather the systematic ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... remark that in a Constitution "there ought to be a capacity to provide for future contingencies as they may happen, and as these are ... illimitable in their nature, so it is impossible safely to limit that capacity," it would seem that there would certainly be elasticity enough in the Constitution, or common sense enough in its interpretation, to permit the Supreme Court to perceive some difference between a requirement of uniform tariff on this continent over a territory specifically acquired in order to ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... Hepsey's mind worked in unfamiliar channels, for her nature was that of a benevolent autocrat, and she had found herself led by circumstances into a situation demanding the prowess and elasticity of the diplomat. To begin with, she must risk a gamble at the meeting: if the spiritual yeast did not rise in old Bascom, as she hoped it would, and crown her strategy with success, she would have to fall back on belligerent tactics, and see if it were not possible ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... secure Mrs. Grant a pension; merited as he observes, by her as an authoress, 'but much more,' in his opinion, 'by the firmness and elasticity of mind with which she had borne a great succession of domestic calamities.' 'Unhappily,' he adds, 'there was only about L100 open on the Pension List, and this the minister assigned in equal portions to Mrs. G—— and a distressed lady, grand-daughter ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... alternatives true as to Germany and false as to every other country. Neither are questions of theoretic truth and falsehood governed by circumstances any more than by places. On that occasion, therefore, the spirit of proselytism expanded itself with great elasticity upon all sides: and great ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... an immature creature for growth constitutes his plasticity. This is something quite different from the plasticity of putty or wax. It is not a capacity to take on change of form in accord with external pressure. It lies near the pliable elasticity by which some persons take on the color of their surroundings while retaining their own bent. But it is something deeper than this. It is essentially the ability to learn from experience; the power to retain from one experience something which is of avail in coping with the difficulties of a later ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... gazing at the stranger, and various were the comments about him. He noticed the excitement his advent had created, and walked quickly up the street to the statehouse. Though his hair and beard were white as snow, his frame was vigorous and strong, and his step had about it the elasticity of youth. His brow was furrowed with care rather than time, and his eye seemed still to flash with the fires of young manhood. Nevertheless he was an old man. Every one who saw him on that memorable morning pronounced him ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... dislodge the Bad, the False, the Ugly. If all these high hopes had some fruition in the region of thought, they had none in the region of facts, but meanwhile they lent a rare charm to Paris in the Thirties. Cavour speaks of elasticity as the ruling quality of French society; he praises the admirable union of science and wit, depth and amiability, substance and form, to be found in certain Parisian salons and nowhere else. He was thinking especially of the salon of Mme. ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... stimulus of the excursion, the challenge of crisp cold and hard exercise, the responsive thrill of her body to the influences of the winter woods. She returned to town in a glow of rejuvenation, conscious of a clearer colour in her cheeks, a fresh elasticity in her muscles. The future seemed full of a vague promise, and all her apprehensions were swept out of sight on the buoyant ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... invariably to be cadential pauses at every 4th measure. We all know the deadening effect of poetry which has too great uniformity of metric pattern; and verses of "The boy stood on the burning-deck" type are considered thoroughly "sing-song." It is obvious that elasticity may be gained, without disturbing the normal balance, by expanding a sentence through the addition of extra measures, or contracting it by the logical omission of certain measures or by ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... strain imposed by the enlargement of the womb. In normal cases, to be sure, there is very slight disproportion between the size of the pregnant uterus at term and the capacity of the abdomen, yet the abdominal wall invariably suffers a little stretching and unless it retains its elasticity, the viscera are deprived of essential support, and cause more or ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons

... duties, tuned for labour, full of courage, and the spirit of enterprise and action. Discharged from the thrall which had hitherto borne hard upon his energies, and kept them down, he felt the blessed influence of perfect Liberty, and the youthful elasticity of mind and body that liberty and conscious strength engender. Devoted to the task that he had inflicted upon himself, he grudged every hour that kept him from the field of operations. Firm in his determination to realize, by his exertions, a sum of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... which distinguish Frenchmen from natives of every country, none is more prominent than a kind of never-failing elasticity of temperament, which seems almost to defy all the power of misfortune to depress. Let what will happen, the Frenchman seems to possess some strong resource within himself, in his ardent temperament, upon which he can draw at will; and whether on the day after a defeat, the moment of being ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... him! he will play truant to dull care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat of their own perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty years old would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step off with wonderful elasticity toward the beloved streams; it used to try my young legs a good deal to follow him, specially on the return trip. And no poet was ever more innocent of worldly success or ambition. For, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... retentive tablet, the recollection of a family that fell before its withering blight, ere the elasticity of youth had ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... came to providing a setting for the scenes in which the priests figure. The rest of the music he seems to have written with little regard to coherency or unity of character. His sister-in-law had a voice of extraordinary range and elasticity; hence the two display airs; Papageno had to have music in keeping in his character, and Mozart doubtless wrote it with as little serious thought as he did the "Piece for an Organ in a Clock, in F minor, ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Its unyielding nature and its not being elastic render it the very material needed. The long straps used in working machines are also made of gutta-percha, and this is another instance where its non-elasticity gives it ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... confidence in a man's strict adherence to the letter of truth that shakes my confidence in him. I know what I do myself and what I must lose all social elasticity if I were not to do. * Turning for moral guidance to my cousins the lower animals— whose unsophisticated instinct proclaims what God has taught them with a directness we may sometimes study—I find the plover lying when ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... of our race are very hard and unimaginative;—their voices have nothing caressing; their movements are as of machinery without elasticity or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a young girl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short time since. "I am *** *** ***," she says, and tells her whole name outright. Ah!—said I, when I read that first frank declaration,—you ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... countervail the benefits arising from a more favorable climate; but as he had already engaged the services of an able and experienced tutor, who on two or three previous occasions had been over the Continent, he expected, reasonably enough, that novelty, his tutor's good sense, and the natural elasticity of youth would soon efface a sorrow in general so transient, and in due time restore him to his usual spirits. He consequently adhered to his resolution—the day of departure was fixed, and arrangements made for the lovers to separate, ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... For ten months she had now been struggling with a kind of helpless fury against inconquerable difficulties, and at last the springs of her energy had lost their elasticity. Now, crushed in body and mind, overwhelmed ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... worst thing, this is the most fatal thing in all our mismanagements and perversions of the physical life of our children. Their beautiful elasticity and strength rebound instantly to an apparently uninjured fulness; and so we go on, undermining, undermining at point after point, until suddenly some day there comes a tragedy, a catastrophe, for which we are as unprepared as if we had been working to avert, instead of to hasten it. Who shall ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson

... symptoms appeared in his discolored feet and swollen ankles. Still he insisted every day upon seeing his ministers, and exhibited himself padded, and rouged, and costumed in the highest style of art. He even affected, in his gait and gesture, the elasticity of youth. In his restlessness, the king repaired, with his court, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... rested on the faces and the voices of Clan Ratcliffe that evening, as is not unusual with forces on the eve of battle. Their remarks came at longer intervals, and were more pointless and random than usual. There was a want of elasticity in their bearing and tone, partly coming from sympathy with the evident depression of their chief; partly from the portents of the time. The President was to arrive within forty-eight hours, and as yet there was no sign that he properly appreciated their services; there were signs only too ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... both paralysis and cramp of the lower back in that it is not chiefly nervous, as these are, but is a trouble in the muscular substance itself. The muscles are either sprained or chilled, so as to have lost for the time their elasticity. Blistering, burning, and all such irritating treatment are only so many helps to the disease. The true method is found in gentle moist heating of the lower back by a BRAN POULTICE (see), not too hot, but renewed, if need be, for an ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... themselves out, with such indiarubber-like elasticity, that, the interval between ten and four appeared ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... we find that the vertebrae of the shoulders send out enormously long perpendicular processes, which give to the shoulder that height which is so eminent a characteristic of the animal. To these processes the ligament of the neck is fastened by accessory bands, which add both to its strength and elasticity. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... discover that Musa had cried because he was done for, and not because he was hurt, she was still worried by his want of elasticity, of resiliency. Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The doctor had disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not smile away Musa's moral indisposition. The large vagueness of the studio, the very faint twilight still showing through ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... clear eye, quick smile, and the self-poised look young women with a purpose always have. She was simply and sensibly dressed, walked easily, and seemed full of vigour, with her broad shoulders well back, arms swinging freely, and the elasticity of youth and health in every motion. The few people she met turned to look at her, as if it was a pleasant sight to see a hearty, happy girl walking countryward that lovely day; and the red-faced young man steaming along behind, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... reviewed before other journals had thoroughly dissected and discussed it, else the ablest critique would command no general attention, and perhaps be, by the greater number, unread. That the writer should wait the flow of inspiration, or at least the recurrence of elasticity of spirits and relative health of body, will not seem unreasonable to the general reader; but to the inveterate hack-horse of the daily press, accustomed to write at any time, on any subject, and with ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... imagination the fortunes of war change—and there was reason for the belief. The bold general who had gained so many victories, and whom the defeat of Actium had only humbled, was said to have regained his former elasticity. He had dashed forward at the head of his men with the heroic courage of former days—nay, with reckless impetuosity. Rumour reported that, with the huge sword he wielded, he had dealt from his powerful charger blows as terrible as those ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... enough to change the old fashions. Is not the origin of music as follows? We rejoice when we think that we prosper, and we think that we prosper when we rejoice, and at such times we cannot rest, but our young men dance dances and sing songs, and our old men, who have lost the elasticity of youth, regale themselves with the memory of the past, while they contemplate the life and activity of the young. 'Most true.' People say that he who gives us most pleasure at such festivals is to win the palm: are they ...
— Laws • Plato

... blends with that of roses and jessamines; and the fields are so starred and enamelled with flowers that they might have served as the type for those Elysian realms sung by ancient poets. The fervid air is fanned by continual sea-breezes, which give a delightful elasticity to the otherwise languid climate. Under all these cherishing influences, the human being develops a wealth and luxuriance of physical beauty unknown in less favored regions. In the region about Sorrento one may be said to have found the land where beauty is the rule and not the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... infirmity through advancing years. I could not help noticing, with a vague feeling of helpless horror and sickening foreboding, that she had lost her high spirits and keen perception—to say nothing about the elasticity of her tread and her wonderful physical endurance generally. She was no longer able to accompany me on the long and interesting tramps which we had now taken together for so many years. Her skin began to wither and wrinkle, and she gradually took on the appearance of a very old ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... with which man adapts himself to a new order of things. The older men were stunned and seemed unable to throw off the gloom that had settled upon them. They bowed to the inevitable fall of the old and its replacement by the new. They were not buoyed up by the elasticity and confidence of youth; they seemed to realize that their race was run and that it were better that they step aside and give to younger men the task of solving a new problem in a new way. They sat perfectly ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... elasticity of convalescence to be desirous of accompanying the Warden; and they accordingly crossed the enclosed quadrangle to the entrance of the Hospital portion of the large and intricate structure. It was a building of the early Elizabethan age, a plaster and ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... timber vessel, with adequate stiffening in the framework, would meet the case. The construction being of wood imparts a certain elasticity, which is of great advantage in easing the shock of impacts with floating ice. As has been tragically illustrated in a recent disaster, the ordinary steel ship would be ripped on its first contact with the ice. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... the burst of joy, the revulsion of every sentiment, had been too much for her frame, worn by long months of care, late shattered by every species of woe and toil. She was now in far greater danger than I, the wheels and springs of my life, once again set in motion, acquired elasticity from their short suspension. For a long time, no one believed that I should indeed continue to live; during the reign of the plague upon earth, not one person, attacked by the grim disease, had recovered. My restoration was looked on as a deception; every moment it ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... the violence of his temper recovered its full elasticity; which was a second time chiefly excited by my earnest longing after knowledge. Notwithstanding that my book was taken from me, my mind was often occupied with the arithmetic I had learned in better days, which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... youth's idol. Neither was she beautiful—how could he ever have imagined her so? Her irregular features—unnoticed when the white and red tints of youth adorned them—were now, in age, positively plain. Her strong-built frame had, in losing elasticity, lost much of grace, though dignity remained. Looking on Mrs. Gwynne for the first time, she appeared a large, rather plain woman. Looking again, it would be to observe the noble candour that dwelt in the eyes, and the sweetness—at times even playfulness—that hovered round the mouth. Regarding ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... reconciliation is the tenderest part of love and friendship: the soul here discovers a kind of elasticity, and, being forced back, returns with ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights, commonly the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears upon what he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of things, to breed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... till you noticed the cuirass-like sit of the chest on the loins, and the compressed strength of the long light thighs. The creature, as you looked at him, seemed to reveal more and more, beneath the roundness and fairness of surface, the elasticity and strength of an athlete in training. But when the eye was not exploring the delicate, hard, and yet supple depressions and swellings of the muscles, the slender shapeliness of the long legs and springy feet, the back bulging ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... one hand, and the republicans on the other, there were gigantic possibilities for an official of Inspector Loup's elasticity of conscience. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... as much at home in the Fleet as in Pall Mall, and quite as happy in the one place as in the other. "That's the way I take things," would this philosopher say. "If I've money, I spend; if I've credit, I borrow; if I'm dunned, I whitewash; and so you can't beat me down." Happy elasticity of temperament! I do believe that, in spite of his misfortunes and precarious position, there was no man in England whose conscience was more calm, and whose slumbers were more tranquil, than those of ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hundred and ten millions of paper, exclusive of fractional currency, three hundred and fifty-six millions of which are legal-tender notes, and three hundred and fifty-four millions National bank-notes. The safety-valve of a country's circulating medium is its elasticity, and the sooner Congress authorizes free National banking on the present basis of ninety per cent. of currency to the par of United States bonds deposited with the Treasury, or devises some other means ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... within half an hour the time of the luminary's going down. Knight led her about, and being by this time accustomed to her sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding the conditions—impressionableness and elasticity. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... size of ordinary yarn. If the silk is not strong enough to tear, it is better to cut the strips upon the bias than straight, and the same is true of fine woolens, like merinos, cashmeres, or any worsted goods. There is much more elasticity in them when cut in this way, and they are more readily ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler

... change of air and scene had seemingly broken a malign influence, and sleep—that for weeks had almost forsaken me—had yielded its deep refreshment for fifteen hours. Besides, I had not sinned against my life so many years as to have destroyed the elasticity of early manhood. When I had lain down to rest I had felt myself to be a weary, broken, aged man. Had I, in my dreams, discovered the Fountain of Youth, and unconsciously bathed in it? In my rebound toward health of mind and body ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... Henry made him known to us, was in the highest degree athletic and vigorous. There was no superfluity, and indeed there seldom is among the active white men of this country, but every limb was compact and hard; every sinew had its full tone and elasticity, and the whole man wore an air of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... announced an original subject for illustration and a fresh treatment of wood engraving, although some designs were still copied from earlier models. The white line begins to function with greater elasticity; tones and details beyond anything known previously in the medium appear with the force of innovation. The paper was still somewhat coarse and the cuts were often gray and muddy. But the audacity of the artist in venturing tonal subtleties was ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen

... very little vivacity; at times, however, it lights up, and then all the Gypsy beams forth. Old as she is, her hair, which is very long, is as black as the plumage of a crow, and she walks sturdily, though with not much elasticity, on her short, thick legs, and, if requested, would take up the heaviest man in Wandsworth or Battersea and walk away with him. She is, upon the whole, the oddest Gypsy woman ever seen; see her once and you will never forget her. Who is she? you ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow

... houses on the dunes (with a hint of the Rembrandt magic), or the bathing boys. His skill in black and white is best seen when he holds a pencil, charcoal, or pen in his hand. The lightness, swiftness, elasticity of his line, the precise effect attained and the clarity of the design prove the master at his best and unhampered by the slower technical ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... name—he was addressed as Mr. Heideck—would have betrayed his German origin, even had his appearance not proclaimed it. He was of but medium height, but athletic in build. His erect, soldiery bearing and the elasticity of his movements plainly betokened his excellent health and considerable bodily strength. A foreigner can hardly present better credentials to an Englishman than these qualities. Perhaps, more than anything else, it was his distinguished appearance, ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann



Words linked to "Elasticity" :   resilience, stretchiness, toughness, elasticity of shear, resiliency, give, bounce, stretchability, modulus of elasticity, snap, stretch, elastic, springiness, temper, physical property



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