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Referable   Listen
Referable

adjective
(Written also referrible)
1.
Capable of being assigned or credited to.  Synonyms: ascribable, due, imputable.  "The cancellation of the concert was due to the rain" , "The oversight was not imputable to him"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Referable" Quotes from Famous Books



... occurs only in certain kinds of trees and under special circumstances. From boards, felled timber, etc., the water does not flow out, as is sometimes believed, but must be evaporated. The seeming exceptions to this rule are mostly referable to two causes; clefts or "shakes" will allow water contained in them to flow out, and water is forced out of sound wood, if very sappy, whenever the wood is warmed, just as water flows from green wood when put in ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... of the Regent related by the Father of history is referable perhaps to the reign of the third and not of the second Rameses. But it is by no means certain that the Halicarnassian writer was in this case misinformed; and in this fiction no history will be inculcated, only as a background shall I offer a sketch of the time of Sesostris, from a picturesque ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... courteous, because he was inwardly suspicious. Mrs. Rook had been described to him as formerly landlady of the inn at Zeeland. Were there reasons for Mr. Morris's hostile feeling toward this woman which might be referable to the crime committed in her house that might threaten Emily's tranquillity if they were made known? It would not be amiss to see a little more of Mr. Morris, on the first ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... region of thought; afterwards reviving in the middle ages, and gradually growing more intense in modern times as material has been offered for it through the increase of knowledge or the activity of speculation; varying in name, in form, in degree, but referable to similar causes, and ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... of deep suppuration or septic phlegmon was rare, local suppuration of the apertures of entry and exit was seen in a considerable proportion of the wounds. This was referable to infection from the skin itself, or to infection from without subsequent to the infliction of the injury. Infection from the skin, difficult to obviate at all times, is especially likely to occur in wounds the first dressing of which is often delayed, and which happen to men sweating ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... Archbishop of York. The river Ouse and the city of York, however, put in a stronger claim as the scene of this miracle, and unfortunately for Pontefract, the town is so named in charters of fifty-three years' date before the miracle is pretended to have been performed. Still the etymology is referable to the breaking down of "some bridge," (pons, bridge; fractus, broken,) but this unravelment is not antiquarian. Camden says, that in the Saxon times, the name of this town was Kirkby, which was changed by the Normans to Pontefract, because of a broken bridge that was there. But as there is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 531, Saturday, January 28, 1832. • Various

... my father, "is strictly referable to natural causes. These poor people infect one another with their superstitions, and so repeat in imagination the images of terror ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... could not help looking out for signs of disturbance and upheaval. But found none, unless—and that presented a conundrum difficult of solution—Damaris' pretty social readiness and grace in the reception of her guests might be, in some way, referable to lately reported events. That, and the fact the young girl was—as the saying is—"all eyes"—eyes calm, fathomless, reflective, which yet, when you happened to enter their sphere of vision, covered you with a new-born gentleness. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... dear young friend, that to break the customs of Nature, is to break her laws? A phenomenon, an appearance, whether it be a miracle or a comet, need not contradict them because it is rare, because it is as yet not referable to them. Nature's deepest laws, her only true laws, are her invisible ones. All analyses (I think you know enough to understand my terms), whether of appearances, of causes, or of elements, only lead us down to fresh appearances—we ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... in future he will put on 'an antic disposition.' Towards them he has, in fact, already done so. His desire for a threefold oath; his repeated shifting of ground; his swearing by the sword on which the hands are laid (a custom referable to the time of the Crusades, and considered tantamount to swearing by the cross, but which, at the same time, is an older Germanic, and hence Danish, custom); his use of a Latin formula, Hic et ubique—all these procedures have the evident object of throwing his comrades into a mystic frame ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... in architectural design is relative; it is to be considered in relation to the expression and design of the whole, and ornament is to be placed where it will emphasize certain points or certain features of the building. It must form a part of the grouping of the whole, and be all referable to a central and predominating idea. A building so planned, built, and decorated becomes, in fact, what all architecture—what every artistic design in fact should be—an organized whole, of which every part has its relation to the rest, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... those natures and essences of things which present an outward image to the senses, or those, equally real, which utter themselves to the mind. These may be defined and classified; there may be general conceptions to which all particular conceptions are referable. This classification has been attempted by Aristotle, and as the result we have the ten "Categories" of Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Time, Place, Position, Possession, Action, Passion. He does not pretend that this classification is complete, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... If Mr. Herbert Spencer will descend from his stilted theory of "molecular machinery worked by molecular force," and tell us what it all means; and, at the same time, turn us out a single plastide particle, or fungus spore, by any generating process referable to "the machinery" in question, we will as devoutly worship Matter and Motion as ever ancient Egyptian did the god Osiris. But until he does this, we prefer to accept the positive assurance of Professor Lionel S. Beale, a far more ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... last Sunday I found myself extremely giddy, and extremely uncertain of my sense of touch, both in the left leg and the left hand and arms. I had been taking some slight medicine of Beard's; and immediately wrote to him describing exactly what I felt, and asking him whether those feelings could be referable to the medicine? He promptly replied: 'There can be no mistaking them from your exact account. The medicine cannot possibly have caused them. I recognise indisputable symptoms of overwork, and I wish to take you in hand without any loss of time.' ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... betokened anything but respectful astonishment, and that various telegraphic communications appeared to be passing between them and some persons outside the vehicle, whereupon it occurred to him that these demonstrations might be, in some remote degree, referable to the humorous deportment ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever on the subject of slavery, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... bald part of his head well polished, and leave his hair alone, had had just cunning enough to seize the idea and stick to it. It was said that his being town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also, that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched lettings, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... morality and of law. That does not of course mean that the legislator must be acquainted with all those for whom he legislates any more than that we can directly experience the facts of history which we claim to know. But every rule—in knowledge, in morality, in law—must be referable to this test of intercourse. Let your judgment of human beings be such as you would award to those who are sufficiently human to be among your friends. Let it be directed solely towards the well-being of the individual so far ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... the term "contracts" is used in the contracts clause in its popular sense of an agreement of minds. The clause therefore does not protect vested rights that are not referable to such an agreement between the State and an individual, such as the right to recovery under a judgment. The individual in question may have a case under the Fourteenth Amendment, but not one under article ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... water displayed by some of their members. The arrangements connected with aerial respiration, therefore, could not be inherited from a common ancestor, and could scarcely be accordant in their construction. If there were any such accordance not referable to accidental resemblance among them, it would have to be laid in the scale as evidence against the correctness of Darwin's views. I shall show hereafter how in this case the result, far from presenting such contradictions, was rather in the most complete harmony with what ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller

... each time Beauty offered a wisdom I accepted, became an unanswerable conviction I could not argue about; but that the guidance—waking a responsive emotion in myself of love—was referable to any particular name I could not, by any stretch of desire or imagination, bring ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... to conditions of structural development, under the influence of natural selection, the question of longer or shorter life is in a great degree referable. Thus, development along lines of large growth will tend to a slow rate of reproduction from the simple fact that unlimited energy to supply abundant reproduction is not procurable, whatever we may assume ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... commands surely refer to a previously-implanted conviction in ourselves of their rationality and justice. Or why declare that 'the Lord is holy, just and good' unless there is recognised and independent conception of holiness and goodness, to which the subsequent assertion is referable? 'You know what holiness is, what it is to be good? Then, He is that'—not, 'that is so—because he is that'; though, of course, when once the converse is demonstrated, this, too, follows, and may be urged for practical purposes. All God's urgency, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... wide application over the southern spurs of the Hindu- Kush.[2] Our Author, moreover, is speaking here from hearsay, and hearsay geography without maps is much given to generalising. I apprehend that, along with characteristics specially referable to the Tibetan and Mongol traditions of Udyana, the term Pashai, as Polo uses it, vaguely covers the whole tract from the southern boundary of Badakhshan to the Indus ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... according to laws known to be in operation at the present day: "During the progress of Geology, there have been great fluctuations of opinion respecting the nature of the causes to which all former changes in the earth's surface are referable. The first observers conceived that the monuments which the Geologist endeavors to decipher relate to a period when the physical constitution of the earth differed entirely from the present, and that, even after the creation of living beings, there have been causes ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... following remarks, does not exceed one thousand three hundred species of Phaenogamous plants; of these five hundred and twenty are already described by authors, the other portion being in part unpublished species, previously discovered on other coasts of Terra Australis, and in part absolutely new, referable, however, mostly to well defined genera. Of Cryptogamous plants, there are but few species, and of these, or parasitical Orchideae, none have been detected in these voyages in addition to those already described: a circumstance, ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... events. His association with the Invincibles—inexcusably rash and wicked as he himself confessed it to be—had enabled him to penetrate, and for a time to defeat secretly, the murderous designs of the brotherhood. His appearances, first at the farmhouse and afterwards at the ruin in the wood were referable to changes in the plans of the assassins which had come to his knowledge. When Iris had met with him he was on the watch, believing that his friend would take the short way back through the wood, and well ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins



Words linked to "Referable" :   attributable, imputable, ascribable, due



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