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Momentary   /mˈoʊməntˌɛri/   Listen
Momentary

adjective
1.
Lasting for a markedly brief time.  Synonyms: fleeting, fugitive, momentaneous.  "Fugitive hours" , "Rapid momentaneous association of things that meet and pass" , "A momentary glimpse"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Momentary" Quotes from Famous Books



... at once, demonstrates that he has an electrically fast mind perfectly harnessed to his purpose. When another man reaches swiftly for a pencil but misses his sure grasp at the first attempt; or when the dash of his hand to the paper is followed by a momentary delay for adjustment of the pencil in his fingers or by hesitation before he begins to write, ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... boys,"—McFadden's glass went up on a level with his eye, and one and all the others followed the motion,—"all right, boys! Here's to you, Kennedy!"—mouthing the last word as though it were a hot pebble, and in unison the dozen odd hands led the way to their respective owners' mouths. There was a momentary pause; then a musical clinking, as the empty glasses returned to the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... somewhat related to chaos; Petrea was very closely so. Momentary bursts of light and long periods of confusion alternated in her. There was a great dissimilarity between Louise and Petrea. While Louise required six drawers and more to contain her possessions, there needed scarcely half a one for the whole wardrobe of Petrea; and this ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer

... of course, speak positively respecting the exact nature of the thought or feeling which lay back of those sad tears. But of this I am confident that they were not produced by any weak or momentary fear of death, and I am equally sure that they were not caused by remorse for the part which he had taken, as chief of a plot to give freedom to his race. Perhaps they were wrung from him by the Judas-like ingratitude and treachery, which had brought his well-laid scheme ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke

... the last decade. He has become a bad musician. He is the cruel, the great disappointment of modern music, of modern art. The dream-light has failed altogether, has made the succeeding darkness the thicker for the momentary illumination. Strauss to-day is seen as a rocket that sizzled up into the sky with many-colored blaze, and then broke suddenly and ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... of such disagreeable adjuncts to life on the island no longer terrified her. Thus do English new-comers to India pass the first three months' residence in the country in momentary terror of snakes, and the remaining thirty years ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... three francs: if a drove of hogs, nine francs per whole hog: but upon these subjects Mr. Bulwer, Mrs. Trollope, and other writers, have already enlightened the public. In the present instance, after a momentary pause, one of the men in green mounts by the side of the conductor, and the ponderous vehicle pursues ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... this momentary opening rushed Garrett Putnam, his rifle-dress torn from his naked body, his heavy knife dripping in the huge fist that clutched it. After him leaped Ned McDonald, the coureur-de-bois, and Jack Youse, letting drive right and left with their hatchets. And, as the painted crowd ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... one is found I should seek in another that which for the moment has gone from me with her. I saw splendid forms at thy villa. Do not contradict me. I know what love is; and I know that when one is desired another cannot take her place. But in a beautiful slave it is possible to find even momentary distraction." ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... is an abridged representation of that sacred tree which we have already encountered and will encounter again in the bas-reliefs, where it is surrounded by scenes of adoration and sacrifice. This motive has the double advantage of awakening religious feeling in the spectators, and of provoking a momentary elegance of line and movement in the two pairs of animals. On the other hand we can hardly explain the motive represented in our Figs. 140 and 141—a motive already met with in the figured architecture of the bas-reliefs and ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... his hat on, appropriates the most comfortable chair, lights his pipe, and commences to puff in silence. He lets the youngsters brag away for a while, and then, during a momentary lull, he removes the pipe from his mouth, and remarks, as he knocks the ashes out ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... however, was only momentary. On the 25th, after two vigorous counter-attacks, one from south to north and the other from west to east, the enemy had to fall back. From that time a sort of balance was established on this terrain between the Germans and ourselves. Maintained for fifteen ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... much passes that is not authorised by the ordinary rules of propriety; but during which much also that is diverting, witty, and even instructive, is manifested, which would never be heard of without this momentary breaking up of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... to be recompensed for our diligence?" continued the mercer, with a trifling alteration in his voice—so trifling, indeed, that d'Artagnan did not perceive it any more than he had the momentary shade which, an instant before, had darkened the countenance of the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... all-important qualification in women, that nothing else can be compared with it. But to adopt this opinion would be grossly to exaggerate its importance. Nor can we believe, on the other hand, what some prudent writers for the young have affirmed, that the superiority of beauty is only momentary; that the eyes tire of a beautiful face which they see daily, that in all cases it vanishes with early youth. No, my child, I do not wish you to believe this, for I cannot believe it myself. For years, the beauty of my sister Elizabeth has been a daily source of pleasure to me, and I doubt ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... a few moments when a brown carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a stand-still nearly in front of David's resting-place. A linch-pin had fallen out, and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple-trees, and there ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... audience awaited the return of Rotch. At a quarter before six he made his appearance, and reported that the Governor had refused him his pass. 'We can do no more to save the country,' said Samuel Adams; and a momentary silence ensued. The next instant a shout was heard at the door; the war-whoop sounded; and forty or fifty men, disguised as Indians, hurried along to Griffin's Wharf, posted guards to prevent intrusion, boarded the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... story were lying there in the narrow iron beds. There were men with faces chewed by shrapnel, men burned in the explosion of the powder magazine at Fort Waelhem, when the attack on Antwerp began—dragged out from the underground passage in which the garrison had sought momentary refuge and where most of them were killed, burned, and blackened. One strong, good-looking young fellow, able to eat and live apparently, was shot through the temples and blind in both eyes. It was the hour for carrying those well ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... limitation. At that time he was spending money rather lavishly—giving fetes in his studio to celebrated actors and actresses, musicians, singers, poets, and artists, and the expenses were sometimes a cause of momentary embarrassment; then his simple mother would say: "Why need you trouble yourself about it? You work very little—then work twice as much, which won't tire you, and you'll have twice as much money." She could ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as they also are earning ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... curtail the royal amusement. To gratify the monarch, hunters sought remote and savage districts, where the beast was still plentiful, and, trapping their prey, conveyed it many hundreds of miles to yield a momentary pleasure to ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... the Parish House could be only a momentary stopping-place. What lay beyond she didn't know. What her fate held further of evil she couldn't guess. But at least, she thought, it would be in her own hands. It wasn't. Unexpectedly and mercifully was it put into the abler and stronger ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... there was a mistake in the time, that is to say, the girl and her dog were not in the garden at the instant when the medium saw them there. Here again an habitual action had obscured a casual movement; for, as I have already said, the vision very rarely corresponds with the momentary reality. ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... again. It must be nearly seven o'clock; although the allotment work had kept the clerks later than usual that day, everybody connected with the offices had certainly gone home. He realized that his nerves had played him a trick in giving that alarmed momentary start—and smiled almost tenderly as he remembered how notable and even glorious a warrant those nerves had for their unsettled state. They would be all right after a night's real rest. He would know how ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... and tongue can wag' will pray and hear sermons, but will not cut off a darling lust; such deceive their own souls. Some are allured but not changed: 'There is some kind of musicalness in the word; when well handled and fingered by a skilful preacher,' it has a momentary influence; 'they hear thy words, but do them not.' (Eze. 33:30) Above all things, beware of hypocrisy, for when it once enters, it spreads over the soul, as the leprosy does over the body. p. 521. 'He is the same man, though he has got a new mouth. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... yet some remarks about the commercial interests as connected with the cause I plead. Nothing astonishes me more than to see those whose only guiding star is commerce, considering its interests only from the narrow view of a small momentary profit, and disregarding the threatening ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... before the irresistible strength that was dominating him, Roger was winning a battle with himself. All the youth and pride and strength of him were rebelling at even momentary subjection, but his will was swiftly gaining the ascendancy within him. The body cried for a swift and terrible struggle; the mind demanded patience. For though he could not win he would if he could, before he succumbed, hurt Garman so terribly that victory would be too dearly purchased ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... Red Thornton did stay just where he was. Perhaps, seeing that Tom limped as he went down the hill, the fugitive entertained a momentary thought of flight. If so, he abandoned it, perhaps in fear, more likely in honor. Who shall say? His agitation had caused his head to begin aching furiously again, and he was a pitiful figure as he sat there upon the doorsill, in a kind of desperate ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... females could devote as much time from their amusements, as would be necessary for reflexion; or was there any person of humanity at hand who could inculcate the indecency of this kind of extravagance, I am persuaded that they have hearts good enough to reject with disdain, the momentary pleasure of making a figure, in behalf of the rational and lasting delight of contributing by their forbearance to the happiness of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... unknown took a tack towards us, and the line was gathered in and kept tight, and, as he began to go about on another course, his enemies took advantage of his momentary sluggishness to haul with considerable effect on the line. That brought the rascal right under the rocks. We could not see him; only the commotion of the water. Being brought up with such a short turn maddened the fellow, and perhaps he began to realise what was ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... you passed," answered the Major and, as he noticed a momentary satisfaction flicker upon his victim's face, he added, "But you will not do well to expect help from 'The Porch'—at all events in time to be of much service to you. You hardly appreciate that we have been at some pains to come up with you. We are not likely again to find so many circumstances ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... proceeded from a secret consciousness in the Puritan that he had permitted a momentary cloud of selfishness to obscure the brightness of his faith, the party separated. The grandson and the hireling took their several ways to the folds, while old Mark himself slowly continued his course towards the dwellings. It was near enough to the hours of darkness, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... before, but I wanted to deliver it personally. However, it is all the same now, I suppose, whether I send it or not. I always knew that our destinies would lie apart, though she was once temporarily under a cloud. Her momentary inspiration to write that "Cancelled Words" was the worst possible omen for me. It showed that, thinking me no longer useful as a practical chance, she would make me ornamental as a poetical regret. But I'll send the manuscript ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... down on the edge of the bed for a smoke, while Jason washed the dishes. He had taken only a few pulls at his pipe when there was a rattling at the window. Thinking the dog was outside, Sullivan called, "Why don't you go round to the door?" This invitation was followed by a momentary silence, then smash! a piece of sash and fragments of window-glass flew past Sullivan and rattled on the floor. He jumped to his feet. In the dim candle-light he saw a bear's head coming in through the window. ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... in black seemed to hover over the bed as it sank, as though he were trying to follow it down; but it, too, presently joined the general enveloping blackness and lost its outline. The pain had blotted out everything, and the return to consciousness had been only momentary. ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... general conclusion as to mental rigidity and bodily clumsiness, the two views diverge from here. According to Bergson, the comic presupposes "something like a momentary anaesthesia of the heart;" "laughter is incompatible with emotion." For Freud this absence of emotion is much more characteristic of humour than of the comic, two matters that Bergson quite fails to distinguish. Then, whereas Freud explains the subjective side of the comic ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... In winter each class went to its own room: the seniors to their fine and spacious study; we to our forlorn quarters, where there was no room to play, and where our teacher forced us to "amuse" ourselves quietly,—that is, not at all. Leaving the refectory always made a momentary confusion, and I admired the way the "devils" of the two classes managed to create the slight disorder under whose favor one could easily escape. The cloister [Footnote: Cloister: the covered arched passage on the side of a court.] had but one ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... heard, and a momentary renovation of mental life, perhaps a renovation of hope, spoke out in the simple exclamation which ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... clump and took his way toward the second cluster, digging a heavy hunting knife into the ice whenever he felt that he was about to slip. Reed was just behind him, breathing hard from the climb, and then came the whole detachment. Warner felt a momentary shiver lest the guerrilla see them. If he caught them on the steep ice between the two cedar clumps he could ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... perhaps we shall be induced to believe, that all their surprise and uneasiness would have quietly subsided, if an unfortunate, and, in fact, merely partial altercation had not excited it beyond its original intensity, and produced a momentary determination to get rid by any means of such ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... with a momentary hesitation, "you know I'm dying to hear of how you came to be alone in that boat. Damn that howling!" I thought I detected a ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... excellent joke, and then he would give such a tyrannical leer in the face of his next neighbor that the poor man would be fain to laugh out of sheer faint-heartedness. If anyone, however, pretended to contradict him in any of his stories, he was on fire in an instant. His very cocked hat assumed a momentary fierceness, and seemed to resent the contradiction. "How the devil should you know as well as I? I tell you it was as I say;" and he would at the same time let slip a broadside of thundering oaths[5] and tremendous sea phrases, such as had never been ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... A momentary flush passed over the face of her companion, and they descended the stairs in silence. The room in which the pupils were accustomed to assemble for devotion was not so spacious as the class-room, yet sufficiently so to look gloomy enough in the gray light of a drizzling ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... strength enough to control my feelings, for which I thank God: a momentary flash of anger did not cause me to forget so many proofs of kindness and affection, and, with the docility of a girl of sixteen, I prepared to depart, although I was entirely ignorant where I should go to, or who ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... much being to his credit at a banker's; he must consider the office cheques with which his pocket-book is overflowing, as at par with bank-notes; he need keep but little gold and silver, as it is far better to know that it is producing a highly-profitable percentage. Should he be visited by any momentary fits of depression, he may draw forth his portfolio, and gratify his eyes with the contemplation of certificates for fives, and twenties, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various

... The momentary glimpse of a real man set Penelope's opinions on edge for the remainder of the day and night. Shaw, whatever else he might be, was a man. Even while others addressed her in conversation she was absent-mindedly recalling to memory certain English gentlemen ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds

... stove glowed softly. Gisela drew the curtains and lit several candles. She disliked the hard glare of electricity at any time, and she admitted with a curious thrill of satisfaction that those manifestly sincere words of her old lover had given her vanity a momentary resurrection. Her suspicions were by no means allayed, even when she met his eyes blazing with passionate admiration, but why not play the old game of the gods for an hour? What better preparation for the morrow than to relax ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... him and moved towards the divan. She paused beside it and glanced down reflectively at the goblet she still carried in her hand, mentally formulating her conception of Circe before she posed. An instant later and her voice roused Quarrington from the momentary reverie into ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... that will be to be put on the Venerable Tone-Imparting committee of the city of New York, and have nothing to do but sit on the platform, solemn and imposing, along with Peter Cooper, Horace Greeley, etc., etc., and shed momentary fame at second hand on obscure lecturers, draw public attention to lectures which would otherwise clack eloquently to sounding emptiness, and subdue audiences into respectful hearing of all sorts of unpopular ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... uneducated and the poor. Kings, rulers, nobles, rich persons, and generally all of the party opposed to him, were hopelessly wrong. The errors of the people, when they committed any, were accidental and momentary; but in the other class, they were proofs of an ineradicable perversity. His faith in human reason as the only power for good government must have been shaken by the students of his university in Virginia. Their lawless conduct seemed to indicate that the time had hardly ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... business to hearken after, or regard. And as he stood there in a mysteriously thronging peaceful solitude such as he had never known before, faintly out of the silence broke the sound of approaching hoofs. His heart seemed to gather itself close; a momentary blindness veiled his eyes, so wildly had his blood surged up into cheek and brain. He remained, caught up, with head slightly inclined, listening, as, with an interminable tardiness, measureless anguished hope died down into ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... when we were back in the room where the grand piano stood, and conversation had reached a momentary halt, Azalea went to the piano. "Come, Arthur," she said, sitting down at it and patting a pile of music, "I want our ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... Indeed, you could be sure of him and all his interests, whatever they were, feeling that he had himself well in hand, knew exactly how far he was going, and that when the time came he could and would stop. Yet during the process of his momentary relaxation or satiation, in whatever field it might be, he would give you a sense of abandon, even ungovernable appetite, which to one who had not known him long ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... said, after a momentary hesitation, "I dunno ez I keers ef I does tas'e a piece er dat ham, ef yer'll cut me off a ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... which was once marred and smitten on account of our sins. And seeing Him as He is we shall be like Him. How long will be the meeting in the air? It has been said that the stay in that meeting place will be but momentary and that the Lord will at once resume His descent to the earth. We know from other Scriptures that this cannot be. Between the coming of the Lord for His saints and with His saints there is an interval of at least seven years before the visible coming of the ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... below the general level of the Park, and are securely walled in with masonry. Vines, trees and shrubbery are planted and carefully trained along the edges of these walls, which conceal the roads from view. The visitors, by means of archways or bridges, pass over these roads, catching but a momentary glimpse of them in some places, and in utter ignorance of ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... support his son: and consequently he is bound to support him not only for a time, but for all his life, and this is to lay by. On the other hand, for the son to bestow something on his father is accidental, arising from some momentary necessity, wherein he is bound to support him, but not to lay by as for a long time beforehand, because naturally parents are not the successors of their children, but ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... momentary hesitation on the part of the butler was caused by a very natural and proper feeling of admiration for the new clothes and hat which he had purchased out of the money advanced by Jack Meredith for the outfit of the expedition. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... bears it out. It seems to me most likely that the coincidence of circumstances is very partial, but that we take this partial resemblance for identity, as we occasionally do resemblances of persons. A momentary posture of circumstances is so far like some preceding one that we accept it as exactly the same, just as we accost a stranger occasionally, mistaking him for a friend. The apparent similarity may be owing, perhaps, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... on the island of Hispaniola, where it was most frequent and inveterate; neither are we to suppose, with some, that it proceeded from too great an excess of sensual pleasures. Nature had never punished excesses of this kind with such disorders in the world; and even to this day, we find that a momentary indulgence, which has been passed for eight or ten years, may bring this cruel and shameful ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... Prosser? Had anyone ever heard of him? No! Yet here he was going about the country clipping small boys over the ear-hole, and flinging loaves of bread at bank-clerks as if he were Henry James or Marie Corelli. Owen reproached himself bitterly for his momentary loss of presence of mind. If he had only kept his head, he could have taken a flying shot at the man with the marmalade-pot. It had been within easy reach. Instead of which, he had merely stood and gaped. Of all sad ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... wistfulness with an actual bluebird which looped across the open space in front. The spell was broken for a moment, and my subconscious autocrat thrust into realization the instantaneous report—apparent bluebird call is the note of a small flycatcher and the momentary vision was not even a mountain bluebird but a red-breasted blue chatterer! So I shut my eyes very quickly and listened to the soft calls, which alone would have deceived the closest analyzer of bird songs. And so for a little while longer I still held my ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... I trust that it will not be deemed inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from each other. Since your last meeting ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... decomposition occurred. On raising the wire 3, and breaking the circuit altogether for a while, the apparatus resumed its first power, requiring, however, from five to ten minutes for this purpose; and then, as before, on making contact between 3 and p, there was again a momentary current, and immediately all the ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... There are curious elucidative sparks, in those Voltaire Letters, chaotic as they are; small sparks, elucidative, confirmatory of your dull History Books, and adding traits, here and there, to the Image you have formed from them. Yielding you a poor momentary comfort; like reading some riddle of no use; like light got incidentally, by rubbing dark upon dark (say Voltaire flint upon Dryasdust gritstone), in those labyrinthic catacombs, if you are doomed to travel there. A mere weariness, otherwise, to the outside reader, hurrying forward,—to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... These seem to be indubitable proofs that, against his will, Iago is a little better than his creed, and has failed to withdraw himself wholly from the human atmosphere about him. And to these proofs I would add, though with less confidence, two others. Iago's momentary doubt towards the end whether Roderigo and Cassio must be killed has always surprised me. As a mere matter of calculation it is perfectly obvious that they must; and I believe his hesitation is not merely ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... love?—in love with a girl whom I had accidentally met in an omnibus? Or, was I merely indulging a momentary caprice—merely feeling a young man's hot, hasty admiration for a beautiful face? These were questions which I could not then decide. My ideas were in utter confusion, all my thoughts ran astray. I walked on, dreaming in full day—I had no distinct impressions, except of the stranger ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... are due to mental aberration. It may be the result of a momentary and sudden loss of mental equipoise, or the final and fatal ending of a premeditated desire carried through days, weeks, months, ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... the triple mass, and with his hands, delicate as those of a woman, raised by a miracle of vigor a corner of the immense sepulcher of granite. Then he caught a glimpse, in the darkness of that grave, of the still brilliant eye of his friend, to whom the momentary lifting of the mass restored that moment of respiration. The two men came rushing up, grasped their iron levers, united their triple strength, not merely to raise it, but to sustain it. All was useless. The three men slowly gave way with cries of grief, and the rough voice of Porthos, seeing them ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... you? It is I—Harold!' There was no response; his heart seemed to grow cold and his knees to weaken. The match spluttered and flashed, and in the momentary glare he saw across the vault, which was not a large place, a white mass on the ground. He had to go carefully, lest the match should be blown out by the wind of his passage; but on coming close he saw that ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... wild beasts refuse to face it. As a result of exposure and mental suffering, his mind becomes unhinged. At last his daughter Cordelia finds him, gives him refuge, and nurses him back to reason and hope. But this momentary gleam of light only makes darker by contrast the end which closely follows, where Cordelia is killed by treachery ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... than such a living witness as this? What sign in the sky, what momentary appearance of a spirit from the unseen world, could so impress us with the reality of God, as this daily worshipping in his living temple; this daily sight, of more than the Shechinah of old, even of his most Holy Spirit, diffusing on every side light and blessing? And what is now ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... and he shook like a man with ague. But Stark stood unhurt, and more composed than any of them; following the first bound from his chair, he had relapsed into his customary quiet. There had blazed up one momentary flash of suspicion and anger, but it died straightway, for no man could have beheld the trader and not felt contrition. His condition was pitiable, and the sight of a strong man overcome is not pleasant; when it ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... forth the governor's corpse to the market-place, and fixing his head upon a gibbet. But Almagro was secretly prevailed on to grant the entreaties of Pizarro's friends, and allow his interment. This was stealthily and hastily performed, in the fear of momentary interruption. A faithful attendant and his wife, with a few black domestics, wrapped the body in a cotton cloth and removed it to the cathedral. A grave was hastily dug in an obscure corner, the services were hurried through, and, in secrecy, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... opportunities they have had for many years, and likewise the greatest duty. They have to guide the new voters in the exercise of the franchise; to guide them quietly, and without saying what they are doing, but still to guide them. The leading statesmen in a free country have great momentary power. They settle the conversation of mankind. It is they who, by a great speech or two, determine what shall be said and what shall be written for long after. They, in conjunction with their counsellors, settle the programme of their party—the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... the party below to silence. There is something in boldness and determination that for a time hushes even the rudest nature. Marks was the only one who remained wholly untouched. He was deliberately cocking his pistol, and, in the momentary silence that followed George's ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... momentary interlude with a fork, got back at it. "That is what he wanted! But to get it, he lacked one thing, one thing only. He had everything else, he had everything that forethought, ingenuity and science could provide. The arsenals were stocked. The granaries were packed, the war-chests ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... physical sphere of woman. But we will here allow ourselves a momentary digression. It will be seen that while these differences are not radical, yet they are peculiarly permanent. They hint to us the mental and intellectual character of woman. What opinion should we hold ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... Christian belief. A few months sufficed to relegate these vestiges of faith to that part of our souls reserved for memory. The statement that everything in the world is of the same colour, that there is no special supernatural or momentary revelation, impressed itself upon our minds as unanswerable. The scientific purview of a universe in which there is no appreciable trace of any free will superior to that of man became, from the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... an immediate answer; but said, that not being in the port at the time of my arrival, it belonged to the captain-general to appreciate the motives of my stopping at the Isle of France, and to determine the time of my momentary detention. "Nevertheless Sir," he added, "believe, that taking an interest in your situation, I shall have the honour to speak to the captain-general concerning it; and shall be flattered in contributing ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... was a momentary quiver in the gay, ringing voice, and it was quite enough for the mother. 'That will do; I can trust you not to forget this time, Johnnie,' she said, and with a happy smile she lay ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... on his head gave him momentary relief, but more than anything else his love for the child nerved him ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... in 1317, and enforced a melancholy sort of truce between all the belligerents. The scarcity was not confined to Ireland, but had severely afflicted England and Scotland, compelling their rulers to bestow a momentary attention on the then abject class, the tillers of the soil. But the summer of 1318 brightened above more prosperous fields, from which no sooner had each party snatched or purchased his share of the produce, than the war-note again ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... There was a momentary flash of his eye as he spoke, which convinced Angela that Hugo's disgrace was to be no transient one. Her heart sank; she did not find that Richard's wrath was easy to appease when once thoroughly aroused. Again she looked at Brian, and it seemed to her that his face ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... trap-door, and he followed, the man looking at us searchingly, as if he had not much faith in our honesty when face to face with such temptations as owls' eggs, but his look was only momentary, and he took it for granted that we ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... means, regardless of politeness or even of decorum—Bucks and Bloods warm from the pleasures of the bottle—dashing Belles and flaming Beaux, squabbling and almost fighting—rendered the amusements before the curtain of a momentary interest, which appeared to obliterate the recollection of what they had previously witnessed. In the mean time, the Gods in the Gallery issued forth an abundant variety of discordant sounds, from their elevated situation. Growling of bears, grunting of hogs, braying of donkeys, gobbling of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... leaked several thousand miles away, and had made a comparatively safe hole for it, out in the middle of the sea, only afforded momentary relief. The hurt I felt was deeper than that. It could not be remedied by a mere applying long distances to it. It was underneath down in my soul. Time and Space could not get at it. The feeling that I had been trapped in a planet somehow, and that I could not get off possibly, the feeling ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... his head back and looked into the face of the giant. There was a momentary affectionate appreciation in his eye. Then ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... spinifex bunch, instantly the eagle swoops from its height, and before the astonished creature has had time to find another refuge he is caught in the talons of his foe. We also are on the watch, and during the momentary struggle, before the eagle can so quiet his victim as to be able to fly away with it, up gallops Reechy, Alec and Tommy, and very often we secure the prize. Round this spot at Buzoe's Grave, just while the water lasts I suppose, there ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... him. He did not understand it, nor attempt to understand it; but it was a look that he had never before seen in her face or in that of any other woman. It struck him as a momentary revelation of what he had written of in "The Patriot ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... and business has exiled him from Paris for some days, and the thoughts of the beautiful Mme. Jenkins have taken that grave turn, as often happens in solitude, that analytical tendency which sometimes makes even momentary separations fatal in the most united households. United they had not been for sometime. They only saw each other at meal-times, before the servants, hardly speaking unless he, the man of unctuous manners, allowed himself to make some disobliging or brutal remark on ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... as obvious as her momentary dismay. The flush of shame faded from her pretty cheeks. Her eyes were again dancing ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... lodge with whispered steps, awaiting the departure of the spirit. As one of the last acts of kindness, the skin door of the lodge had been thrown back to admit the fresh air of the evening. The poor man felt a momentary return of strength, and raising himself a little, he ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... as he gave the flowers he had chosen expressly for her, and their hands for a moment met, the remembrance of this dream flashed into his mind, and Barbara, surprised, felt a momentary lingering of his touch. ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... absolute command of the spiritual and physical forces of the kingdom possessed by the monarchs of that day, that when the Reformation flashed out, a beacon in the northern sky of political and religious freedom to the world, its light could not penetrate into Spain. There was a momentary struggle there, it is true. But so apathetic was the popular mind that the effort to bring it into sympathy with the vast movement of the age was hopeless from the beginning. The axe and the fagot made rapid work of the heresy. After only ten years of burnings and beheadings Philip ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... to dissolve it without any reason but its will. Their attachment to their country itself is only so far as it agrees with some of their fleeting projects: it begins and ends with that scheme of polity which falls in with their momentary opinion. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... assist him up the bank, and as soon as he stood on dry land, dripping like a Triton in trousers, she exclaimed in such a tone as he had never before heard, 'Oh! my dear lord!' Then, as if conscious of her momentary aberration, she blushed with a deeper blush than that of the artificial rose which he had once thought might improve her complexion. She attempted to withdraw her hands, but he squeezed them both ardently, and exclaimed in his turn, like a lover in ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... Lazarus, our small colored vassal, stirred. I said if I had time I would invent an apple-butter machine, and Elizabeth declared she would never undertake such a job again, never in the world! But that was mere momentary rebellion. When it was all spiced and done and some of it spread on slices of fresh bread and butter, discontent and weariness passed, and next day she and Lazarus were making pickles and catsup and apple jelly, while Old Pop and I were ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... oppressive silence, that the troubled beating of her own heart, was distinctly audible. But she waited and listened in vain. The sound of passing footsteps that now came only at long, very long intervals, served but to arouse a momentary gleam in her mind, to fade away again, and leave it in ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... Her impulse was to add shrilly, "Now that you've made your own market, and don't care a rap what happens to any one else!" As she was Mrs. Bal's guest still, and had been royally entertained, she sacrificed the momentary satisfaction. Besides, this was the last moment in which it would be safe to offend ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... star of his destiny rides the heavens unclouded; he feels now magnificent indeed in his seat on the Rhine, as he stands before his people with the regal creature beside him whom he calls his wife. As if to express the momentary expansion of his nature, his motif resounds, as proudly he presents her, quite changed in character; it has taken on a grandeur approaching pomp: "Bruennhilde, the glory of her sex, I bring to you here on the Rhine. A nobler wife was never won! The race of the Gibichungen, by the grace of the gods, ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... Englishman never could have fired it without something in the way of speech-making; but the Vidame was of a shy temper, and speech-making was not in his line. When the chatter caused by Magali's costuming had lulled a little, and there came a momentary pause in the talk, he merely reached diagonally across the table and touched glasses with Esperit and said simply: "To your good health, Monsieur the Superintendent ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... small table to themselves, close by one of the long glass doors opening out into the garden. It was a warm evening, and sweet, vagrant perfumes came straying in at the open door, and in the momentary hush which sometimes falls upon the noisiest table d'hote, pretty plashing sounds could be heard in the Canal beyond ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller

... confide in his brother James, as he had proposed to himself, and the elder Harrington was so occupied with his own conflicting thoughts that the momentary annoyance expressed by the youth had passed from his mind. He did not even remark that Ralph avoided any conversation with him, or that Lina was paler than usual, and from time to time looked anxiously in his ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... matters, in the great aggregate of human destinies, what one man's conduct may be? Nothing,—not a grain of dust; but it matters much what are the sentiments he propagates. His acts are limited and momentary; his sentiments may pervade the universe, and inspire generations till the day of doom. All our virtues, all our laws, are drawn from books and maxims, which are sentiments, not from deeds. Our opinions, young Englishman, are the angel part of us; ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of a shadow to cloud the momentary happiness at their safe arrival, as, on the steps, Zita ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... this speech, as well as its cold-blooded insincerity, produced in William the impulse to smite. Fortunately, his only hope lay in persuasion, and after a momentary struggle with his own features he was able to conceal what he ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... madness!... The instant past, both knew it. Torn from this momentary dream of bliss, they gazed at each other, embarrassed, greatly moved: for that very reason they wished to part. Ah, this was not the moment to speak of love, to dream of happiness and mutual joy! Dark, dreadful mysteries enclosed them: it was a sinister net they struggled in: as yet they could ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... That momentary glance subdued every stormy passion of his soul; early scenes of joy and sorrow rushed on his remembrance, and clasping his hands across his brow, he stood, for a time, unmindful of all around him, absorbed by his excited thoughts. But the voice of D'Aulney again sounded in ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... received the Municipal Council of Paris, at the head of which was M. de Chabrol. At first Alexander appeared somewhat surprised to see the Municipal Council, which he did not receive exactly in the way that was expected; but this coldness was merely momentary, and he afterwards addressed the Council in a very gracious way, though he dropped no hint of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... But then he conquered the feeling: no, one ought not to wish he were away because of a momentary annoyance. How many happy hours little Woelfchen had given them. It had been charming to watch his first steps, to listen to his first connected words. And had not Kate been very happy to have him—oh, who said been happy?—she was still so. Nothing could be compared to the boy. And that the hours ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig

... mentally acknowledge the justice of my punishment, and resigned myself to my fate; all that I wished was to be thrown over at once and released from my misery. The momentary anticipation of death appeared to be so much worse than the reality. But it was ordered otherwise: a gale of wind blew up with such force, that the captain and crew had enough to do to look after the vessel, and either I was forgotten, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... to listen to the larks. For the larks sing at midnight in the Shetland summer, and to the music of their heaven-soaring songs he set one sweet name, and in the magical radiance over land and sea had that momentary vision of a beloved face which the second-sight of Memory sometimes grants to a pure, unselfish love. Then with a joyful song nestling in his heart, he went rapidly forward. And the night was as the day, for the moon was full and the ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... the central figure of the first is a slave whose basket of figs is upset by PHEIDIPPIDES running from Marathon; while the last concerns an insignificant little anti-militarist who finds himself cheering for the army on the outbreak of the Boer War. That is the kind of tales they are, slight and momentary things, with no plot but plenty of atmosphere, and in their style remarkably well done. Whether they would actually keep the nerve-ridden oblivious of bombs for the thousand-and-one nights that might have seen raids and didn't is a matter that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... there was not even a momentary expression of impatience, but that she sat down and said, 'My dear children, what you have done makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onions but roots of beautiful flowers, and if you had let them alone we should have next summer in the garden ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... present the soda may be increased to 20 or 30 c.c. with advantage. The standard solution should be run in somewhat rapidly, but a little at a time, so that the precipitate at first formed shall be small and have only a momentary existence. The titration is continued until there is a permanent yellowish turbidity. The most satisfactory and exact finish is got by ignoring any faint suspicion of a turbidity and accepting the unmistakable turbidity which the next drop of silver nitrate is sure to produce. This finishing ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... but now, to the effort we are making to improve the designs of our manufactures. Within certain limits I believe this improvement may indeed take effect: so that we may no more humour momentary fashions by ugly results of chance instead of design; and may produce both good tissues, of harmonious colours, and good forms and substance of pottery and glass. But we shall never excel in decorative design. Such design is usually produced by people of great ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... of bitterness, a momentary impulse to say caustically that it would indeed be soothing for a lonely woman to visit two devoted married couples, but there was a wistful tone in her voice which showed that she understood. I made a big effort to laugh naturally, and made a vague promise. This was Charmion's night. I should ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... peninsula and then through the plantation and colonial period of entire Virginia, we everywhere discover the genius, the dauntless courage, the independence, and the resolute patriotism of the Lees. It has been well said, sir, that Virginia is the mother of Presidents; and this is true. A momentary reflection does not suffice to demonstrate the various causes which combined to bestow upon the Old Dominion this prominence. A mature study, however, will serve a double purpose. It will teach us not only how Virginia more than any other State became the ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... the lock seemed to stick. Then the lever seemed to jamb, until he feared that, after all, something had happened that would balk him at the last moment. But it was only his momentary nervousness, and the door swung ponderously ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... life all through the book. It was with many misgivings that I killed my old friend Mrs. Proudie. I could not, I think, have done it, but for a resolution taken and declared under circumstances of great momentary pressure. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... the fact that a cart was presenting a momentary obstruction, our quarry would have been gone. As it was, I flung myself on to the running-board as she was ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... expressed approbation and disgust; it was evident that the sympathies of the citizens were divided. In the momentary ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... he disturb some fancied right, or absurd feeling ruffle? When the volcano of his mind suppress and keep its furious fires in, lest he consume some petty despot's despicable sway; or else, at least, touch his tender sensibilities with momentary pain? "Fiat justitia, ruat coelum," is a favorite maxim with other abolitionists. But St. Paul, it seems, could not assume quite so lofty a tone. He could not say, "Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall." He could not even say, "Let justice be done," though the feelings of Philemon ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Preface, after commenting on the pain he had suffered in times past at finding himself in opposition to the majority of his countrymen, he manfully says, "During the present war, with all its agonies and horrors, he has had at any rate the one private satisfaction of feeling not even the most momentary doubt or misgiving as to the perfect righteousness of his country's cause. There is nothing on earth of which he is more certain than that this Empire, throughout this supreme ordeal, has shaped her course by the light of purest ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... indulged in her native tongue, so she assured her mistress, except when carried away by momentary enthusiasm, or unwonted emotion. It was bad taste, she averred, and she desired to ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... The little children I have just described are already practically machines; day by day they engage in the same work with much the monotony of an automatic instrument propelled by a blind force. When given oranges and cakes, a momentary smile illumined their countenances, a liquid brightness shot from their eyes, only to be replaced by the solemn, almost stolid, expression which has become habitual even on faces so young. This conclusion was still more impressively emphasized by the following ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... great revolution, and by the subsequent introduction of a new dynasty. She has certainly chanted a loud paean of triumph, and at this moment is still exultant over the effects of her modern policy, from the momentary success of the new ideas she has disseminated through the world, and above all from that immense spread of parliamentary governments which have sprung into existence everywhere under her guidance, and mainly ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... neither one poet nor the other having, as regarded philosophy, any internal principle of gravitation or determining impulse to draw him in one direction rather than another, was left to the random control of momentary taste, accident, or caprice; and this indetermination of pure, unballasted levity both Pope and Horace mistook for a special privilege of philosophic strength. Others, it seems, were chained and coerced by certain ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... such expression fraught, They move in meaning, and they pause in thought! But dost thou farther watch, with charm'd surprise, The mild irresolution of her eyes, Curious to mark how frequent they repose, In brief eclipse and momentary close— Ah! seest thou not an ambush'd Cupid there, Too tim'rous of his charge, with jealous care Veils and unveils those beams of heav'nly light, Too full, too fatal else, for mortal sight? Nor yet, such ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... pa!" Goldie exclaims, her momentary enthusiasm extinguished at the thought of long lessons indefinitely prolonged. Goldie was a restless little thing who could not sit long over her geography book. She wriggled out of her mother's grasp now, and made for the door, throwing a "back-hand" as she went, without losing a ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... to see the opening ahead of him. When, however, the smoke lifted, giving him a momentary view, he saw that the gap was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... out of the hall, there was a man looking very like a burglar. His dress, or what you should call his "get-up," is worth a momentary glance. He had a cat-skin cap in his hand about as large as a frying-pan, and nearly of the same colour—this he kept turning round and round first with one hand, then with both—a pea-jacket with large pearl buttons, corduroy breeches, a kind of moleskin waistcoat, and blucher ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... her head again on her arm, and a momentary silence ensued. Then the coroner, clearing his throat, said reassuringly, "Thar ain't nuthin' in the witch-face, nohow. It's jes' a notion. Man and boy, I have knowed that hillside fur forty year, an' I never could see no witch-face; it's ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... dead," as she tried in vain to detain me; "She is still breathing—and"—but I heard nothing more. My legs trembled strangely as I stumbled toward our bedroom. Once there, again that terrible darkness started to come over me, but it was only a momentary weakness. With an effort I steadied myself as I came near the bed where my dearest one lay so still—that lovely face so white, the lips slightly parted with just a faint ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... mind, sir, this man a-coming to look at the clock, sir?" she said, recovering from the momentary shock. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... names shouted by the keeper and their playmates, come forward, looking sheepishly pleased at their momentary importance. ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various



Words linked to "Momentary" :   moment, short



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