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Dependable   /dɪpˈɛndəbəl/   Listen
Dependable

adjective
1.
Worthy of reliance or trust.  Synonym: reliable.  "A dependable worker"
2.
Worthy of being depended on.  Synonyms: honest, reliable, true.  "An honest working stiff" , "A reliable sourcSFLe of information" , "He was true to his word" , "I would be true for there are those who trust me"
3.
Consistent in performance or behavior.  Synonyms: rock-steady, steady-going.  "A steady-going family man"
4.
Financially sound.  Synonyms: good, safe, secure.  "A secure investment"



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"Dependable" Quotes from Famous Books



... of troubling you. James can do all those things. And failing James, there is a very dependable young woman at the head of this household. Haven't I 'personally conducted' the family ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... with a shock that, while Mr. Lewis had been as good as his word, my brother-in-law's recollection of our change of address was less dependable. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... With the dependable force that she had mustered, however, she took the stock from pasture, broke even on a job to a desert town to the west in order to put the teams in shape, and then made ready for the hundred-and-fifty-mile trip to Julia. She had written ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... mathematical genius will figure out this problem with exactitude and we will have a dependable table giving the maximum carrying capacity of various surface areas at various stated speeds, based on the dimensions of the advancing edges. At present it is largely a matter of guesswork so far as making accurate computation goes. Much depends upon the shape of the machine, and the amount ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... up at them, very tidy in his Sunday suit, very boyish, for all his thirty-two years. His face, smilingly tender as he watched them, was strong rather than handsome, quietly dependable and faintly humorous. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... anything else! The man whom Mrs. Mallett employed is a thoroughly dependable man. There's not the slightest doubt that Mrs. Saumarez secretly met Mallett and spent most of the afternoon with him, under the circumstances I ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... weird wan moonlight, King led them forward, straight up the narrowing gorge, between cliffs that seemed to fray the very bosom of the sky. He smoked a cigar and stared at the view, as if be were off to the mountains for a month's sport with dependable shikarris whom he knew. Nobody could have looked at him and guessed ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... his refusal to accept steady work. They're just like the people back home, she thought. They have no imagination. To their minds the cowpuncher who draws his forty dollars a month, year in and year out, is in some manner more dependable than the man whose imagination and love of the boundless open lead him to stake his time against millions. What do they know of the joys and the despairs of uncertainty? In a measure they, too, love the plains and the hills—but their love of the open is inextricably ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... "I must be off. It's nearly ten o'clock, thanks to your lazy habit of not breakfasting till after nine. Fortunately, I've still got Doyle's bicycle. Not that it's at all a dependable machine. The pedal will probably come off once at least on my way in. However, at worst, I'll ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... who object that "what all aim at is not necessarily good," I confess I cannot see much in what they say, because what all think we say is. And he who would cut away this ground from under us will not bring forward things more dependable: because if the argument had rested on the desires of irrational creatures there might have been something in what he says, but, since the rational also desire Pleasure, how can his objection be allowed any weight? and it may be that, even in the lower animals, ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... You mean her face? It is a—well, if it is not precisely pretty, it is a good face. (Handsomely.) I don't mind her face at all. I am glad you have got such a dependable little ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie

... October, 1912, 'must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he really is the finest character I ever met—the closer one gets to him the more there is to admire. Every quality is so solid and dependable; cannot you imagine how that counts down here? Whatever the matter, one knows Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal, and quite unselfish. Add to this a wider knowledge of persons and things than is at first guessable, a quiet vein of humour ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... over the slowly reviving Kell and leaped to a vantage point beside the door. A blackjack miraculously appeared from some hidden part of his anatomy and the ever-dependable Colt also became in evidence. Now came the banging of a door, muffled voices, a crash as of a chair overturned in the dark. Up rolled a horrible oath, and the same was rendered in a voice to Jimmie sweetly familiar. Came the sound of footsteps on the stairway and several ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... office, now, in her quiet blue suit and her neat hat, and she looked very sane and cheerful and rosy-cheeked and dependable. At least, so Emma McChesney thought, as she kissed her, while the plump ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... an honest effort to benefit the people, old and young, native and foreign. It is not a speculative venture but a dependable guide to a most desirable social, moral ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... paradoxical thing of all was that in these troubled days she thought of only one person as a dependable friend. Eben Tollman had evinced a spirit for which she had not given him credit. It seemed that she had been all wrong in her estimates of human character. Stuart, with his almost brilliant vitality of charm, had after a quarrel turned his back on her. Eben ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... his journey to St. Ives, the Nonesuch sailed again for Roscoff. At the last moment he decided not to command her this trip; but turned the business over to his mate, Seth Rogers—a very dependable man, though not clever at all. So away she went, leaving the Cove empty but for himself only and Bessie Bussow and Tummels, that lived in a freehold cottage on his savings and didn't draw a regular wage, but only took a hand ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... machine. Any electric engine is unlike any steam engine. Steam engines will do so much work—no more. Dynamos or motors will do so much work—and then more. They can be overloaded, unsparingly. But the strain tells. Stout, dependable parts become hot, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... only one of the flock who presented no problem. He was far more human than Jack, but, like Jack, absolutely steady and dependable. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... right, up to a certain point. Rabbit was a perfectly dependable little range horse, and sensible beyond most horses. He was ambling along at his easy little fox-trot that would carry Starr many a mile in a day, and he had his eyes half shut against the sun glare, and his nose ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... any military phase of the problem, this detached population obviously demanded and deserved adequate mail and transportation facilities. How to secure the quickest and most dependable communication with the populous sections of the East had long been a serious proposition. Private corporations and Congress had not been wholly insensible to the needs of the West. Subsidized stage routes had for some years been in operation, and ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley

... worthless rascals and educated them to work at something, no matter if it does take five of them to call a cab. She has trained them to make good soldiers, well drilled because drilled by English officers, and making a creditable showing. She has made fairly dependable policemen of them, but their legs are the most wabbly and crooked of any that ever were seen. These policemen are armed. One carries a pistol and the other the cartridges. If they happened to be together they could ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... around the beginning of this river to get to the other side of the island. It made visiting inconvenient and mail deliveries slow, particularly during the Christmas rush. Crocodiles could have carried passengers and mail across the river, but crocodiles are very moody, and not the least bit dependable, and are always looking for something to eat. They don't care if the animals have to walk around the river, so that's just what the animals did ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett

... his part was to avoid her companionship, invent some excuse to return by the way of Manila, pretend he had transfer orders. To spend twenty-one days on the same ship with her and to keep his head seemed a bit too strong. Had there been something substantial reaching down from the future—a dependable job—he would have gone with her joyously. But he had not a dollar beyond his accumulated pay; that would melt quickly enough when he reached the States. He was thirty; he would have to hustle to get anywhere by the time he was forty. His ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... to them so loyally; to the spirit that had flashed to meet his own at that first "Talk-It-Over" breakfast, and had never since flagged; to Ellis, the harsh, dogged, uncouth evangel, preaching his strange mission of honor; to Wayne, patient, silent, laborious, dependable; to young Denton, a "gentleman unafraid," facing the threats of E.M. Pierce; even to portly Shearson, struggling against such dismal odds for his poor little principle of journalism—to make the paper pay. How could he, their leader, recant ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... my country and find or not find, according as it lieth in you, much that is set down here. And more. The earth is no wanton to give up all her best to every comer, but keeps a sweet, separate intimacy for each. But if you do not find it all as I write, think me not less dependable nor yourself less clever. There is a sort of pretense allowed in matters of the heart, as one should say by way of illustration, "I know a man who..." and so give up his dearest experience without betrayal. And I am in ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... reason. The second is that healthy employment conditions stand equally with healthy agricultural conditions as a buttress of national prosperity. Dependable employment at fair wages is just as important to the people in the towns and cities as good farm income is to agriculture. Our people must have the ability to buy the goods they manufacture and the crops they produce. Thus ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... around for withdrawal, if need be. It was only a little way, indeed, into the zone of death from the rear of that compact column. Thousands of such compact bodies on many roads, each seemingly a force by itself and each a part of the whole, which could be a dependable whole only when every part was ready, alert, and where it belonged! Nothing can be left to chance in a battle- line three hundred miles long. The general must know what to depend on, mile by mile, in ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... I've—well, somehow I've felt as if a fellow could depend on you, you know—always, in spite of everything. Eh, why, by George, she said that very thing about you once, said it to me. She said you were so dependable. Say, that's queer, that she and I should both think the very ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... right. In the first place the trip was tiring, too tiring to rehearse in detail. Then a vague feeling of neglect and desolation took possession of me, for I missed the cool-handed efficiency of that ever-dependable "special." I almost surrendered to funk, in fact, when both Poppsy and Pee-Wee started up a steady duet of crying. I sat down and began to sniffle myself, but my sense of humor, thank the Lord, came back and saved the day. There was something so utterly ridiculous in that briny circle, soon ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... Shamo that Tavor got track of the thing he was after. He said that the age he was trying to get back into was much more remote than he imagined. It must have been a good many thousands of years ago. He couldn't tell; long before anything like dependable history at any rate.... There must have been an immense age of great oriental splendor in the South of Asia and along the East African coast, dying out at about the time our knowledge of ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... said of shops, as I generally remarked in my earlier observations. But to descend more into detail, there are still among its at any rate a limited number of shopkeepers who like to do their business on good, safe, and steady lines, and keep together a nice respectable connection by upholding the dependable quality of their wares. Some of these shopkeepers do not make much of an outward show, but I have reason to know that many of them in a quiet undemonstrative manner do a snug and prosperous trade ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... again. Perhaps, as Luther had said, they would have to sell out also. The dream of going East absorbed her once more. As she dreamed, however, a shrewd eye was kept on the cattle. As nearly as possible she lived up to the trust reposed in her. Quick to serve, sensitive, honest, dependable as she was, these cattle constituted the point of contact between the developing girl and her developing philosophy of life. Duty pointed sternly to the undesired task, and duty was writ large on the pages of Lizzie Farnshaw's monotonous life. Her hands ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... visitation, however, doesn't occur often; in fact, it never had occurred before—and the chances are it never will occur again. Next to taxes and the high cost of living, I judge the California climate to be about the most dependable institution we have in this country—yes, and one of the most satisfactory, too. To its climate California is indebted for being the most extravagantly beautiful spot I've seen on this continent. It isn't just beautiful ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... the Japs. The latter excel in hardiness, yield, size of nuts, but the Chinese have a better percentage of filled nuts, have better husking quality and much better quality of kernel, according to growers. Of course, being seedlings, neither is entirely dependable in any of these qualities. The best that can be said is that the planter of a Chinese seedling has a better chance than the planter of a Jap seedling if he is after ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... the genial warmth, so that anything more miserable than a mid-winter sojourn in Sorrento it would be impossible to conceive. There are of course calm warm days to be met with even in December and January, but these are occasional and by no means dependable blessings, and the visitor who persists in taking up his abode here at this season of the year must prepare himself to experience cold, damp, wind and rain, without any of the contrivances or comforts of a northern winter. "One swallow does not make a summer," and on the same principle a southern ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... patrolman said, frowning. He had an open, boyish face with freckles and a pug nose. He looked like somebody's kid brother, very dependable but just a little cute. "What ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... and little Weeks tightened his weapon belt with a touch of swagger he had never shown before. Rip was his usual soft voiced self, dependable as a rock and a good base for the rest of them—taking command without question as they marched off to join ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton

... mean no offence, father," said he,—"but it's my notion, if you'll never let a poor traveller go into the woods without some dependable body to take care ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... he is told," said Reece. "All you have to do is to explain just what you want done. He is dependable. Try him. He is a nice boy, too, and you will ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll

... kinder to the little chap, we could have left him at St. Augustine if he'd been well enough to make the trip. It bothers me that you're not along. It's my first time without you, and you're a better shot than Grant and more dependable in mood. I can't make out what's come over him of late. He's so moody and reckless that the Indians think he's a devil. He's more prone to wild whims than ever. We've shot wild turkey and bear but I like ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... about for a book and selected several, but, although they were old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour, failed to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed remarks concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel loved to write of such people, having a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... general production of the northern varieties and the southern varieties, as groups, the northern varieties seem never to be so productive in Oklahoma as are the southern varieties. Much more dependable production may be obtained from the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... should have a battery radio," Dr. Miller said. "Power here is not very dependable in stormy weather. I think I'll get one, although that won't ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... do," Burris said. "Lately, you've been acting as though magic were loose in the world. As though nothing were dependable any more." ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... university bill, the ministry resigned, and when, at the elections of 1874, the country was appealed to, the Conservatives obtained a clear parliamentary majority of fifty seats. This was the first really dependable majority, indeed, which the party had possessed since 1842. Disraeli became prime minister and ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... undertake to pass on the curability of the stammerer without a diagnosis first being made. You want the opinion which I give you to be authoritative and dependable—a report in which you can place your entire confidence. I cannot give such a report by merely hazarding a guess as to your condition. I must base my report on the actual facts as they exist. I must make a careful ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

... and she should have good, dependable, business-like habits put in the place of faulty and useless ones. Her profanity will make no difference for the present and can be easily corrected. Don't interfere with her attending to my commissions, Evelina. Let's start, Mr. Hayes." And Jane settled ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Report" had been published, Governor Leonard Wood said, "I look for great things from the women of the Philippines; the quicker they form a part of the Government, the better for the Islands." He seems to feel that they are the most important factor in the islands and considers them more dependable than the men. He told with great satisfaction how he had arranged for Miss Hartlee Emprey (the research worker from the Rockefeller Hospital at Peking, who succeeded in perfecting a four-cent-a-day diet for ...
— The Log of the Empire State • Geneve L.A. Shaffer

... was the same gruesome story. The sufferings of the pressed man went for nothing so long as the pressed man was kept. Provided only the bars were dependable and the bolts staunch, anything would do to "clap him up in." The town "cage" came in handy for the purpose; and when no other means of securing him could be found, he was thrust into the local prison like a common felon, often amidst ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... accordance with what Mr. Snivel facetiously terms the strict rules of special pleading, the old man's lips are closed. Several very respectable witnesses are called, and aver they saw the old Antiquary with a gold watch mounted, at a recent date; witnesses quite as dependable aver they have known him for many years, but never mounted with anything so extravagant as a gold watch. So much for the validity of testimony! It is very clear that the very respectable witnesses have confounded some ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... to each other. I knew that his courage could never stoop to littleness. His integrity, even when his judgment might err, seemed to me an assured quality of nature. As for me, he doubtless thought that I was one of the coming men of the community. Whatever I was, I was dependable. If I should become attached to him he could rely upon me in case of need. This, I think, made him regard me at this early stage of our friendship as a person not to be neglected in his business of creating adherents. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... Peter, a boyish individual Harmony had never met before. For the first time it struck her that Peter was young. He had always seemed rather old, solid and dependable, the fault of his elder brother attitude to her, no doubt. She was suddenly rather shy, a bit aloof. Peter felt the change and thought she was bored. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... I do to be saved?" There is an answer to this question. It is an answer that is absolutely dependable. There is nothing in all the world of which I am more sure than I am of the correctness of the answer to this question. I am as sure of it as I am of my own existence. I am as sure of it as I am ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell

... of the afternoon found Ken and Felicia very much confused and a good deal more discouraged than before. It seemed that even the Rocky Head Granite was not a very sound investment, and that the staunch Fidelity was the only dependable source of income. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... he thought. Usually spacemen opened up visual ports only when landing or taking a star sight for an astro-plot. The clear plastic of the domes had to be shielded from chance meteors. Besides, radar screens were more dependable than eyes, even though they could pick up only solid objects. If the Consops cruiser happened to be searching visually, it would see the blast. But the chance had to be taken. It wasn't really ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage

... for the plan—at least so far as taking the summit was concerned—worked out quite as perfectly in action as upon paper. That is the great satisfaction of working with the Alpino, by the way: he is so sure, so dependable, that the 'human fallibility' element in a plan (always the most uncertain ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... the growing appreciation of a broad biological view-point in its concrete application. It was a reaction against the peculiar fear of studying the facts of life simply and directly as we find and experience them—scoffed at because it looked as if one was not dealing with dependable and effective data. Many of the factors mentioned as causes do not have the claimed effects with sufficient regularity. It is quite true that not everybody is liable to any serious upset by several of the handicaps sometimes found to be disastrous during the years ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... children, and even for grown-ups, to locate the constellations, planets, and stars. Of course, the North Star is everybody's favorite because it is so steady, so reliable, so dependable. We know just where to find it, and it never disappoints us. Two boys who once were crossing from New York to Naples found great delight in a star in the Southern sky that retained its relative position throughout the journey. At the conclusion of dinner in the evening the boys were wont ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... apprehended even then that his professional ideals would not have coincided with my own. Mingled with this sense of emancipation was a curious feeling of regret, of mourning for something I had never valued, something fixed and dependable for which he had stood, a rock and a refuge of which I had never availed myself!... When his will was opened it was found that the property had been left to my mother during her lifetime. It was larger than I had thought, four hundred ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... dependable, granting that it is desirable. It will do very little more than it feels compelled to do. Those who to-day bear the brunt of our evils dare not throw themselves upon the mercy of their masters, not though there are bread and circuses as a reward. From the groups upon whom the pressure ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... coastin'," said Captain Shaw handsomely. The two men felt more at ease and reasonable with this familiar subject of experience and discussion. "I come to the conclusion I'd better stop ashore. If I could ever have found me a smart, dependable crew, I might have followed the sea longer ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... owner. 'There was general instructions for an execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks aboard,' he says. 'I'm all cold up ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... of great satisfaction to the boss to know he has dependable employes and that when he gives an order the thing is done so far as further effort on his ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter

... found that they are not happy, or that they do not enjoy a restful and congenial home life, they discharge them. They claim that a man who is worried cannot be efficient, and if he is not efficient he is not a dependable individual to have in their employ. Some railroads will not allow an engineer to drive a passenger train after it is discovered that he is unhappily married. The young wife should, therefore, appreciate that she may be directly responsible for her husband's efficiency ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... bootliquor quotations, Haig & Haig costs twelve dollars a quart, while any dependable booklegger can unearth a copy of "Jurgen" for about fifteen dollars. Which indicates, at least, an economic ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... this station. It may be turned upon another station, and this bearing also charted. The intersection of these two wireless compass bearings gives the position of the ship at sea. The radio compass is dependable day or night, and is said to be quite as reliable as a sextant or ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser

... of distress or agitation. It was for her obviously a moment of reflection. Her lips were compressed a little in a characteristic, capable manner. I looked at her with a friendliness I really felt towards her slight, unattractive, and dependable person. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... businesslike way that told why Al Woodruff had chosen to ride him on this trip. He seemed to be a perfectly dependable saddle horse for a bandit to own. He wound in and out among the trees and boulders, stepping carefully over fallen logs; he thrust his nose out straight and laid back his ears and pushed his way through thickets of young pines; ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... belt of nut trees running the length of the great timberline which is to be created for the protection of the western states from a recurrence of drouth, might prove a more dependable protection to our food supply than the possible effect of a narrow strip of woodland upon the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... equipments, tools and machinery, I went to a reliable firm which made most and handled the rest of the things that make a well-equipped farm. It is best to do much of one's business through one house, provided, of course, that the house is dependable. You become a valued customer whom it is important to please, you receive discounts, rebates, and concessions that are worth something, and a community of interest grows ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... could take you to visit a grove of chestnut trees, planted by one of the oldtimers, possibly seventy years ago. I haven't been able to learn where the seed came from, evidently from some northeastern country. That is where I get my seeds. Any trees that I have grown from seedlings are dependable trees. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... an enemy, he was one of Kalloe's men, who had been sent to spy the M'was from Foweera: thus we had a dependable guide. This little incident was as refreshing as a glass of sherry during the night's march, and we enjoyed a hearty laugh. Bacheeta had been unsuccessful in finding the origin of the voices, as they had ceased shortly after she had left us. It appeared that ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... another reason why his captain had chosen him for the work he had in mind. Though not so quick or clever as Roy, Henry was a keen observer and close reasoner. Moreover, he was entirely dependable, was very discreet, and being the largest boy in the party, was best fitted to take care of himself if he ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... enough for a sharp, invigorating canter, but our way was too rough. It was a joy to be out in the great, silent forest. The snow made riding a little venturesome because the horses slipped a great deal, but Chub is dependable even though he is lazy. Clyde bestrode Mr. Haynes's Old Blue. We were headed for the cascades on Clear Creek, to see the wonderful ice-caverns that ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests." He was always fundamentally democratic, was so close to the heart of humanity that he felt its mighty pulsations and knew intuitively what his people were thinking. His contemporaries thought that he had a dependable ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... the rein from off his arm and left his horse free to crop the grass. "He will be safe," he said reassuringly, "he will not go far from me. Peter is more dependable than the ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... and kissed her; it was not easy to be severe with Patricia. "Still, dear, it must not happen again; you run too great a risk; stray dogs are not always very dependable ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott

... too soon for the "out again" with Marston. He was very useful—he was not restless, nor demanding, nor sensitive, nor impatient of others, nor jealous. He was like a faithful dog, who adores and adores, and pleads only to be allowed to adore. Moreover, he was a capable man and trustworthy; dependable and far above his class. Therefore she took care that his chains should be silken, yet at the same time that he be not permitted to graze ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... be briefly traced in the names of Faraday, Maxwell, Hertz—the discoverer of the Hertzian rays—Righi, Lodge and Marconi. All of them contributed something to the evolvement of the present highly efficient and dependable wireless. Marconi should, and does, receive great credit; but the others, the pioneers, the real discoverers, should not be forgotten ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... deed, which had gone far to atone for her vulgarity, his respect for her deepened. Her resolute insistence upon law showed a complete change of front. "There is more good in her than I thought," he admitted, and it gave him pleasure, for it made Lee Virginia's character just that much more dependable. He thrilled with a new and wistful tenderness as the girl opened the door and ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... pouring in upon her. Miss Welsh, LL.A., thus describes the household: "Jean, the ever-cheerful and willing helper; Annie the drawer of water and hewer of wood, kind willing worker; Mary the smart, handsome favourite; Alice the stolid dependable little body, and Maggie the fusionless, Dannie the imp, and Asoquoe who looked with his big innocent eyes a wee angel, and who yet was in constant trouble, chiefly for insisting on sharing the cat's meals. Then there were the babies—a lovely wee ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... is founded on official documents and coins, is without doubt more dependable than that of Plutarch, which is reducible to an imaginative metaphor; and the discovery of Letronne, concluding that concatenation of facts that I have set forth, finally persuades me to affirm that not a passion of love, suddenly re-awakened, ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... I remember, I heard the great news buzzing everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, our sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country, and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books, to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children's maid going to live in her barn! ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... "Pick the four most dependable men," he said, "and bid them enter that cabin and gag and bind Tugendheim. Bid them make no noise and see to it that he makes none, but let them do him no injury, for we shall need him presently! When that is done, come ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy

... cause was the excess and obstinate actions of some ignorant Negroes, acting under ill advice. Father was trying to prevent excesses being done by either side. He realized that the slaves were unfit, at that time, to take their place as dependable citizens, for the want of experience and wisdom, and that there would have to be mental development and wisdom learned by his race, and that such would only come by ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... is out of reach. Only as the child reaches for its playthings, creeps or walks after them, and in a thousand ways uses its muscles and joints in measuring distance, does the perception of distance become dependable. ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... Mandel, but her father looked up from his plate and listened. Mela went on: "I don't know what's made the fellow quit comun'. But he was an aggravatun' thing, and no more dependable than water. It's just like Air. Fulkerson said, if he thinks you want him he'll take a pleasure in not lettun' you have him. I reckon that's what's the matter with Christine. I believe in my heart the girl 'll die if she ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... "genius." This last distinction was at once bestowed on Eleanor. She was showered with congratulations and compliments. Her old school friends like Lilian Day and Jean Eastman hastened to declare that they had always known Eleanor Watson could write. Solid, dependable students like Dorothy King and Marion Lawrence regarded her with new respect; awed little freshmen pointed her out to one another as "that awfully pretty Miss Watson, who is a perfect star in themes, you know"; and her own class, who had ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... a set of requirements into one of their iron monsters. Your card popped out. They were looking for somebody capable, dependable ...
— Missing Link • Frank Patrick Herbert

... K. K. walked along in company. Hugh always fancied the Kinkaid boy, for there was something dependable about him that won the confidence of almost all his mates. K. K. was one of the most remarkable chaps, who, while engaging in the customary rough and tumble sports of boys with red blood in their veins, still seemed able to keep himself always tidy and neat. No one ever knew ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... girl. She isn't a girl, she is a mature woman with all the freshness of a girl. She has the carriage, the attitude of mind, the aplomb of a woman, and yet she cannot be described as being in the slightest degree stately. She is generous, dependable, sensible—yes, and sensitive; and her superabundant vitality, the vitality that makes her walk so gloriously, discounts the maturity of her. Sometimes she seems all of thirty to me; at other times, when her spirits and risibilities are aroused, she scarcely ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... you to go with Christopher, my dear; he is more thoughtful and dependable than Alan Tremaine. I always feel perfectly happy about you when you have Christopher to take care ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... tenant-farmer on the Farwell farm, was steady enough and dependable, but never one to get ahead much. Before the Farwells moved to town he had rarely stayed on the same farm more than a year or two, but, as he said, "J.W. Farwell was different, and anybody who wanted to be decent could get along with him." So, for many Saturdays and vacations ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... its last reason and rhyme. It had become senseless, nightmarish. Anything irrational was possible. There was nothing stable in the anarchic flux of affairs that swept her on she knew not to what catastrophic end. Had Billy been dependable, all would still have been well. With him to cling to she would have faced everything fearlessly. But he had been whirled away from her in the prevailing madness. So radical was the change in him that he seemed almost an intruder in the house. Spiritually he ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... more particularly my nurse, for my sister Ellen, a thoughtful, dependable child of eight, was her own ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... our unfortunate companions were laid across the sumpter mule's back; but when we came to look for our train of dependable Negroes, we found that all save three had fled. These did so very strongly protest their Innocence, and plead their abiding by us as a proof thereof, that I felt half inclined to hold them blameless. There were those among us, however, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala



Words linked to "Dependable" :   undeviating, true, tried, dependability, time-tested, sound, undependable, trusty, steady, certain, sure, tested, steady-going, tried and true, trustworthy, unreliable



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