Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Magnify   Listen
verb
Magnify  v. t.  (past & past part. magnified; pres. part. magnifying)  
1.
To make great, or greater; to increase the dimensions of; to amplify; to enlarge, either in fact or in appearance; as, the microscope magnifies the object by a thousand diameters. "The least error in a small quantity... will in a great one... be proportionately magnified."
2.
To increase the importance of; to augment the esteem or respect in which one is held. "On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel."
3.
To praise highly; to laud; to extol. (Archaic) "O, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together."
4.
To exaggerate; as, to magnify a loss or a difficulty.
To magnify one's self (Script.), to exhibit pride and haughtiness; to boast.
To magnify one's self against (Script.), to oppose with pride.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Magnify" Quotes from Famous Books



... friends, have I thus been endeavoring to lead you through the history of more than three thousand years, and to point you to that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before, "from works to rewards?" Have I been seeking to magnify the sufferings, and exalt the character of woman, that she "might have praise of men?" No! no! my object has been to arouse you, as the wives and mothers, the daughters and sisters, of the South, to a sense of your duty as women, and ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke

... deeper—of the many-sided unity of Truth, but he saw that all the prophets of the age, from Walt Whitman and Schopenhauer to Wells and Shaw, had become so by taking one side of truth and making it all of truth. It is so much easier to see and magnify a part than laboriously to strive to embrace ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... which was ever present to his thoughts, is so very slightly and vaguely mentioned in Lord Redesdale's Memories, may be the fact that from 1910 onwards he was not living in it himself, and that it was irksome to him to magnify in print horticultural beauties which were for the time being in the possession of others. The outbreak of the war, in which all his five sons were instantly engaged, was the earliest of a series of changes which completely altered the surface of Lord ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... none of my doors, not of my heart, not of mine ears, not of my house, to any supplanter that would enter to undermine me in my religion to thee, in the time of my weakness, or to defame me, and magnify himself with false rumours of such a victory and surprisal of me, after I am dead. Be my salvation, and plead my salvation; work it and declare it; and as thy triumphant shall be, so let the militant church be assured that thou wast my God, ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... amazing story of the performances at Domremy, and gave me many particulars of the petty persecutions to which the Sisters who conduct schools all over France are subjected. The schools are open at all hours to the invasion of Inspectors, who magnify their office too often in the eyes of the children by treating the teachers (lay as well as religious) with the sort of amiable condescension which marks the demeanour of an agent of the octroi overhauling the basket of a peasant-woman at a barrier. If a Sister has a religious book, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... praise the Lord most high, And strive His Name to magnify On this great day through earth and sky: Alleluia! ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various

... regard to the difficulties overcome, without any precedent to guide, and considering the rudeness of the means of transport, than anything that has ever been attempted since in the same line. The example of the Assyrian tyrant was followed, after a long interval, by the Romans, who sought to magnify and commemorate their conquests in Egypt by spoiling the land of its characteristic monuments. The Caesars, one after another, for more than a hundred years, took advantage of their victories and the ruin of the unhappy land of Egypt to convey its beautiful obelisks to their own capital ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Psa. 51:16, 17. "I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs." Psa. 69:30, 31. "Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... given, not merely on account of her own criticisms on 'Villette,' but because it shows how she had learned to magnify the meaning of trifles, as all do who live a self-contained and solitary life. Mr. Smith had been unable to write by the same post as that which brought the money for 'Villette,' and she consequently received it without a line. The friend with whom she was staying says, that she immediately ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... general assent thereunto; or when he joyfully beginneth, and they with like alacrity follow, dividing [Sidenote: Interjection] between them the sentences wherewith they strive which shall most show his own and stir up others' zeal, to the glory of that God whose name they magnify; [Sidenote: Litany] or when he proposeth unto God their necessities, and they their own requests for relief in every of them; or when he lifteth up his voice like a trumpet to proclaim unto them the laws [Sidenote: Preceded] of God, they adjoining, though not as Israel ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... try not to be 'over-inquisitive to cast the fashion of uncertain evils,' nor magnify trouble in the fog of our own thoughts, but limit our cares to to-day, and let to-morrow alone, for our God will be in it as He has been in the past. He will never take us where He will not go with us. Each day will have its own brightness, as each place its own rainbow. If we are led into dry ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... for man, armed as they assuredly are," just as vigorously affirmed the professor, inclined rather to magnify than diminish the importance of these, his so recently discovered people. "You forget how the Aztecans fought Cortez and his mailed hosts. Yet these are one and identical, so far as valour and ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... arriving at Les Touches at seven in the morning, he saw from afar Beatrix at a window watching for him, and wearing the same straw hat she had worn on the memorable day of their first excursion. For a moment he was dazzled and giddy. These little things of passion magnify the world itself. It may be that only Frenchwomen possess the art of such scenic effects; they owe it to the grace of their minds; they know how to put into sentiment as much of the picturesque as the particular sentiment can bear without a loss of ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... Maysville. General Morgan instructed these officers to accomplish their respective commissions thoroughly but promptly, to create as much excitement as possible, occasion the concentration of forces already in the State at points widely apart, to magnify his strength and circulate reports which would bewilder and baffle any attempt to calculate his movements and to meet him within three ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... this liquid to come by the labor of bees to the perfection of wax, ... we beseech thee ... to bless and sanctify these candles for the use of men, and the health of bodies and souls...." (2) "...these candles, which we thy servants desire to carry lighted to magnify thy name; that by offering them to thee, being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of thy most sweet charity, we may deserve...." (3) "O Lord Jesus Christ, the true light, ... mercifully grant, that as these lights enkindled with visible fire dispel nocturnal darkness, so our hearts illuminated ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... situated in the midst of our dominions, is not without its use. There is, as Gibbon justly observes, 'a strong propensity in human nature to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times'; and, if the people had not before their eyes such specimens of native rule to contrast with ours, they would think more highly than they do of that of their past Muhammadan and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... it will magnify the name of Henry Ballard," he said quickly. "Oh, I don't know much yet, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... hover dust-clouds, with the march of regiments, with the trailing of cannon: foreign Pandours, of fierce aspect; Salis-Samade, Esterhazy, Royal-Allemand; so many of them foreign, to the number of thirty thousand,—which fear can magnify to fifty: all wending towards Paris and Versailles! Already, on the heights of Montmartre, is a digging and delving; too like a scarping and trenching. The effluence of Paris is arrested Versailles-ward by a barrier ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... the Maid whose heart—yet free From Love's uneasy sovereignty— Beats with a fancy running high, Her simple cares to magnify; Whom Labour, never urged to toil, Hath cherished on a healthful soil; Who knows not pomp, who heeds not pelf; Whose heaviest sin it is to look Askance upon her pretty self Reflected in some crystal brook; Whom grief hath spared,—who sheds no tear But in sweet pity; ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... that magnify Our human nature...... Conversed but little with the world-they knew not The ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Polo does not greatly magnify himself and his office, and it is only incidentally, as it were, that we know that he was for three years governor of the great city of Yangchau. Following the details laid down in his book, the accuracy of which we have no reason to doubt, we find him visiting the old capital of the Khans, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... Josaphat, with good king Hezechiah, In thy sight to do that was to thee right pleasant. To quench idolatry thou raisedst up Elijah Jehu, Elisha, Micah, and Obdiah, The Syrian Naaman thou purgedst of a lepry[623] Thy works wonderful who can but magnify? Arise, Jerusalem, and take faith by and by,[624] For the very light that shall save thee is coming. The Son of the Lord appear will evidently, When he shall resort, see that no joy be wanting. He is thy saviour, and thy life everlasting, Thy ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... is not sympathy, but a push. No one doubts that temperament and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may, singly or combined, cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an audience, but neither can any one doubt that coddling will magnify this weakness. The victory lies in a fearless frame of mind. Prof. Walter Dill Scott says: "Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity." Banish the fear-attitude; acquire the confident attitude. And remember that the only way ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... the inner, invisible activity of truth. He has chosen the first creed, the easy creed, the philosophy of his fathers, among whom he found a half-idiot-genius (Nietzsche). His choice naturally leads him to glorify and to magnify all kind of dull things—stretched-out geigermusik—which in turn naturally leads him to "windmills" and "human heads on silver platters." Magnifying the dull into the colossal, produces a kind of "comfort"—the comfort of a woman who takes more pleasure in the fit of ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... puzzles the one as much as its globules puzzle the other. The difference between the branches of science which deal with space only, and those which deal with space and time, is this: we have no glasses that can magnify time. The figure I here show you a was photographed from an object (pleurosigma angulatum) magnified a thousand diameters, or presenting a million times its natural surface. This other figure of the same object, enlarged from the one just ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... but if this term is warped to signify human quality, a substitution of sense for soul clears the meaning, and assists one to [20] understand Christian Science. Mary's exclamation, ""My soul doth magnify the Lord," is rendered in Sci- ence, "My spiritual sense doth magnify the Lord;" for the name of Deity used in that place does not bring out the meaning of the passage. It was evidently an [25] illuminated ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... nuns squat in a body along the walls inside the temple, and keep hammering away on little gongs similar to that just described. Recall to your memory the sound of a blacksmith's forge with two men hammering a red-hot iron, magnify that sound a hundred times, and add to it the buzzing of the prayers, and you will then get a pretty fair idea of what one of these religious ceremonies sounds like ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... a wicked bird! Would you like to hear more? Or shall I tell you something about flowers? Do you know when I was ill I was made to take henbane, which is a drug that has the power to make one's eyes magnify like a microscope. Well, now I see farther than others, and I can see the stars in ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg

... gentleman who represented the Cincinnati district. As Mr. —— is yet among the living, and perhaps not disposed to be the subject of joke or story, I do not feel at liberty to give his name. Mr. —— was a slow believer of other men's adventures, and at the same time much disposed to magnify himself into a marvellous hero whenever the opportunity offered. As Captain Riley wound up one of his truthful, though really marvellous adventures, Mr. —— coolly remarked, that the captain's story was all very ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... broke my tackle and went off with a silver spoon in his mouth, as if he had been born to it. Of course the guides vowed that they saw him as he passed under the canoe, and declared that he must weigh thirty or forty pounds. The spectacles of regret always magnify. ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? yet there remains, still, among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson

... Who can magnify the importance of this Conference to all the nation? It is the most important ever held in this country. It holds the key of peace or war. The eyes of the whole people are turned hopefully upon it. By every ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... that it is an art, and an art worth the learning, I shall beg that I may attend you a day or two a-fishing, and that I may become your scholar, and be instructed in the art itself which you so much magnify. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... again and again, with a stern rod of chastisement? Stroke after stroke, blow after blow, stab after stab, was dealt against his very heart. 'Great and wonderful are Thy works, O Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, O King of ages. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and magnify Thy name? for Thou only art holy.' I may speak with more vivid knowledge of him here than in other respects, for I was one of the confidants of his extreme suffering under the succession of terrible inflictions which left wounds never to be healed. They ended only with his life; ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... resident at the capital, some high functionary, by some species of occultation, controlling the action of the government, a Talleyrand in the pay of both governments, and balancing or equalizing disasters between them to magnify his importance and increase his reward, has been controlling many events since the beginning of this war, and is still engaged in the diabolical work. It now appears that several regiments were withdrawn from the vicinity of Bristol, whose presence there was necessary for the protection of ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... wonder whether Miss Nunn would have any serious proposal to offer. Virginia's report and ecstatic forecasts were, she knew, not completely trustworthy; though more than ten years her sister's junior, Monica saw the world with eyes much less disposed to magnify and ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... observed by the writer of 'slams' is that he must resolutely shut his eyes to any qualities which appeal, even to him, as good qualities, while dwelling with ferocious zest upon every point that he can possibly magnify into a flaw. Or he may even fly at one bound to a pinnacle of wisdom by basing his criticism entirely upon the first chapter or the last chapter of a book, or the first act or the last act of a play. Or ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various

... had of me was owing to the Bishop of Lisieux, her spiritual director, who, finding I was disposed to follow my profession, which out of his great love to me he most passionately desired, made it his business to magnify the few good qualities I was master of; and I am thoroughly persuaded that what applause I had then in the world was chiefly owing to his encouragement, for there was not a man in France whose approbation could give so ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... heat, and the output will be more extensive and of better quality. The mind that ambles through the period shows forth results that are both meager and mediocre; but the mind whose impact is both forceful and incisive produces results that serve to magnify the work of the school. Thus we have placed before us two basic considerations, one of which is the time itself, in actual minutes, and the other is the character of the reactions to ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... enough, but, like more plausible notions on Indian matters, I believe it's a mistake. You'll find when you come to consult the unofficial Briton that our fault, as a class—I speak of the civilian now—is rather to magnify the progress that has been made toward liberal institutions. It is of English origin, such as it is, and the stress of our work since the Mutiny—only thirty years ago—has been in that direction. No, I think you will get no ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... a boy," were Englishmen. In this way have all the British writers treated us Americans, although we all know in this country, that Louisbourg was taken by New-England-men. Throughout the whole war of 1758, and 1759, the English strained their voices to magnify themselves, and debase ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... first. The radical fault in much of my living is want of proportion. I think more of pretty window curtains than of fresh air, more of "nice" wallpaper than of the moving pageant of the skies. I magnify the immediate desire and minimize the ultimate goal. And so "things do not come right!" How can they when the apportionment is so perverse, when everything is topsy-turvy? If I want things to be firm and durable I must ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... the Parson. "That sneer is out of place. You know very well that one merit of our Church is the spirit of toleration, which does not magnify every variety of opinion into a heresy or a schism. But if Sir Peter sends his son at the age of sixteen to a tutor who eliminates the religion of Christianity from his teaching, he deserves to be thrashed within an inch of his life; and," continued the Parson, eying Sir Peter sternly, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... flooded me with pleasure, It pierced me like a sword, When this young maiden sang: "My soul Doth magnify the Lord." ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer

... Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; For fools admire, but men of sense approve: As things seem large which we through mists descry; Dulness is ever apt to magnify. Some foreign writers, some our own despise; The ancients only, or the moderns prize. Thus wit, like faith, by each man is apply'd To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside. Meanly they seek the blessing to confine, And force that sun but on a part to shine, Which not ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, then sat where the right honourable Baronet, the member for Tamworth, now sits. I do not remember that, when the right honourable Baronet announced his change of purpose, my noble friend sprang up to talk about palinodes, to magnify the wisdom and virtue of the Whigs, and to sneer at his new coadjutors. Indeed, I am not sure that the members of the late Opposition did not carry their indulgence too far; that they did not too easily suffer the fame of Grattan and Romilly to be transferred to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... belief on the good sense of the average American voter. The public would protect you not only in its own interests, but from an inherent sense of fair play. On the other hand, if you persist in a course of political manipulation which is not only obsolete but wrong, you will magnify the just charges against you, and the just wrath; you will put ammunition into the hands of the agitators you rightly condemn. The stockholders of your corporation, perhaps, are bound to suffer some from the fact that you have taken its life-blood to pay dividends, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... faiths, is not likely to accomplish much that will be permanently good. Religions to-day have lost much of their asperity one toward the other. The study of Comparative Religion has led men everywhere to magnify the assonances, rather than the dissonances, of the Great World Faiths. Theosophy magnifies into a cult this function of bringing religions together. It ignores, however, the fundamental differences which exist, brings all faiths into the same equational value, and assumes that they are ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... the sake of argument, not merely to assume too hastily, but to magnify too inordinately. Daniel, the poet, really was called the 'well-languaged' (p. 83, vol. ii.), but by whom? Not, as Hooker was called the 'judicious,' or Bede the 'venerable,' by whole generations; ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... though inexperienced in love, was a good fighter. The best of the sex are. She dropped into the rocking-chair, and began rocking backwards and forwards while still tugging at her gloves, and said, in a gradually warming voice, "I certainly shall not magnify Mr. Van Loo's silliness to that importance. And I have yet to learn what you mean by talking about a rendezvous! And I want to know," she continued, suddenly stopping her rocking and tilting the rockers impertinently behind her, as, with her elbows squared on the ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... Galilei, a professor at the University of Pisa, developing a telescope that would magnify to eight diameters, discovered Jupiter's satellites and Saturn's rings. The story of his discovery of the satellites of Jupiter is another interesting illustration of the careful scientific reasoning of these early workers (R. 206). Galileo also ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... Nothing could be more amusing, surely, than the pride some men and women exhibit at having secured for life a mate whom most persons would not care to own a day. The idealizing process just described is responsible for this comedy; and a very useful thing it is, too; for did not the lover's fancy magnify the merits and minify the faults of the beloved, the number of marriages would not be so large as it is. Pride is a great match-maker. "It was a proud night with me," wrote ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... excited by a look of happy love or an unexpected caress. To make one's self beautiful, to dress the hair, to excel in talk, to do anything and all things that puff out the character and attributes and make them imposing in the eyes of others, is not only to magnify one's self, but to offer the most delicate homage at the same time. And it is in this latter intention that they are done by lovers, for the essence of love is kindness; and, indeed, it may be best defined ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... there exist innumerable bores scattered through the length and breadth of our happy country, and carrying on their dismal business with an almost malignant persistency. Longwindedness, pomposity, the exaggeration of petty trivialities, the irresistible desire to magnify one's own wretched little achievements, to pose as the little hero of insignificant adventures, and to relate them to the whole world in every dull detail, regardless of the right of other men to get an occasional word in edgewise—these are the true ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various

... it!" he cried. "You say it was a mistake. That is the plea of a stupid child. The affair would have been just as awkward if you had carried off the Signora Haxton. She is a British subject. In two days the newspapers of Europe would magnify the incident into an international dispute, and, with Abyssinia always ready to fan ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... the eyes of Blair Robertson. A fervent "Thank God!" was all he could utter. Blair's whole being did indeed "magnify the Lord" at this wonderful evidence of his power. Curses had been changed to praises. The blaspheming lips had been touched by the Saviour's hand, and taught the language of the children of God. His young servant could not but "stand in awe," and own the might and the wonderful mercy of the ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... improvement in moral character can dispense with the crises referred to, we cannot rightly magnify the definite transactions at conversion or cleansing, or any other remarkable point of religious life, to the detraction of spiritual growth. Each aspect of the truth, as I have already said, is the counterpart of the other, and must be viewed in ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard

... books, many of them easily prove. That the designers of woodcuts were sometimes lacking in imagination when obliged to depict Bible verses can have no better example than the favorite vignette on title-pages portraying "My soul doth magnify the Lord" as a man with a magnifying glass held over a blank space. Perhaps equal in lack of imagination was the often repeated frontispiece of "Mercy streaming from the Cross," illustrated by a large ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... reason must needs understand that thus thou art not so profanely vile as others; yet when thou goest to God for mercy, know no man's sins but thine own, make mention of no man's sins but thine own. Also labour not to lessen thy own, but magnify and greaten them by all just circumstances, and be as if there was never a sinner in the world but thyself. Also cry out, as if thou wast the only undone man; and that is the ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... commonwealth, for they take up the whole cargo. They desire to be preferred therein, and in buying the cloth, and in every other way, try to take advantage. If the president wishes to remedy this they do not cease to offer him little annoyances; for the auditors know how to magnify themselves, in such a manner that they give one to understand that any one of them is greater than he; and they attain this by saying that what the president and governor does they can cancel, and that what ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... to ask of you, and the last thing in the world that I should have done, would have been to get a letter from any of the gentlemen in my neighborhood to you. I would not even have suffered them to know that I came to Marseilles to see you. They would have thought me a vain creature, who sought to magnify her importance by visiting people who are so famous. Ah, that ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... calls it a time of trembling, the time of a terrible siege. But he tells us that "The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the House of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, do not magnify themselves against Judah." Thus we learn that the Jews, who have been so long despised and bereft of a king, country, and government, shall see through the great mystery of Providence first. The House of David is found in the royal family of England. The Jews, ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... not been, or as it was before the sixth day, when as yet there was not a creature that could conceive or say there was a world. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works. Those highly magnify him, whose judicious enquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration. ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... heroine, Miss Imogene Arethusa Penelope Brown, wore blue or pink tarlatan to her first ball, or whether on the day of her elopement the indignant papa succeeded in preventing the consummation of her felicity with Mr. Belshazzar Algernon Nebuchadnezzar Smith. I neither magnify nor dwarf, I merely state ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... was invited to run at the ring, where his fair mistress was a spectator, and to the glory of his fortune, and the great contentment both of himself and the lookers-on, he took the ring the very first course." Howel, writing from Madrid, says, "The people here do mightily magnify the gallantry of the journey, and cry out that he deserved to have the Infanta thrown into his arms the first night he came." The people appear, however, some time after, to doubt if the English had any religion at all. Again, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... entered the room as he spoke. She hastily put some cups on the table and then, in a voice vibrant with gladness, she repeated the words, "The way of Brotherhood," and lifting her hands high, palms upward, exclaimed, "My soul doth magnify the Lord!" ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock

... what you want with this great instrument," I said. "A common pocket lens would do all that you require. Besides, a six-inch objective will not magnify more ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... necessity for Executive direction in local affairs may become unnecessary and obsolete. I invite the attention, not of Congress, but of the people of the United States, to the causes and effects of these unhappy questions. Is there not a disposition on one side to magnify wrongs and outrages, and on the other side to belittle them or justify them? If public opinion could be directed to a correct survey of what is and to rebuking wrong and aiding the proper authorities in punishing it, a better state of feeling would be inculcated, and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the future to God. Now dry these dear eyes, and put old thoughts and memories of sorrow and of wrong most resolutely away from you. Be happy, as Our Lord meant all innocent creatures of His to be. And do not be tempted to magnify Greta's offence against friendship. She has acted according to her lights, and if they are of the kind that shine in marshy places, a better Light will shine upon her path one day. I know that you have real affection for her ... though I must own I have always wondered in what lay the secret ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... would say that the reason, why I have spoken so plainly about the sins of my unconverted days, is, that I may magnify the riches of the grace of God, which has been bestowed on me, a guilty wretch. I have weighed much whether I should do so or not, knowing well what contempt it may bring on me; but it appeared to me, after much prayer, that as the object of this little work is to speak well of ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller

... angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Glory be to thee, O Lord most ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip

... distinguished in North Carolina, captured a rebel battery at the point of the bayonet. In the rebel account we are told how the brave General Toombs, with a whole brigade, retook the battery and defeated this single regiment, which they magnify into ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... speaking to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office; (14)if by any means I may provoke to emulation those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. (15)For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (16)And if the first-fruit ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... not ease, he loved not personal indulgence, he loved not sensual gratification. The elevation of France to prosperity, wealth, and power, was a limitless ambition. The almost supernatural success which had thus far attended his exertions, did but magnify his desires and stimulate his hopes. He had no wish to elevate France upon the ruins of other nations. But he wished to make France the pattern of all excellence, the illustrious leader at the head of all nations, guiding them to intelligence, to opulence, and ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... Williamites came up on Sunday, July 11th, while the Irish were hearing Mass. In this instance, as in so many others, it is impossible to ascertain correctly the numerical force of each army. The historians on either side were naturally anxious to magnify the numbers of their opponents, and to lessen their own. It is at least certain, that on this, as on other occasions, the Irish were miserably deficient in all the appliances of the art of war, while the English were admirably supplied. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... turning corruption to their own personal advantage. These miserables, whether on the Northern or Southern side, tacitly united in driving all legislation or congressional business from its legitimate halls into the procrastinating by-paths, in order that they might make speeches and magnify themselves unto Buncombe, and be glorified by the local home press because of their devotion to—the party! The party! That was always the word. Where are these men of froth and wind now,—these heroes of the stump and the bar-room? Passing away into nothing, at ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... madrigalo. Magazine revuo, gazeto. Magazine (store-house) magazeno. Maggot akaro. Magic magio. Magician magiisto. Magisterial majstrata. Magistrate magistrato. Magnanimous grandanima. Magnet magneto. Magnetise magnetizi. Magnetism magnetismo. Magnificent belega. Magnify pligrandigi. Magnitude grandeco. Magpie pigo. Mahogany mahagono. Mahomet Mahometo. Mahometan Mahometano. Maid frauxlino. Maiden virgulino. Maidenly virga. Maid-servant servistino. Mail posxto. Mail (armour) masxo. Maim vundegi. Mainly cxefe. Maintain subteni. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... little Society. Let nothing slip into those accounts which may reasonably give offence to any man; nothing that may seem improbable; nothing which may not edify the reader, and give him occasion to magnify the name of God. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... imagination and the actual life; between that which one ought to do; that which you would that others should do, and that which you do yourself. Yes, what has happened is very painful; but the surprise of the event, its coincidence with the nuptial day makes it still more painful. We magnify—everything in our emotion, when it is ourselves that misfortune touches. Suppose, for a moment, that you had read this in your ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... Thirdly, in order to carry on investigation and make careful measurements and the desired experiments, apparatus designed for the special purpose of discovering truth was necessary. As early as the thirteenth century it was found, for example, that a convex crystal or bit of glass would magnify objects, although several centuries elapsed before the microscope and ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... better footing than he had anticipated. He was quite aware, too, that the simple fact was all that society needed. He expected to hear in a few days that the five thousand pounds had become fifty thousand pounds; for he knew that rumour, when on the boast, would magnify any kind of gossip, favourable or unfavourable. So he was no longer averse to meeting his former companions: even to them, a rich wife would excuse matrimony. And, besides, Hyde was one of those men who regard money in the ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... qualified him to form independent judgments, he neither seeks to discredit all previous research nor to support any of the fantastic theories of which American antiquarianism has been so prolific. He was not open to the temptation that leads those who are first in the field to magnify its marvels, and he is equally free from that tendency to belittle them which betrays the desire of later explorers to display their own superior acumen. He makes no attempt to reconstruct the past by piecing together accumulated details and calling to his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... those who reject the sway of the Makololo. The face of the country appears as if in long waves, running north and south. There are no rivers, though water stands in pools in the hollows. We were now come into the country which my people all magnify as a perfect paradise. Sebituane was driven from it by the Matebele. It suited him exactly for cattle, corn, and health. The soil is dry, and often a reddish sand; there are few trees, but fine large shady ones stand dotted ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... it I may be seized, tied to the tail of a mule, and dragged either to the prison of Toledo or Madrid. Yet such a prospect does not discourage me in the least, but rather urges me on to persevere; for I assure you—and in this assertion there lurks not the slightest desire to magnify myself and produce an effect—that I am eager to lay down my life in this cause, and whether a Carlist's bullet or the jail-fever bring my career to an end, I am perfectly indifferent. But I have other matters now to ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... latter might dispute it and argue with him, or even denounce him for a heretic. But only at first; the thing was too simply true to be long questioned. In any event, his duty was plain; with righteousness as the girdle of his loins he must go forth on the morrow and magnify his office in ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... not express himself peculiarly gratified at this intelligence, and Eleanor, though she had not worked for thanks, and was by no means disposed to magnify her own good offices, felt hurt at the manner in which her news was received. "Mr Bold can act as he thinks proper, my love," said he; "if Mr Bold thinks he has been wrong, of course he will discontinue what he is doing; but that cannot change ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... evolution. "Specilla," or helps to read, had been made, and sold privately and mysteriously, as early as the year Fourteen Hundred. These first magnifying-glasses were associated with magic, or wonder-working; the words "magnify" and "magic" having a common source and a similar meaning. Magicians wore big square glasses, and by their aid, some of them claimed to see things at a great distance; and also to perceive things stolen, hidden or lost. Occasionally, the magician would persuade ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... dishonourable character. Those who, like myself, have served in South Africa, fought against him, and frequently met men who have been prisoners under him, look, I believe, with shame and indignation on the attempts made to advertise and magnify such incidents as the alleged flogging and shooting of peace envoys, so as to blacken the character of a man who, throughout the war, held a reputation with our troops in the field of being not only a gallant soldier, but a humane and honourable gentleman. We may deplore the desperate tenacity ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... improvement of our late success, by taking the most vigorous and effectual measures to be ready for an early and decisive campaign the next year. My greatest fear is that viewing this stroke in a point of light which may too much magnify its importance they may think our work too nearly closed and fall into a state of languor and relaxation. To prevent this error I shall employ every means in my power, and, if unhappily we sink into this fatal mistake, no part of the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... dish to put our dinner upon when cooked. That day we had been too busy with fishing to think of anything else, but on the following I recollected the magnifying glass, and brought it to her. She first showed me the power it had to magnify, with which I was much amused for a time, and she explained as well as she could to me the cause of its having that power, but I could not well understand her; I was more pleased with the effect than cognisant of the cause. Afterwards she sent me to the cabin ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... is man that thou shouldst magnify him? And that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him? That thou shouldst visit him every morning, And try ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... wood put on the fire, and watched it roar and sputter with flame as only fat wood can. After much meditation and a swallow of the fresh-brought ale, my mind began to harp on Evelyn Gray, and to magnify her good looks and attractions. ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... from Sally L. exhaled, And her music apparatus sympathetically wailed. "In the gloaming, O my darling!" rose that wild impassioned strain, And her eyes were fixed on his with an intensity of pain, Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at the postern gate came round, And going into session strove to magnify the sound. He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming rang and rang With the song that to his darling he impetuously sang! Then that musing youth, recalling all his soul from other scenes, Where ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... difficulty will, by those that have never considered words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargon of a man willing to magnify his labours, and procure veneration to his studies by involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure to those that have not learned it: this uncertainty of terms, and commixture of ideas, is well known to those who ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... souls of his hearers as nothing else could. No excitement; no uplift or ecstasy of the martyr; quiet reasoning only; full, serene, and, for him, common-place command of the faculties of his mind. The shadow of death made no change in Socrates; how then should they misunderstand or magnify the power of the shadow of death?—"How shall we bury you?" asks Crito. Socrates turns to the others present, and says: "I cannot persuade Crito that I here am Socrates—I who am now reasoning and ordering discourse. He imagines Socrates to ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... he was so eager to analyse?" and I therefore remark that "we may say with grateful and simple hearts with the Three Holy Children, 'O all ye works of the Lord, etc., etc., bless ye the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... I'm afraid. You are young and chivalrous, and naturally, from your age, ready to magnify and resist what you look upon as oppression. There, be careful, my lad. I shall keep an eye on Leather and take notice for myself. As to Brookes, I shall leave matters to you. I do not ask you to apologise to him, but I ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... For God's sake be scrupulously jealous of the purity of your moral character; keep it immaculate, unblemished, unsullied; and it will be unsuspected. Defamation and calumny never attack, where there is no weak place; they magnify, but they do ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... board, and it was useless to chafe with impatience; they persisted in going through the whole of their tiresome, circumlocutory inquiries, and having their talk out: this aggravating palaver evidently being extended to magnify ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... to some of its readers to have been written in a sectarian spirit, with a purpose to magnify the excellences of Unitarianism, and to ignore its limitations. Such has not been the purpose I have kept before me; but, rather, my aim has been to present the facts candidly and justly, and to treat of them from the standpoint of a student of the religious evolution of mankind. ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... saw someone ride over the Long Divide. It was good for the eyes. I cannot tell quite how, but horse and rider were so sharp and clear-cut against the sky, that they looked very large and peculiar—there was something in the air to magnify. They stopped for a minute on the top of the Divide, and it seemed like a messenger out of the strange country at the farthest north—the place of legends. But, of course, it was only a traveller like ourselves, for in a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... French and English Dictionary, takes notice, "that both in France, and in other nations, the word thou was used in speaking of one, but by succession of time, when the Roman commonwealth grew into an empire, the courtiers began to magnify the emperor, as being furnished with power to confer dignities and offices, using the word you, yea, and deifying him with more remarkable titles, concerning which matter we read in the epistles of Symmachus to the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... probably in vain, to lay aside for the moment your inherited timidities and conventions. I ask you to lay aside pride, which is the devil itself and the cause of most unhappiness. I ask you to rise to the height of a great conception. To 'magnify' God is a common phrase in our observances. Then let us truly magnify Him—not minify, as the theologians do. If God is anything more than a social fetich, then He must be so much more that He includes and explains everything. It may sound inconceivable to you, it may sound sacrilegious, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... her own heart, knew the ups and downs of it. She alone could feel the want of any faith remaining, the ache of ever stretching forth and laying hold on nothing. Her mind had never been encouraged—as with maidens nowadays—to-magnify itself, and soar, and scorn the heart that victuals it. All the deeper was her trouble, being less ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... impression which the object under the influence of passion makes on the mind. Let an object, for instance, be presented to the senses in a state of agitation or fear, and the imagination will distort or magnify the object, and convert it into the likeness of whatever is most proper to encourage the fear. "Our eyes are made the fools" of our other faculties. This is the universal law of ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... "We needn't magnify the merit, Mrs. William," he rejoined slightingly. "The people down stairs will be paid in good time I dare say, for any little extra service they may have rendered me; and perhaps they anticipate no less. I am much obliged to ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... much like other people engaged in lucrative business. He is apt to magnify his calling, to make much of any symptom which will bring a patient within range of his battery of remedies. I found a case in one of our medical journals, a couple of years ago, which illustrates what I mean. Dr. of Philadelphia, had a female ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... have a king to reign over thee in justice, equity, and mercy? Subject thou thyself to the Lord thy God, obey his commandments, and magnify thou the word that calleth unto thee, "This is the way, walk in it;" (Isa. xxx.) and if thou wilt not, flatter not thyself; the same justice remains this day in God to punish thee, Scotland, and thee Edinburgh especially, which before punished the land of Judah, and the city of Jerusalem. ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox

... "You magnify the matter over much, gentlemen. I knew the men I was dealing with. If I could get near enough to fix them with my eye before they began to shoot I knew it would be easy ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... all be—mirrors of the divine radiance, on which some eyes, that are too dim and sore to bear the light as it streams from the Sun, may look, and, beholding the reflection, may learn to love. Does God so shine in me that I lead men to magnify His name? If I am dwelling with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... direct practical argument with regard to what is commonly called the Divinity of Christ. Here is a man whom those that magnify him the least confess to be a good man, the best of men. He says, "I and the Father are one." Will an earnest heart, knowing this, be likely to draw back, or will it draw nearer to behold the great ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... language, rely not so much on the merits of Christ, and on the agency of Divine Grace, as on their own power of fulfilling the moderated requisitions of Divine Justice. He will hence therefore discover in them a disposition rather to extenuate the malignity of their disease, than to magnify the excellence of the proffered remedy. He will find them apt to palliate in themselves what they cannot fully justify, to enhance the merit of what they believe to be their good qualities and commendable actions, to set as it were in an account the good against ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... daily life. But the stranger, by the very fact of his belonging to that other world, had stimulated her desire for those things which in her home life and environment she so greatly missed. He had somehow seemed to magnify the almost unbearable commonplace narrowness of her daily routine. He had made her even more restless, disturbed and dissatisfied. It had been to her as when one in some foreign country meets a citizen from one's old home town. And for this Kitty ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... "You magnify my position," he declared. "My errand is done when I remind you that it is many years since you visited Paris, that Vienna is as fascinating a city as ever, and Pesth a few hours journey beyond. But London—no, London ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the anxious actual experience has given the conclusive reply. We have seen time gradually dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every adverse circumstance dreaded at the outset as beyond control. Present excitement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our institutions and an entire ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... if the grief be too small for Him to compassionate and share, it is too small for you to be troubled by it. If you are ashamed to apply that divine thought, 'Christ bears this grief with me,' to those petty molehills that you sometimes magnify into mountains, think to yourselves that then it is a shame for you to be stumbling over them. But on the other hand, never fear to be irreverent or too familiar in the thought that Christ is willing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... inquiry in which he found no successor. The Origines, if it had remained, would undoubtedly have been a priceless storehouse of facts about the antiquities of Italy. Cato had an enlarged view of history. It was not his object to magnify Rome at the expense of the other Italian nationalities, but rather to show how she had become their greatest, because their truest, representative. The divisions of the work itself will show the importance he attached to an investigation of their early annals. We learn ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... Exalt and magnify Faith as we will, and say that it begins where Reason ends, it must, after all, have a foundation, either in Reason, Analogy, the Consciousness, or human testimony. The worshipper of Brahma also has implicit Faith in ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... in making Nottingham. He and his men were so ashamed of having been overcome so easily by the greenwood men that they had perforce to magnify Robin's band and its ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... itself, on many sides of its being and under thoroughly favourable conditions. The twofold desire which we all experience,—to accept and rest in the ordinary undeveloped self, and at the same time to exalt and magnify it,—is the surest and most fruitful source of moral evil. Indeed, it may be doubted if there is any source of moral evil, apart from those which are purely sensual, which has not at least an underground connection with this. ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... bringing the boy to the fore by which the duke was glad to profit. With his own manifold interests, it was impossible for him to be present in his various capitals as often as was demanded by the usage of the diverse individual seigniories. It was politic, therefore, to magnify the representative capacity of his son and of his consort in order to obtain the grants and aides which certain of his subjects declared could be given only when requested orally by their sovereign ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... these is sure to be,—those aspects of opposition which such a person can occupy, are limited by the exceedingly few and trivial lines of connexion along which he is able to radiate any essential influence whatever upon the fortunes or happiness of others. Circumstances may magnify his importance for the moment; but, after all, any cable which he carries out upon other vessels is easily slipped upon a feud arising. Far otherwise is the state of relations connecting an adult or responsible man with the circles around him as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... Village, in whose household the children who, under the assumed possession of evil spirits, became accusers and witnesses, began their tricks. He is shown to us pedantic and something of a martinet in church discipline and ceremony, somewhat inclined to magnify his office, fond of controversy as he was skilful and rather unscrupulous in the conduct of it, and glad of any occasion to make himself prominent. Was he the unconscious agent of his own superstition, or did he take advantage of the superstition of others for purposes of his own? The question is ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... "And now speak, O man!" said they; "who art thou?"—"I'll tell you who I am," said he, when he had eaten his fill; "I am your Tsar. Lead me to my capital, and there I will reward you!"—"What, thou wretched rogue!" they cried, "thou dost presume to mock us, thou old ragamuffin, and magnify thyself into a Tsar! Thou reward us, indeed!" And they looked at him in amazement and scorn.—"Dare to laugh at me again," said he, "and I'll have your heads chopped off!" For he forgot himself, and thought he was at home.—"What! thou!" Then ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous

... coast of Spain. During the six weeks they waited there, they were inferior to Hardy's force. Allowance here must be made, however, for the inability of a representative government to disregard popular outcry, and to uncover the main approach to its own ports. This, indeed, does but magnify the error made in not watching Brest betimes; for in such case a fleet before Brest covered also ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... when the visitors of the Rais had retired, I had a tĂȘte-Ă -tĂȘte with his Excellency. Speaking of the Ghadamseeah, his Excellency said, "They are ignorant and know not the tareek (i. e., system) of the Sultan; they magnify every trifle of news they hear, and are now alive to every change, and in feverish expectation of some new event." This is always the case with the oppressed; they must love change, if but for the worse. His Excellency then continued: ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... the first place to exalt it. And that I do exalt it may be seen by this reason: it happens that it is possible to magnify things in many conditions of greatness, and nothing makes so great as the greatness of that goodness which is the mother and preserver of all other forms of greatness. And no greater goodness can a man have than that of virtuous action, which is his own goodness, by which ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... authors of American independence were generally enthusiasts for the British Constitution, and preceded Burke in the tendency to canonise it, and to magnify it as an ideal exemplar for nations. John Adams said, in 1766: "Here lies the difference between the British Constitution and other forms of government, namely, that liberty is its end, its use, its designation, drift and scope, as much as grinding corn is the use of a ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... seen something like it,—but when and where? What planet boasted that star of cities for strength and lustre that must surpass new London and old Thebes? For Rodomant had the mathematical gift of all the highest harmonists, and his brain could magnify and actualize the elfin-sized images under his eye to their just and proper proportion in the real." It must have been like heaven, this city so stilly and so fair,—for, you see, there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... panic at the idea of finding themselves in the presence of Napoleon; for each of the enemy's generals imagined him to be opposed to them, Bagration at Mohilef; and Barclay at Drissa. He was believed to be in all places at once: so greatly does renown magnify the man of genius! so strangely does it fill the world with its fame! and convert him into ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... Arabian organisation. The young Sidonia penetrated the highest mysteries of mathematics with a facility almost instinctive; while a memory, which never had any twilight hours, but always reflected a noontide clearness, seemed to magnify his acquisitions of ancient learning by the promptness with which they ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... them. They issued loyal addresses to William and Mary, in which they said: "Great was that day when the Lord who sitteth upon the floods did divide his and your adversaries like the waters of Jordan, and did begin to magnify you like Joshua, by the deliverance of the English ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... 1850. The law contained so many odious provisions against all principles of natural justice and judicial precedents that it could not be executed in many places in the North. The consciences of civilized men revolted against it, and the Abolitionists did not fail to magnify its injustice; on the other hand, the pro-slavery agitators saw in its imperfect execution new and additional grounds for ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... the observations of Barnard. I recall an attempt to see it under his guidance during a visit to Mount Hamilton, when he was occupied there with the Lick telescope. Of course, both the Gegenschein and the Zodiacal Light are too diffuse to be studied with telescopes, which, so to speak, magnify them out of existence. They can only be successfully studied with the naked eye, since every faintest glimmer that they afford must be utilized. This is especially true of the Gegenschein. At Mount Hamilton, Mr Barnard pointed out ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... at all: you are a lady; and wherever ladies are is hell. Do not be surprised or terrified: you will find everything here that a lady can desire, including devils who will serve you from sheer love of servitude, and magnify your importance for the sake of dignifying their service—the ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... observation of Early's march to join Lee under the mistaken orders above alluded to. The enemy was found to be alert wherever Sedgwick tapped him, and his familiarity with every inch of the ground enabled him to magnify his own forces, and make every man tell; while Sedgwick was groping his way through the darkness, knowing his enemy's ability to lure him into an ambuscade, and ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... live in a dark lonely tower by the sea, from which are heard the screams of vivisected men and women. On the contrary, he lives in Mayfair. He does not wear great goblin spectacles that magnify his eyes to moons or diminish his neighbours to beetles. When he is more dignified he wears a single eyeglass; when more intelligent, a wink. He is not indeed wholly without interest in heredity and Eugenical biology; but his studies and experiments in this science have ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... like coralline and teeth like strung pearls in carcanets of gold virgin to man, and a neck like an ingot of silver, above a shape like a wand of Bn: her middle was full of folds, a dimpled plain such as enforceth the distracted lover to magnify Allah and extol His might and main, and her navel[FN59] an ounce of musk, sweetest of savour could contain: she had thighs great and plump, like marble columns twain or bolsters stuffed with down from ostrich ta'en, and between them a somewhat, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... in the North have two favorite dodges for the service of their friends, the enemy. The first is, to magnify the numbers of the rebel forces, placing them at 500,000 men, whereas they never have had above half as many men in the field, all told, and counting negroes as well as white men. The other is, to magnify the cost of the war on the side of the Federalists. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble—Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental and emotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The resulting image ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... fibres, standing erect here and there on the twig, are also dimly visible to the naked eye. This twig, with a drop or two of the water, we will put between two thin plates of glass, and place under the field of view of a microscope, having lenses that magnify the image of an object ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... to his friend Barr, on the 24th December 1809, Tannahill remarks:—"You will, no doubt, have frequently observed how much some old people are given to magnify the occurrences of their young days. 'Barrochan Jean' was written on hearing an old grannie, in Lochwinnoch parish, relating a story something similar to the subject of the song; perhaps I have heightened ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... me, yer great coward; yer've killed me!" wailed Pete again, excitement having probably acted upon his eyes after the fashion attributed to a horse's, which are said to magnify largely, and ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... deriving a plentiful subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs, whose wounds had been ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... the army who has had such a charge, and the universal answer will be: "The militia of Canada are loyal to Britain, without vapouring or boasting of that loyalty; for they are not by natural constitution a very speaking race, or given at every moment to magnify; but they will fight, should need be, for Victoria, her crown, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... These imperfections were quickly appraised by Irene, but his manner appealed to Mrs. Hardy, who outlined her life history with considerable detail, dwelling more than once upon the perfections of the late Dr. Hardy—which perfections she now showed a disposition to magnify, as implying a certain distinction unto herself—and ended with the confession that the West was not as bad as she had feared, and anyway it was a case of living here or dying elsewhere, so she would have to ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... organism; men are the particles of that organism, and each one of them has his own special task for the service of others. In the same manner, the cells united in an organism share among them the labor of fight for existence of the whole organism; they magnify the power of one capacity, and weaken another, and unite in one organ, in order the better to supply the requirements of the whole organism. And exactly in the same manner as with gregarious animals,—ants or bees,—the separate individuals divide the labor ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... answered in the Song proper is that of joining nature with ourselves, by addressing it in a series of invitations to magnify Him who is its God and ours alike, thus interpreting the feelings which nature maybe supposed to entertain. It is recognised that the irrational as well as the rational have their rightful spheres of action; and a wholesome sympathy is manifested with those ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... year Galileo, a Florentine, greatly distinguished by his mathematical and scientific writings, hearing of the circumstance, but without knowing the particulars of the construction, invented a form of the instrument for himself. Improving it gradually, he succeeded in making one that could magnify thirty times. Examining the moon, he found that she had valleys like those of the earth, and mountains casting shadows. It had been said in the old times that in the Pleiades there were formerly seven stars, but a legend related that one of them had mysteriously disappeared. On turning ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... rich opportunity of speaking to the children, and desires to magnify this opportunity for indoctrination to the highest degree. The advantage of this book lies in the fact that the preacher has had unusual success in his ministry with the children in which he has made use of all the materials here ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... 'em!—not a bit." "Then, sir, I fancy, if you please to try These in my hand will better suit your eye?"— "No, but they don't."—"Well come, sir, if you please, Here is another sort; we'll e'en try these; Still somewhat more they magnify the letter, Now, sir?"—"Why, now, I'm not a bit the better."— "No! here, take these which magnify still more,— How do they fit"?—"Like all the rest before!" In short, they tried a whole assortment through, But all in vain, for none of them would do. The operator, much surprised ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... of France have signalized their names, will prove that other nations need not be discouraged from the like attempts by the consciousness of inability; for surely it is not very difficult to aggravate trifling misfortunes, to magnify familiar incidents, repeat adulatory professions, accumulate servile hyperboles, and produce all that can be found in the despicable remains ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... for registering seamen was proposed. And that of educating women, which I think myself bound to declare, was formed long before the book called "Advice to the Ladies" was made public; and yet I do not write this to magnify my own invention, but to acquit myself from grafting on other people's thoughts. If I have trespassed upon any person in the world, it is upon yourself, from whom I had some of the notions about county banks, ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe

... often drunk, says the Globe; he was tight before Prince ARTHUR, and he rushes to the bottle whenever the Fenians give alarm. Now this strikes us as very good policy. It helps us to see how convenient it was for Sir JOHN to magnify a few O'BRIENS and O'SHAUGHNESSYS into an army with green banners, and how opportunely the Dominion became intoxicated ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... Lord, who bringest forth and dost efface The ocean-ruling Nations, race by race, It is this living People, by Thy grace Who on the sea Shall magnify Thy name, who on the sea Shall glorify Thy name, who on the sea With myrrh and blood shall sacrifice to Thee At the altar-prow, Of all earth's oceans make ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... thoughts, Some will be snakes, and bears, and savage wolves, And when I lie tremendous in the desert, Or abandoned sea, murderers and idiot men Will come to live upon my rugged sides, Die, and be buried in me. Now it comes; I break, and magnify, and lose my form, And yet I shall be taken for a man, And never be discovered ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... superlative degree of the animating and invigorating influence of religion on the uncultivated faculties, there would be visible some of the unfortunate consequences of the inveterate rudeness; a tendency, perhaps, to magnify some one thing beyond its proportionate importance to adopt hasty conclusions; to entertain some questionable or erroneous principle because it appears to solve a difficulty, or perhaps falls in ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... only how much the change in her body must needs affect her ordinary conduct. So that before we judge too harshly of this unfortunate lady, we must reflect upon the physical necessities and infirmities and appetites of her new condition, and we must magnify the fortitude of her mind which enabled her to behave with decorum, cleanliness and decency in spite ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett



Words linked to "Magnify" :   mislead, misinform, dramatise, overstate, aggrandise, shoot a line, blow up, overemphasize, overemphasise, magnitude, hyperbolize, increase, vaunt, embellish, dramatize, lard, understate, bluster, overstress, magnifier, tout, brag, gasconade



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com