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Workmanlike   Listen
adjective
Workmanlike  adj.  Becoming a workman, especially a skillful one; skillful; well performed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Workmanlike" Quotes from Famous Books



... by the Engineers, gangs of them made roads, workmanlike affairs calculated to stand the strain shortly to be imposed on them by the daily passage of thousands of lorries and waggons. Eastward from the Canal what had been a mere track, fetlock deep in sand, became a broad road macadamised ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... of the review devoted to a powerful attack on Lady Byron's character, the most fearful attack on the memory of a dead woman we have ever seen made by living man. The author proceeds, like a lawyer, to gather up, arrange, and restate, in a most workmanlike manner, the confused ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... besides ourselves. The regulars wore the canonical dark blue of Uncle Sam. Our own men were clad in dusty brown blouses, trousers and leggings being of the same hue, while the broad-brimmed soft hat was of dark gray; and very workmanlike they looked as, in column of fours, each troop trotted down its company street to form by squadron or battalion, the troopers sitting steadily in the saddles as they made their half-trained horses conform to the ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... reader; there are no difficult or awkward introductions; the toning of the picture (to use the painter's phrase) is unexceptionable; and if it be rather tinted than colored, the tints are handled in a workmanlike manner. Again, few English novelists seem to possess so sane a comprehension of the modes of life and thought of the British aristocracy as Trollope. He has not only made a study of them from the observer's point of view, but he has reasoned them out intellectually. The figures are not vividly ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... encircled him from below, with upturned faces and open mouths, like young birds expecting food. (Not that young birds expecting food wear gloves so appropriate to the occasion as were Emanuel's.) James Ollerenshaw was impressed by the workmanlike manner in which Andrew measured the width of the glass box and marked it off on the wall before beginning to knock nails. The presence of one nail in Andrew's mouth while he was knocking in the other with a coal hammer, prevented him from outraging the social code when the coal hammer ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... he knows exactly where to find. His job is neat and workmanlike, whether it is a bark receptacle—water-tight or not—a pair of snow-shoes, the repairing of a badly-smashed canoe, the construction of a shelter, or the fashioning of a paddle. About noon one day Tawabinisay broke his axe-helve square off. This to us ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... he had gone, the Colonel ordered me to guard the door, and this gave me the chance of putting on my boots again. The Colonel, cutting off with his sword a good length of bell rope, made a swift and most workmanlike job of tying the spy into a knot. He then opened the window, and, Margaret taking my place meanwhile, he and I cautiously bundled Weir on to the balcony, shut down the window, and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... in! Haul in!" And we did haul in; but the fish was strong and muscular, and struggled hard for liberty and life. In spite of our prompt and vigorous exertions, he was dragged under the brig's bottom; and if he had not been struck in a workmanlike manner, the harpoon would have drawn out, and the porpoise would have escaped, to be torn to pieces by his unsympathizing companions. As it was, after a severe struggle on both sides, we roused him out of the water, when the mate called ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... man whose family had spent ten long years accumulating the debris, to clean the half acre surrounding the house and he made a very neat workmanlike job of it. Afterward he commented on the improved appearance, especially of the back yard. "Yes, it looks considerable better," he said, "but of course I couldn't keep it that way. I'm a poor man and my time is worth sixty cents an hour. I can't afford to spend ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... into view as Mr. Linton's party arrived. The "Master" came first, on a big, workmanlike grey; a tall woman, with a weatherbeaten face surmounted by a bowler hat. The hounds trotted meekly after her, one or another pausing now and then to drink at a wayside puddle before being rebuked for bad manners ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce

... 'Sapies which do inhabit about Rio Grande [now the Jeba River] which do jag their flesh, both legs, arms, and bodies as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us pinketh a jerkin.' It is a nice question whether these Sapies gained or lost by becoming slaves to white men; for they were already slaves to black conquerors who used them as meat with the vegetables they forced them to raise. The Sapies were ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... manufactories of cloth, but none of them were in a flourishing condition. I went to visit that of Vanrobais, established by Louis XIV. and which still continues, though in ruins. The buildings are upon a very large scale; but too much was attempted for them to execute any thing in a workmanlike manner. There are different buildings for every different branch of the manufacture. I cannot but think, however, that they would have succeeded better if they had consulted the principle of the sub-division of labour. A man who is both a ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... gate through which we had entered the grounds the night before without difficulty. The stone wall was assuredly no flimsy thing. It was built in a thoroughly workmanlike manner, and I mentally computed its probable cost with amazement. There were, I reflected, much more satisfactory ways of spending money than in building walls around Indiana forests. But the place was mine, or as good as mine, and there was no manner of use in quarreling with ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... up. Good-bye!" He gave a tchk of the tongue, shook his reins, saluted with his whip; in true coachman's style, and away he went, taking the curve out of the square in a workmanlike fashion that fetched a cheer from the crowd. We heard the dwindling roar of the wheels upon the cobblestones until they died ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... drift-wood which they found lying about, they threw a span to the big boulder, and from the boulder managed to get the trunk across. Then, with rope which they carried at their girdles, they lashed the whole together until they had patched up a very workmanlike affair. We trod across in triumph. With praiseworthy care lest it should be swept away they then took the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... this time," said Major Wagstaffe to Bobby Little, as they stood watching the battalion assemble, in workmanlike fashion, for a route-march. "There are just one or two little points which had not occurred to us then. We have ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)

... a point of darkness behind Mr Wegg, the latter, with a slight start, looks round for 'that French gentleman,' whom he at length descries to be represented (in a very workmanlike manner) by his ribs only, standing on a shelf in another corner, like a piece of armour or a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... discipline and their gallantry. Their appearance was by no means gorgeous, and their dress and equipment was much more modest than that of the East Kent Yeomanry, which rode every Saturday through Ashford; but the stained tunics, the worn leathers, and the rough hardy horses gave them a very workmanlike appearance. They were small, light, brown-faced fellows, heavily whiskered and moustached, many of them wearing ear-rings in their ears. It surprised me that even the youngest and most boyish-looking ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... hole into his victim's body, just below its breast-bone. Thrusting two arms into the opening, he yanked out two organs—one of which, Garlock thought, could have been the heart—and ate them both; if not with extreme gusto, at least in a workmanlike and thoroughly competent fashion. He then picked up the head in one hand, grabbed the tip of a wing with another, and marched up the street for half a block, dragging the ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... the hut in a more substantial manner, and to put a plate of ice into the roof, as a window, which they did with great quickness as well as care, several of the women cheerfully assisting in the labour. The men seemed to take no small pride in showing in how expeditious and workmanlike a manner they could perform this; and the hut, with its outer passage, was soon completed. From this time they were in the constant habit of coming freely to the ships; and such as it was not always convenient to admit usually found very profitable employment in examining the heaps of ashes, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... be quiet whilst we are well: we have executed our work in a workmanlike style: another discharge would but serve to point out the course of our flight: for fly we must; a little bird whispered in my ear that they have a rear guard: and it will be well if we all reach our quarters ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... calculations; but they were so much struck by his readiness and apparently complete knowledge of the work he proposed to execute, that they gave him the contract to build the bridge; and he completed it within the stipulated time in a satisfactory and workmanlike manner. ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... mechanical labour scarce, Ponting returned to the shell of his apartment with only the raw material for completing it. In the shortest possible space of time shelves and tanks were erected, doors hung and windows framed, and all in a workmanlike manner commanding the admiration of all beholders. It was well that speed could be commanded for such work, since the fleeting hours of the summer season had been altogether too few to be spared from the immediate service of photography. Ponting's nervous temperament allowed no waste of ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... he should "make well, surely, cleanly, and workmanlike, curiously, and substantially" the marble tomb with "images, beasts, and other things, of copper, gilte." Another craftsman who exercised his skill in this chapel was Lawrence Imber, image maker, and in ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... difficult to find a more workmanlike little corps than the franc tireurs of Dijon as, with the band of the national guard at their head, playing the Marseillaise, they marched through the old city. Their uniform was a brownish gray Their blankets—rolled up tight and carried, like a scarf, over one ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... do it. And if you want the carpenter's muddle head punched, who put it up before, I shouldn't much mind doing that either," added Mat, looking at the hole from which the clamp had been torn with an expression of the profoundest workmanlike disgust. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... turned the Elephant over to the owners, finished, a good, workmanlike job from roof to foundation-piers. He had lost money on it; for months he had worked overtime his courage, his ingenuity, his nerve, and his strength. But that did not matter. He had delivered the goods. I believe he treated himself to an afternoon off and went to a ball-game; ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... (physical) laboro—ado. Work (literary) verko. Worker laboristo. Worker (literary) verkisto. Workman laboristo, metiisto. Works (place) fabrikejo. Workbox necesujo. Working day simpla tago. Workshop metiejo, laborejo. Workmanlike lerta. Workmanship metiistarto. World mondo. Worldly monda. Worm vermo. Worm-shaped vermoforma. Wormwood absinto. Worn out eluzita. Worry (vex) inciteti, enuigi. Worry (importune) trudpeti. Worry ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... filled this instrument with a quantity of small coal-dust from the forge, she approached the door, and dropping on one knee before it, dexterously blew into the keyhole as much of these fine ashes as the lock would hold. When she had filled it to the brim in a very workmanlike and skilful manner, she crept upstairs again, and chuckled as ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... get information when they ask for it, and in the end Lem fetched public opinion all right. One night the local chapter of the W.C.T.U. borrowed all the loose hatchets in town and made a good, clean, workmanlike job of the back part of his store, though his whiskey was so mean that even the ground couldn't soak it up. The noise brought out the men, and they sort of caught the spirit of the happy occasion. When they were through, Lem's stock and fixtures looked mighty sick, and they had ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... sure they were quite right, and, seeing that they were a little too long, he measured them with care, and carried them back to the shed, and there he shortened them and polished them with sand and a piece of flint, until he succeeded in making a very workmanlike job ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... European literature. This study, which was illustrated by translations into English verse, was followed by another on Josephin Soulary, in whom she saw more than her maturer judgment might have justified. There is something very interesting and now, alas! still more pathetic in these sturdy and workmanlike essays in unaided criticism. Still more solitary her work became, in July, 1874, when her only sister, Aru, died, at the age of twenty. She seems to have been no less amiable than her sister, and if gifted with less ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... But, as Mary had feared, the work did not progress altogether to her satisfaction. She had never made over one or two white Marseilles vests, and found that she was not so well skilled in the art of neat and accurate stitching as was required to give the garment a beautiful and workmanlike appearance. The stitches did not impress themselves along the edges with the accuracy that her eye told her was required, and she was troubled to find that, be as careful as she would, the pure white fabric grew soiled beneath her fingers. Mary, to whom she ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur

... to find a successor to my father. In the end, he gave the command to general Lefebvre, who, having recently been wounded in the army of the Rhine, was at that moment in the capital. Lefebvre was a former sergeant in the Guards, a brave soldier, a good, workmanlike general, provided that he was closely supervised, but credulous in the extreme, with no understanding of the political situation in France. So, by careful use of the words "Glory," "Motherland," and " Victory, " One could be sure of making ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... mainly written, bear strong traces of Day's style; and as Mr. Gosse, who is at once a poet and a critic, judges by his ear and not by his thumb, his opinion carries weight. Day's capital work, the Parliament of Bees, is incomparably more workmanlike than the Maydes Metamorphosis; but the latter, it should be remembered, is beyond all doubt a very juvenile performance. Turning over some old numbers of a magazine, I found a reviewer of Mr. Tennyson's Princess complaining "that we could have borne rather more polish!" ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... repression of the maturer writer or to the tactical restraints of the trained advocate. This eminently natural assumption, however, is entirely rebutted by the facts. Nothing is more remarkable in Coleridge's contributions to the Morning Post than their thoroughly workmanlike character from the journalistic point of view, their avoidance of "viewiness," their strict adherence to the one or two simple points which he is endeavouring at any particular juncture in politics ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... buttonholes were nice, for she looked at them and said: "Quite workmanlike, upon my word," added another, feeling that her gingham gown had come ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... she said, how Casey was treating them. On these occasions Clyde experienced a recurrence of latent hostility. Sheila took no pains whatever with her appearance. She came in a worn riding costume, plain, serviceable, workmanlike; and she talked water and crops and stock with Casey and McHale, avoiding more feminine topics. If there was any understanding between her and Casey it did not appear to Clyde. But it was this unreasoning hostility more than anything else which made Clyde doubt herself. Was ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... made this box did the work in a workmanlike fashion," said the Trapper, as he strove to insert the edge of his hatchet into the jointing of the cover, "fur he shet these boards together like the teeth of a bear trap when the bars be well 'iled. It's a pity the boy didn't send him along with the box, Wild Bill, fur it sartinly ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... a hard crack and no mistake, young man," the physician said, plastering his patient's head in a workmanlike manner. "But you've a good, solid cranium as I've often told you. Not much to get hurt above the ears—mostly bone all the way through. Not easy to crack, like some of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... not the place to preach the theory of direct inspiration," said the Nilghai, returning Torpenhow's large and workmanlike bellows to their nail on the wall. "We believe in cobblers" wax. La!—where ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... pulled on his outer clothing and had stood moodily by, watching Dave's more workmanlike ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock

... the high individual efficiency of the unit is of the utmost importance. Formerly this unit was the regiment; it is now not the regiment, not even the troop or company; it is the individual soldier. Every effort must be made to develop every workmanlike and soldierly quality in both the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... she said stoutly, her voice beginning to warm with resentment. "It isn't a classic, of course, but it's a thoroughly workmanlike, snappy little act, sure to get ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... the workmanlike pack which the mule might have borne, had I not insisted on fulfilling a rash vow, my luggage was contained in twin brown hold-alls bought at Martigny, and covered with a waterproof cloth which was the property ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... our heroes and their friends, but they approached the whale stranded nearest to the rocks. This huge leviathan, like all the others of the herd, was long since dead. The men attacked him with blubber-saws and axes and began to cut him up in a most workmanlike manner. ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... admirably-tempered dagger—a very workmanlike article indeed. On the cross hilt of it I swore one day that I would live thenceforth for one thing alone—the discovery of the murderer of old D'Avray's child, whom I had promised him to care for before all. When I had found this man, whoever he was, I also swore that I would kill him. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... workmanlike precision:—Profound discretion and self-restraint at "Woodbine Villa:" restless industry ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... and has put his thoughts and wishes into a tangible form, the leading question asked is, how much will all this cost? for what price in dollars and cents, without extras or additional charges of any kind, can this dwelling be erected in a good and workmanlike manner, in accordance with plans and specifications, and satisfactory to the owner? This is precisely the plain English of what a business man wants to know; for we hold that it is right and proper, that every one should look right through all ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward

... The workmanlike boat got under way. As I gazed from its side towards the Suvla that we were leaving, the whole line of the Peninsula came into panorama before me. The sun, just awake, bathed a long, waving skyline that rose at two points to dominant levels. One was Sari Bair, the stately hill ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... will be worthless, and the bed may terminate abruptly. Either the long bed or the round heap answers admirably. Tread the manure down compactly, and for the sake of appearances endeavour to finish it off in a workmanlike manner. During the first few days there will be a considerable rise in the temperature, which will gradually subside, and when the plunging thermometer shows that it has settled down to a comfortable ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... Intelligent and picturesque, workmanlike and affectionate, the Old English Sheepdog combines, in his shaggy person, the attributes at once of a drover's drudge and of an ideal companion. Although the modern dog is seen less often than of old performing his legitimate duties as a shepherd dog, there is no ground whatever for supposing that ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... and Koettlitz started off to the south-west with Evans, Quartley, Lashly and Wild. And of this party Scott wrote: 'They looked very workmanlike, and one could see at a glance the vast improvement that has been made since last year. The sledges were uniformly packed.... One shudders now to think of the slovenly manner in which we conducted things last ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... the woods, striding into the clearing, came a young girl dressed in workmanlike garb in short skirt, leggings and jersey, with a soft black hat on the black tumbled locks. "Hello, Kathleen, dinner ready? I'm famished. Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, glad to ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... the translation of the words of command, and the movements were taught by the boys themselves performing them, and insisting upon their motions being accurately imitated. They worked from morning till night, and by the end of the fourth day were satisfied that their men could serve the guns in a workmanlike and regular way. ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... easy to take," admitted Herb, as he proceeded to dispose of his share in a workmanlike manner. "This ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... volume of travelling impressions, given in unpretending and workmanlike style by the author. A great deal of useful information and shrewd observation is brought together in ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... so with the white sailor-savage. With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... mute announcement of their business, and, producing a flat stone bottle, which might hold about a couple of quarts, from beneath his bedstead, filled out three glasses of gin, which Job Trotter and Sam disposed of in a most workmanlike manner. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... excellent workman in his way. Patient, laborious, conscientious, he has all the highest qualities of the ideal brick-maker. He produces the best bricks, and you can generally depend upon him to turn out both honest and workmanlike articles. But he is not an architect. For the architectonic faculty in its highest developments you must come to England. And he is not a teacher or expounder. For the expository faculty in its purest form, the faculty that enables men to flash forth clearly and distinctly before the eyes of ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... the screen, dressed in a very plain, workmanlike black gown, over which she was wearing a large butcher blue apron. Her sleeves were turned up and her face was flushed. Claude thought she looked younger than she ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... the same manner between the two, and ornament the top with a canopy of Turkey cloth, trimmed with gold; on the top place a pointed gilt crown. This kind of throne can be easily put together, and will be easier to handle than one made in a more workmanlike manner. The emperor and empress should be seated in the chairs. The platform is intended for the military, while the seats should be filled with dignitaries, officers, and ladies. The empress's costume consists of a ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... bracket saw and finished with a rasp. The key holes should be mortised as shown in the sketch. The trough pieces are made in a similar manner, care being taken to have all tenons and mortises perfectly square and a good fit, so the trough when assembled will have a neat and workmanlike appearance. The trough can be finished in any one of the many mission finishes which are supplied by the ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor

... was given, and by the fourth week the little boat was launched on the Thames for its first trial. It looked workmanlike in spite of its wide beam and shallow draught, for the great designer who had fashioned the lines of the fastest destroyer afloat had himself drawn up the plans after giving a day's careful thought to the ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... and Statesmen of New Zealand," though not a connected history, is written with such undoubted fairness and personal knowledge, and in so workmanlike, albeit good—natured, a way, as to have a permanent interest. Most of the many portraits which are reproduced in its pages are correct likenesses, but it is the pen pictures which ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... of the drum trap will bring out the skill of the beginner. The entire trap is made of lead pipe. The lead will require a great deal of handling. Therefore, care must be exercised in all operations to turn the trap out in a workmanlike manner. ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... we were awoke next day by a scraping below, and coming down, we found our painter in a scull-cap and a smock that covered him to his heels, upon his scaffold, preparing the ceiling in a very workmanlike manner. And to see him then, with his face and beard thickly crusted over with a mess of dry plaster and paint, did I think somewhat dispel those fanciful illusions which our Moll had fostered—she, doubtless, expecting to find him in a very graceful attitude and beautiful to look at, creating ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... descends. If you have ever watched a sailor splicing a rope, you will know what I mean when I say that the worker, reaching for the loose ends to finish the job off neatly, is like the playlet writer who reaches here and there for the playlet's loose ends and gathers them all up into a neat, workmanlike finish. The ending of a playlet must not leave unfulfilled any promises of the premise, but must fulfill them ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... under the coatings of paint and plaster appeared the original bricks; and as my architectural knowledge had led me rightly, the space I had cleared was directly over a vertical joint between firm, workmanlike masonry on one hand, and rough amateurish work on the other, bricks laid anyway, and without ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... place, handed it to the coroner, who examined it attentively, and then passed it on to the jury. From the jury it was presently transferred to Thorndyke, and, looking over his shoulder, I saw a very workmanlike sketch of a pair of footprints with the principal ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all sides by fat, gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted the spray into lacework on the ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... crowd, he found himself searching hungrily for the face of Sally, which he knew he could not find. Always, there was the unadmitted, yet haunting, sense of his own rawness. For life was taking off his rough edges—and there were many—and life went about the process in workmanlike fashion, with sandpaper. The process was not enjoyable, and, though the man's soul was made fitter, it was also rubbed raw. Lescott, tremendously interested in his experiment, began to fear that the boy's too ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... treat them in such a way as to make them original, and this of itself shows a wonderful faculty of invention and constitutes an inexhaustible source of pleasure. This pleasure is all the more pleasurable because the matter is always presented in a thoroughly workmanlike form. The shapelessness, the incoherence, the necessity for endless annotation and patching together, which mar so many even of the finest Elizabethan plays, have no place in Beaumont and Fletcher. Their dramatic ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... a short story demands the utmost care; it lacks the bulk of the novel, which hides minor defects. It must have a definite form, which shall be compact, and which shall have its parts properly proportioned and related; and it must be wrought out in a workmanlike manner. It requires extreme care from its conception to its completion, when it must stand forth a perfect work of art; and yet it must reveal no signs of the worker's tools, or of the pains by which ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... tropics, the weather is generally very warm, we evinced a most laudable anxiety that she should be properly ventilated, so we assiduously began drilling holes through and through her hull; and, I assure the reader, that we did it in a surpassingly workmanlike manner. But, in the midst of this spirited exchange of courtesies, our Gallic friend remembered that he had, or might have, another engagement, so he took his leave; and, as he had given us so many reasons ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... showed: Livingstone in his own colors, purple and scarlet cap, workmanlike and weather-stained; Forrester in the fresh glories of light blue with white sleeves, his cap quartered ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... fatigued, but I was not. After about five miles of uphill work we began to descend. The road was a masterpiece of engineering, and well it might be, for it was one of five military roads the great Napoleon ordered to be constructed across the Pyrenees, and it was done in a thoroughly workmanlike manner. It wound in and out and ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... eyes, dazed, weak as water, memory, full, complete, rushed into action. His brain recalled everything—everything from the period it is given man to remember down to the present. It was all so clear, so perfect, so workmanlike. The long-halted clock of memory was ticking away merrily, perfectly, and not one hour was missing from its dial. The thread of his severed life was joined—joined in such a manner that no hitch ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... this, still more may the capitalist who undertakes to build upon it. It may be a satisfactory thing to collect in any way much money; but I think, on the other hand, that most men have a great pleasure in doing anything well, in a workmanlike and stable manner. And, strange as it may seem, it is very possible that motives of profit and loss may not be the only ones which have led to such miserable building, as is often to be seen in the houses of the ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... Jonas, "that your plan last evening was, to do your work in a workmanlike manner. If you want a substantial fort to last all winter, you must lay a good foundation, and cut your courses true, so that they will rest firmly one upon the other,—and especially if you are going ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott

... the workmanlike morale with which Louis and Mike started on the job has been undermined. They have grown more leisurely. They no longer bundle the pictures around like herring cases. Instead they look at them, try them this way and ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... will still, in various provinces of our affairs, do it, instead of merely seeming to do it. John Howard, without pay in money, did this of the Jail-fever, as other Englishmen do work, in a truly workmanlike manner: his distinction was that he did it without money. He had not 500 pounds or 5,000 pounds a year of salary for it; but lived merely on his Bedfordshire estates, and as Snigsby irreverently expresses it, "by chewing his own cud." And, sure enough, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... to protect it from the frost, was attacked in the cold dry weather in a most furious manner by blackbirds, thrushes, and starlings. They tore away the seaweed with their strong bills, pitching it right and left behind them in as workmanlike style as any miner, and so boring deep notches into the edge of the bed. When a blackbird had made a good hole he came back to visit it at various times of the day, and kept a strict watch. If he found any other ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... cross-beam, The crowded line of masons with trowels in their right hands, rapidly laying the long side-wall, two hundred feet from front to rear, The flexible rise and fall of backs, the continual click of the trowels striking the bricks, The bricks, one after another, each laid so workmanlike in its place, and set with a knock of the trowel-handle, The piles of materials, the mortar on the mortar-boards, and the steady replenishing by the hod-men; —Spar-makers in the spar-yard, the swarming row of ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... occupation. One of the first lessons for her to learn is that no employer is likely to believe that she can do good work if her general appearance is careless or untidy. Her dress should be quiet and pleasing, and it should not distract her attention from her work. A workmanlike dress can be very attractive. Business girls as a rule show taste and judgment in choosing their clothes and in keeping every detail of their appearance neat, suitable, and pleasing. Thrift in the matter of dressing and a suitable ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy

... among the best physicians of his age; he was his own engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and new constructions in ship-building; and this not with the condescending incapacity of a royal amateur, but with thorough workmanlike understanding. His reading was vast, especially in theology, which has been ridiculously ascribed by Lord Herbert to his father's intention of educating him for the Archbishopric of Canterbury; as if the scientific ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... section, and the gates to be made of sawed lumber 1 inch by 5 inches, hung upon good iron hinges, and leaving a clear space of not less than 12 feet when open, the whole to be executed in the best and most workmanlike manner. ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff

... hall. Dorothy, from the very morning after the trip to Saxifrage Inn, had found herself scanning the pile with a curious sense of anticipation. She wondered what Waldron's handwriting was like. She recalled his workmanlike little figures upon the blackboard, and made up her mind that his penmanship would be of a similar character, compact and regular. Another man would have sent her flowers before he sailed. Instinctively she knew that Waldron would not do this; she did not expect nor wish it. But he ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... was perhaps dustier than any, leaned against the engine's buffer-frame close beside me, mopping his face, which was also smeared with soot, and surveyed us complacently, for with our assistants we formed, as far as outward appearances went, a workmanlike if somewhat disreputable company. Water was scarce that season and too precious to waste in superfluous washing, while we had little leisure to spare on even much-needed repairs to our garments. Still, we were ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... Sir Redvers Buller, who has been rewarded for the great services he did his country in Asia, by being flung into this seething Irish stew. He takes it very composedly, though the climate does not suit him, he says; and has a quiet workmanlike way with him, which impresses one favourably ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief in his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly repeating, 'They are all well. Miss Minnie looking ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... such a uniformity of promiscuous action among so many eggs for so many generations. If we see a man knock a hole in a wall on finding that he cannot get out of a place by any other means, and if we see him knock this hole in a very workmanlike way, with an implement with which he has been at great pains to make for a long the past, but which he throws away as soon as he has no longer use for it, thus showing that he had made it expressly ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... the tide turns not again, the chances of a thorough, workmanlike common sense peace can only be imperiled by one thing—the deep desire of France and of Belgium for repose and recuperation. We in England do not know what war is. We have not lived in hell. Our plains have not been devastated, nor our women and children shot, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... two prizes, the schooner would be very short-handed—quickly made up his mind that either of the three would be more valuable than the cutter to him. At all events he shortened sail in a most determined and workmanlike manner, threw open all his ports, and, slightly shifting his helm, made as though he would slip in between the Dolphin and the Indiaman. Captain Winter, however, would not have it so; as the Frenchman luffed, the Dolphin ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... them out in a most satisfactory and workmanlike manner. Their leading citizens, ipso facto their generals (amateur soldiers always cabbage-hoers at heart) afford him a good deal of amusement; as if you should send out the mayor of Jonesville, Arkansaw, against a Foch or a Hindenburg. One of them, a fool of a fellow, blunders into a booby-trap ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... realising how resolutely determined the public was to have nothing to do with anything so witty and workmanlike as The Foundations of Mr. GALSWORTHY, have for their new bill declined upon the pleasantly trivial comedy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... in this book. The story is told in a workmanlike manner, and the characters conduct themselves like average ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... specimens in clubs, on the avenue, and in hospitals; and in the privacy of his own room he practiced make-ups for the part every spare moment. The rehearsals themselves were sufficiently uneventful. He gave evidence of a careful, workmanlike performance, but promise ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... think I know how to fix it now. You two can get behind those trees, or where you like, as long as you're not in the way. I don't want no 'sistance. When Jem Burt takes a job in hand he carries it through in a workmanlike manner. I don't want ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... trawler with a high and raking bow, Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft, With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row, And a brace of little barkers fore and aft; And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the North Sea sprays And exceedingly extolled his lucky star That ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various

... Priscilla had joined the squad when she heard Elliott was to be in it, and with Stannard and Tom the three girls made a little procession. It proved a simple enough matter to wield a hoe. Elliott watched the others for a few minutes, and if her hills did not take on as workmanlike an appearance as Tom's and Gertrude's, or even as Priscilla's, they all assured her practice would ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... enters, and casts more than one searching glance at Vivie's bruised features, but performs her duties in a workmanlike manner. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... capacious, the piano a workmanlike upright, not dominating the room, but ready for music; and in front of the fire was an English setter, an aristocrat of a dog, with the light glittering in his slowly waving tail. The people fitted into the easy life of the room. They were ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... bearing), a method of giving a larger bearing surface for the ends of the lintels, shortening their actual bearing[4] (in other words, widening the space which can be bridged between column and column) and giving a workmanlike appearance of stability to the construction at this point. The idea of the division of the column into two sections, suggested in Fig. 8, is kept up in Fig. 9 by treating the lower portion up to the same height with incised decorative carving. The dotted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... the rising moon, as he had come to her a hundred times in life, back from the farms or the moorlands, from sport or from business, or from those early morning rides, the clean freshness of the morning upon him, after seeing his race-horses galloped. He came bareheaded, in easy workmanlike garments, short coat, breeches, long boots and spurs. He came with the repose of movement which is born of a well-knit frame, and a temperate life, and the grace of gentle blood. He came with the half smile on his ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... in the evening of Easter Monday. Enriquez did not come across him, but Insausti did his business with one thrust, in a workmanlike way. The scullion hurried to Alcala, and told the news to ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... within the limits of that area. But it must be explained that the reason the sergeant was outside the public house was because he had challenged a fellow carouser to fight, and at the moment he was discovered he was stripped to the waist and setting about his task with rare workmanlike skill. ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... criticism must do, whether they be bad or mediocre or best? The reviewing page of the standard newspaper fills me with unutterable depression. There seem to be so many stories about which the same things can be said. There seems to be so much fiction that is "workmanlike," that is "fascinating," that "nobly grasps contemporary America," that will "become a part of permanent literature," that "lays bare the burning heart of the race." Of course the need of the journalist to ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... am not indebted to, I solicit of them a share of their work, assuring them, that whatever engagements I make, shall be executed punctually, and in a workmanlike manner, by their ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks

... the trenches began to assume a more workmanlike aspect, although when one got down deeper than three feet the ground was like chalk and ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... penned it himself, with exceeding care.... If the first copy did not please him, he patiently made a second or a third draft. In his stern, self-imposed apprenticeship of phrase-making he had prepared himself for these workmanlike methods by the practice of rewriting his trial stories into dramas and then reworking them into ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... Lieutenant Aide, fell more or less seriously wounded. The story of the fight is simply told; there is no necessity for any wild vapouring in regard to Australian courage, no need for hysterical praise. Our fellows simply did what they were told to do in a quiet and workmanlike manner, just as we who know them expected that they would; we are all proud of them, and doubly proud that the men in the fight with them were ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... established, and the Union of states was glued together so well that the nation is stronger now than ever before. Lincoln was just the man for that job, and the work he did will last for all time. "The New Cabinetmaker" knew his business thoroughly, and finished his task of glueing in a workmanlike manner. At the very moment of its completion, five days after the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox, the Martyr President fell at the hands of the assassin, ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... the Union to perform all the tailoring, operating, pressing, finishing, cutting, and buttonhole-making work to be done by the firm in the cloak and suit business during one year ... from date; and the Union agrees to perform said work in a good and workmanlike manner. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... have very little damaged those. The fashion and ornaments are, perhaps, of the architecture of that age; but the buildings remain strong and lofty, and of admirable proportions—masterpieces of genius and monuments of workmanlike skill. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... rustling the willows about us brought into my mind the fact that our masked acquaintances could easily sneak up and pot us if, as an afterthought, they decided to do a really workmanlike job. Doubt it? Wasn't the dead man stretched in the shadow convincing proof of their capacity for pure devilishness? Read the history of those days along the line, and you'll turn some red pages. There were no half-way measures ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... class and be thankful." All that I hearken to hear, Nor heed the laughter much; have patience a little while, I will tell you what's in my heart, nor hide a jot by guile. When I worked pretty much for my pleasure I really worked with a will, It was well and workmanlike done, and my fellows knew my skill, And deemed me one of themselves though they called me gentleman Dick, Since they knew I had some money; but now that to work I must stick, Or fall into utter ruin, there's something gone, I find; The work goes, cleared is the job, but there's ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris

... Jimmie O'Hara elected to start something new by hitting the Professor a workmanlike blow on the back of the head with the butt of his automatic. The next thing Bland or anyone else present knew the unconscious body of the Professor was on the table and Jimmie was groping for the concealed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... hand, for Gaston's frown to change to a broad and satisfied smile. Here was a helper after his own ideas—strong, deft, and no talker. Like many men who love talk for its own sake the master was not fond of chatterboxes. The job was finished in good and workmanlike fashion, and Gaston, who knew some English, went on talking while he attended to other odd matters and waited ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... the light of the fire in the kitchen, Tip carefully rounded all the edges of the joints and smoothed the rough places in a neat and workmanlike manner. Then he stood the figure up against the wall and admired it. It seemed remarkably tall, even for a full-grown man; but that was a good point in a small boy's eyes, and Tip did not object at all to the ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... multiplies its appearances in full accordance with economic rules. No age ever submitted so constantly as ours to be amused or soothed by the romancer's art. The permission has opened the door to a great number of capable, industrious, and workmanlike men and women, who have learnt their business of amusement well. To the vast majority of us literature is as much a trade as any of the accepted businesses of Holborn or Cheapside, and, apart from a lingering sentimentalism, there is no reason why the fact should not be owned. There is no shame ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... demonstrated her ability to manage a horse by unharnessing this very animal and leading it into the stable. Then leading it out again she had harnessed it with her own hands, backed it carefully into the shafts, and finished the processes of hitching to in a smart and workmanlike manner. ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... deviltry is intended against one Douglas, whoever he may be, residing as stated, a rich country gentleman. He is sure—'confidence' was as near as he could get to 'confident'—that it is pressing. There is our result—and a very workmanlike little bit of ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in such excellent time, consequent upon certain bribery and corruption in the shape of half-crowns, that early in the evening, Vane, free from all workmanlike traces, was able to point triumphantly to the neat appearance of the job, and explain the working of the supply cistern, and of the stop-cocks between the boiler and the pipes to his aunt ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... Queenston, whence they continued to retreat westward along the shore of Lake Ontario. Vincent, the British general, reported his losses in killed and wounded and missing as three hundred and fifty-six. The Americans suffered far less. It was a clean-cut, workmanlike operation, and, according to an observer, "Winfield Scott fought nine-tenths of the battle." But the chief aim had been to destroy the British force, and in ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... red silk skirt much spotted with camp grease. A three-cornered tear in the side had been sewed with long stitches and coarse white thread, and even Casey was outraged by the un-workmanlike job. She had on one of the silk shirts, which happened to be striped in many shades, none of which harmonized with the basic color of the skirt. She also wore two cheap necklaces whose luster had long since faded, and her hair was coiled on top of her head and adorned with three combs ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... took a particular satisfaction in reading Chubb's Tracts, and I often think I will get them again to wade through. There is a high gusto of polemical divinity in them; and you fancy that you hear a club of shoemakers at Salisbury, debating a disputable text from one of St. Paul's Epistles in a workmanlike style, with equal shrewdness and pertinacity. I cannot say much for my metaphysical studies, into which I launched shortly after with great ardour, so as to make a toil of a pleasure. I was presently entangled ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... in this attitude. Then rising and taking advantage of the moonlight that flooded the desk, he set himself to mend the broken lock with a large mechanical clasp-knife he produced from his pocket, and the aid of his workmanlike thumb and finger. Presently he began to whistle softly, at first a little artificially and with relapses of reflective silence. The lock of the desk restored, he secured into position again that part of the door-lock which ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... each member of the class being asked to write a complete answer to one of the assigned questions. Whatever may happen later in the recitation each student has had at least this much of an opportunity for self-expression, and his work should be neat, workmanlike, complete, and accurate. By this device the alert teacher will secure in the first five minutes of the recitation hour a fairly accurate idea of each student's preparation, the weak spots in his understanding of the lesson, and ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell

... into the studio, a superb room, but severe and workmanlike according to the modern usage. Before they were well-seated, an attendant, knowing his duty well, began to pull ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... these protestations being received with clamorous applause, and everyone being pleased to have so unusual an event to record to his admiring spouse, agrees that a fox has not only been killed, but killed in a most sportsmanlike, workmanlike, businesslike manner; and long and loud are the congratulations, great is the increased importance of each man's physiognomy, and thereupon they all lug out ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... whole movement was covered by the two armoured trains under the command of Captain Bath, R.M.L.I. Before retiring the bluejackets blew up the bridge on our front and otherwise destroyed the line in a very workmanlike manner. If we had been supported, the retirement would have been quite unnecessary; it was the result of lack of confidence in our Allies after ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... it cannot have any Dictionary of Heresies except a Budget of Paradoxes. Mistaken claimants are left to Time and his extinguisher, with the approbation of all thinking non-claimants: there is no need of a succession of exposures. Time gets through the job in his own workmanlike manner ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... the princess looked waxen. The blue linen blouse, short serge skirt and bare head and legs of Erebus and the blue linen shirt, serge knickerbockers and bare head and legs of the Terror gave them an air not only of coolness but also of a workmanlike freedom of limb. In her woolen blouse, brown serge jacket and skirt, woolen stockings and heavily-trimmed drooping hat the poor little princess looked a swaddled sweltering doll melting in ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson

... opened Parliament to-day for what we all hope will be the Victory Session. But it will not be victory without effort. That was the burden of nearly all the speeches made to-day, from the KING'S downwards. HIS MAJESTY, who had left his crown and robes behind, wore the workmanlike uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet; and the Peers had forgone their scarlet and ermine in favour of khaki and sable. When Lord STANHOPE, who moved the Address, ventured, in the course of an oration otherwise sufficiently sedate, to remark that "the great crisis of the War had passed," Lord ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various

... caused my heart to bound with delight—a magnificent six-cylinder forty horse-power "Napier," of the very latest model. The car was open, with side entrance, a dark green body with coronet and cipher on the panels, upholstered in red, with glass removable screen to the splashboard—a splendid, workmanlike car just suitable for long tours and fast runs. Of all the cars and of all the makes, that was the only one which it was my ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux



Words linked to "Workmanlike" :   competent



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