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Virtual   /vˈərtʃuəl/   Listen
Virtual

adjective
1.
Being actually such in almost every respect.  Synonym: practical.  "The once elegant temple lay in virtual ruin"
2.
Existing in essence or effect though not in actual fact.  "A virtual revolution" , "Virtual reality"



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"Virtual" Quotes from Famous Books



... original edition Dig is illustrated by four coloured plates. The buildings are all the work of Suraj Mal, the virtual founder of the Bharatpur dynasty, between A.D. 1725 and 1763. The palace wants, say Fergusson, 'the massive character of the fortified palaces of other Rajput states, but for grandeur of conception and beauty of detail it surpasses them all. . ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... seventeenth centuries waned. There was little new in these theories: both Digby's and Highmore's theories included different combinations of elements of ancient lineage. Digby's concept was essentially free of vitalistic coloring; akin to the embryological efforts of Descartes in its virtual independence from observations of the developing embryo, it was similarly vulnerable to Voltaire's criticism of Descartes, that he sought to interpret, rather than study, Nature. This criticism is not so applicable to Highmore, whose theory of development is more vitalistic than Digby's, ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer

... actual or virtual rulers of their districts, be summoned from all sides of France: let a true tale, of his Majesty's patriotic purposes and wretched pecuniary impossibilities, be suasively told them; and then the question ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... England and Ireland. And therefore, this revolution constitution amounts to a shameful disregarding—yea, disclaiming and burying—much (if not all) of the reformation attained to in that memorable period, and is a virtual homologation and allowance of the iniquitous laws at the restoration, anno 1661, condemning our glorious reformation and sacred covenants as rebellion; and is such an aggravated step of defection and apostasy, as too ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... wings had for years been over that continent and he like a ravenous bird had left marks of his ravages among the most prominent European nations. The world had a breathing spell for a short time with Napoleon a virtual prisoner in Elba, but now in March of this year he broke from the perch where he had been tethered and all Europe was again in terror. The nations were thunderstruck; the alarm was deepened by the appearance of Olber's great comet, and in their superstition the ignorant ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce

... of it, for it is swampy and dangerous, and a part of it is a forest-covered and little explored tableland, terminating on the sea in a range of perpendicular precipices 2,000 feet in depth, so steep it is said, that a wild cat could not get round them. Owing to these, and the virtual inaccessibility of a large region behind them, no one can travel round the island by land, and small as it is, very little seems to be known of portions ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... assigned all deliberations upon peace and war, the voting of supplies, the confirmation of laws. Both the Quarantia and the Pregadi were elected by the Consiglio Grande, which by this time had become the virtual sovereign of the State of Venice. It is not necessary here to mention the further checks imposed upon the power of the Doges by the institution of officials named Correttori and Inquisitori, whose special business ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... By "capitalists" socialism means not only individuals with money to loan, but "employers" in general, whether middlemen, entrepreneurs, or true capitalists. ] Socialism declares that the capitalist holds the laborer in virtual slavery, the laborer receiving only enough of the wealth created by him to enable him to keep alive, while the surplus of this wealth goes to the capitalist. The capitalist is thus a parasite who performs no useful task, but robs the laborers ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... not been for his treachery, there would have been little difficulty in settling the terms of peace, so as to avoid all causes for future war; but, from the time he quarrelled with Congress, he has been the great stirrer-up of disaffection at the South, and the virtual leader of the Southern reactionary party. Every man at the South who was prominent in the Rebellion, every man at the North who was prominent in aiding the Rebellion, is now openly or covertly his partisan, and by fawning on him earns the right to defame the representatives ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... ready, a writer will sometimes start without formal preface, if there is no pressing occasion to clear away preliminaries by that means, though even then his explanation of what he is to say constitutes a virtual preface. ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... Eastern and Western churches are still wrestling as of old for the mastery.... Now as heretofore, disguise the object as they may, they are striving for a prize which has not been destined by divine Providence for either; and this prize is no less than a virtual dominion over the Christian world, from a throne of government within the sanctuaries of the Holy City; and the possession of that throne would involve possession of the key to universal dominion."—"Stirring Times: Records from Jerusalem Consulate Chronicles," by James ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... by a remarkable increase in the supply of money in our balance of trade and by the virtual settlement of the Venezuelan question. The business situation was steadily clearing. The ills from the panic of 1893-4 were well behind us. The Spanish-American war proved to be harmless to us financially, while it tended to show that National neighborliness could be exercised in ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... system. The stomach digests, the lungs inhale air, the heart beats, and the blood circulates; and as the joint effect, or as the common supporter,—it matters not which,—of these operations, life continues, and the animated being is a unit; it has not merely virtual, but essential unity. The reciprocal action of the respiratory, circulating, and nervous systems is absolutely necessary to life. The animal dies, and this unity, this subservience of the parts to the whole, ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... description. The King who had been his patron was the tool of Catherine II and through her of Russia. Russian soldiers and officials overran even that part of Poland which still remained nominally independent, but of which they were virtual masters. There was no employment open to Kosciuszko. A commission in the minute army that survived the partition was only to be had by purchase, and he had no money forthcoming. All that he could do was to retire ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner

... latter would be entitled, according to the decision of the Hague Tribunal in the Venezuela cases, to the preferential payment of their claims; and this would absorb all the Dominican revenues and would be a virtual sacrifice of American claims and interests in the island. If, moreover, any such action should be taken by them, the only method to enable the payment of their claims would be to take possession of the custom-houses, and, considering the state of the Dominican ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... repeatedly sent up a cheering voice in strong and earnest resolutions, approving heartily his course, and urging him to, perseverance therein. The Legislatures of Massachusetts and Vermont, rallied to his support. In solemn convocation, they protested against the virtual annihilation of the right of petition—against slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia—gave their entire sanction to the principles advocated by Mr. Adams, and pledged their countenance to all ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... agreement on implementing the decision. On 30 November 2007, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission remotely demarcated the border by coordinates and dissolved itself, leaving Ethiopia still occupying several tracts of disputed territory, including the town of Badme. Eritrea accepted the EEBC's "virtual demarcation" decision and called on Ethiopia to remove its troops from the TSZ which it states is Eritrean territory. Ethiopia has not accepted the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to the provision for nine States to ratify, as a virtual dissolution of the Union, 100; his use of the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... demanded. "Am I to understand that ye object to Lyga as unsuitable? And if so, upon what grounds? Is he not the 'Keeper of Statutes,' and as such, the most suitable man for the position of virtual ruler of Ulua? For who among ye knows a tithe so much as he of the laws by which we are governed; or who so likely to see that those laws are maintained in ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... unquestioned purity, the flour was pernicious to health because of deficient "elasticity" as indicated by antiquated and untrustworthy tests. Upon due protest by the American minister, and it appearing that the act was a virtual discrimination against our product, the shipments in question were admitted. In these, as in all instances, wherever occurring, when American products may be subjected in a foreign country, upon specious pretexts, to discrimination compared with the like products of another country, ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... most ruinous to the progress of manufacturing skill, [Footnote: Because the most effectual extinguishers of all ambition applied in that direction; since the very excellence of any particular fabric was the surest pledge of its virtual suppression by means of its legal restriction (which followed inevitably) to the use of the imperial house.] which has ever been devised—were silently suspended. One or two aspiring families might be offended by these innovations, which meantime gave the pleasures of enjoyment ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... the suspicion might have warned the Duke of his danger. But the secret was closely kept, and it was only in June that Edward's "plan" was laid in the same strict secrecy before Northumberland's colleagues. A project which raised the Duke into a virtual sovereignty over the realm could hardly fail to stir resistance in the Council. The king however was resolute, and his will was used to set aside all scruples. The judges who represented that letters patent could not override a positive statute were forced into signing their ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... and to assist in eliminating difficulties in the urging of his superior rights and the carrying out of his scheme. Mrs. Sudley's heart sank as she caught a significant gleam from the boy's eyes; he too appreciated this disastrous policy, this virtual surrender before a blow ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... of slaveholding politics. From the very nature of the case there could not be the same toleration of speech and press in a Slave State which the men from a Slave State enjoyed in a Free State. It was incendiary. So for half a century there has been this virtual nullification of one of the justest compromises of the Constitution; and citizens of the United States have, within the limits of the United States, been tarred and feathered, and burnt, and hung, and subjected to indignities without number and without name. Nobody will probably be willing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... all messages, but allowed telephones to be established by private companies. In the meantime the various companies were being bought up successively by the National Telephone Company which was thus securing a virtual monopoly. In 1892 Parliament authorized the Postmaster General to spend L1,000,000, subsequently raised to L1,300,000, in the purchase of telephone lines, and prohibited any private construction of new lines. ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... compromise may mean, not acquiescence in an instalment, on the ground that the time is not ripe to yield us more than an instalment, but either the acceptance of the instalment as final, followed by the virtual abandonment of hope and effort; or else it may mean a mistaken reversal of direction, which augments the distance that has ultimately to be traversed. In either of these senses, the small reform may become the enemy ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... County, now grown "tough as whitleather" with "something of the look of musty old Parchments which he handleth and studieth much". The Inquiry was widely read in Virginia and England and its statement on "direct representation" became the standard American defense against "virtual representation" and any half-way measure which would have given the colonies a few seats in parliament in the ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education

... object of the mission, it was said, was a reparation for wrongs, not a contaminating connexion with the most faithless and corrupt court in the world. The return of the envoy without that reparation, was a virtual surrender of the claim. The honour of the United States required a peremptory demand of the immediate surrender of the western posts, and of compensation for the piratical depredations committed on their ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... its non-finality. Yes, this majestic but sombre system pictured a state of jealous reserve between the worshippers and their God. Its propitiations were of a kind which, in the nature of things, could not properly and in the way of virtual force set the conscience free from the sense of guilt, "perfecting the worshipper conscience-wise." They could only "sanctify with a view to the purity of the flesh" (ver. 13), satisfying the conditions of a ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule

... to pay to an evicted tenant by raising the rent on his successor in the tenancy in the comparatively few cases in which the evicted tenant could afford the legal costs which the filing of a claim for compensation entailed, but this much at least had been secured, that the virtual confiscation of the tenants' improvements had been stopped. The Act of 1870 had been passed to prevent arbitrary evictions and to secure to the tenant compensation for improvements, and in certain cases for disturbance. It succeeded only in making arbitrary evictions more costly for ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... year's fighting, its outposts were still within a few miles of New York, how could it be expected or even hoped that it could ever subdue a country containing hundreds of thousands of square miles? The retreat from the Delaware and the virtual handing over of New Jersey again to Washington was the finishing stroke which decided the volunteers to demand their discharge, according to the terms of their engagement. Except during the Canadian campaign they had ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... them posthumous, are said to equal in number the sixty years of his life. But even the devout and sympathetic critic is compelled to acknowledge the justice of that verdict of time which has consigned most of them to a virtual oblivion. The controversial tracts possess no elements of enduring interest. The doctrinal and spiritual discourses are elaborations of a system of religious thought which long ago "had its day and ceased to be." Yet they contain pithy sentences, homely and pat illustrations, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... United Provinces of the Netherlands, after that terrific struggle of forty years (the commencement of which has just been embalmed in a record worthy of the great event by an American historian) wrested from Spain the virtual acknowledgment of their independence, in the Twelve Years' Truce; and James the First, in the same year, granted to the British East India Company their first permanent charter,—corner-stone of an empire destined in two centuries to ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett

... almost as good a papal story as that of the Pope whom the great Napoleon brought a virtual captive from the Vatican to grace his coronation as Emperor. The Pope, while moving about Paris, was accustomed to give his blessing freely, for he soon became a very popular character. It happened, however, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... clergy went steadily forward, emerging from Nonconformity into practical Separatism, as resistant to Parliamentary as to royal control, as cool toward Cromwell as toward Charles. During the quarter-century of their domination, Massachusetts maintained a virtual independence of the mother country and the effective leadership of Now England. Towards the middle of the century the theocratic principle might have seemed more firmly established than ever before. The relative tranquillity which followed the ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... sultan's favorite concubine, and fled with her to the Pirates' Isle, but finding Medo'ra dead, he left the island with Gulnare, returned to his native land, headed a rebellion, and was shot.—Lord Byron, The Corsair, continued in Lara (1814). CONRAD DRYFOOS, the son of a rich man, the backer and virtual proprietor of Every Other Week, in W. D. Howells's novel, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... had now grown so extensively that the office force was increased. First came Julius Cahn, who assisted Randall with the booking. Al Hayman took a desk in Frohman's office, which, because of Hayman's extensive California enterprises, had a virtual monopoly on ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... in a state of unity either when it is in a state of virtual congealment or emptiness, as in a trance or ecstasy; or when it is in a state of repose, without tendency to change. Secondly, the organism is self-complete when it is at the highest possible point of tone, of functional efficiency, of enhanced life. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... Mr. Fyshe, "do you think that quite fair to the bondholders? After all, as the virtual holders of the property, they are the persons most interested. I should like to amend your clause and make it read—I am not phrasing it exactly but merely giving the sense of it—that eternal punishment should be reserved for the mortgagees ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... who cannot fly Be good and dull, and please everybody Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered Compromise is virtual death Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur Do you judge of heroes ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... mean nothing to you? Man made some of his outstanding progress under slavery. And do you contend that man's lot is necessarily miserable given slavery? As far back as Aesop we know of slaves who have reached the heights in their society. Slaves sometimes could and did become the virtual rulers in ancient countries." She shrugged prettily. "The prejudices which you hold today, on Earth, do not necessarily apply to all time, nor ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... setting in motion an endless series of physical causes and effects, much more is the Creator; and as our excluding volition from our range of ideas is a denial of the soul, so our ignoring Divine Agency is a virtual denial of God. Moreover, supposing man can will and act of himself in spite of physics, to shut up this great truth, though one, is to put our whole encyclopaedia of knowledge out of joint; and supposing God can will and act of Himself in this world ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... sudden rush of Mr. Hammond and his men those in charge of the Everglade camp, and the miserable creatures they held in virtual bondage, offered little resistance. There was neither time nor ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... the reader will see at once the prodigious significance of those materials in the economy of trade, and the prime necessity that they should be not only uniform in value, but so equally distributed that they may be easily attainable when needed. Every change in their value is a virtual change in the value of the vast variety of obligations which are measured and liquidated by them; and every apprehension of their scarcity or disappearance, by whatever cause excited, is an apprehension ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... ousted for contumacy or rebellion, I believe. He was plundered of all he had, to the amount of some twenty thousand rupees, in 1834, during the reign of Nuseer-on Deen Hyder, by Ehsan Hoseyn, the Nazim of Byswara and Salone, one of the sons of Sobhan Allee Khan, the then virtual minister; but some fifteen days after, he attacked the tallookdar of Bhuderee, and lost his place in consequence. The popular belief is, that he became insane in consequence of the holy man's curses, and that his whole family became ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... good, had it not been leavened with the elements of discord, which had brought contempt and ridicule on that of the 'Whole World.' The Rev. Miss Antoinette Brown cast the brand of disorder into it, by presenting herself as a delegate from the other association. This was a virtual declaration of Woman's Rights, and a resolute effort to have them recognized by the Convention. Neal Dow, as President and as a man of gallantry, decided on receiving Miss Antoinette's credentials, and for a time victory appeared to smile on the Amazons. The triumph, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the boy was sent to be educated at the court of Sten Sture, then the administrator and virtual king of Sweden. Here he was not spoiled by indulgence, his mode of life and his food were alike simple and homely, and he grew up with a cheerful spirit and a strong body, his chief pleasure being that of hunting ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris

... penal statutes? You made fifteen for Wales. But your legislative authority is perfect with regard to America. Was it less perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham? But America is virtually represented. What! does the electric force of virtual representation more easily pass over the Atlantic than pervade Wales,—which lies in your neighborhood—or than Chester and Durham, surrounded by abundance of representation that is actual and palpable? But, ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... something terrible to the young girl in the original turn of thought of this fascinating man. Say what she may, he at once turns it into virtual devotion to himself. He appears to have a perfectly dreadful power to hang everybody; he considers her strongest avowal of present personal dislike the most promising indication she can give of eternal future infatuation with him, and his powerful ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... in its special correspondence has much to say about the inhabitants that is of undoubted interest, and from this article we have culled considerable that follows. The article in question was written after the virtual surrender ...
— Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall

... obtain from the Pope the dissolution of her marriage with the worthless, stupid, profligate Duke of Orleans, on whom her wit and charms were equally thrown away. She might then remain at his court and be the virtual Queen of England, by governing him through female influence. Her brilliant hopes, however, were destined to be speedily dissipated, and her career cut short by a painful and ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... that time of virtual expatriation, his dearest hope had been that England would, as far as possible, retrieve the cruel wrong that had been done to him. Full redress was impossible. The heavy cloud that had been cast over so many years of his most energetic manhood could not be removed by any tardy act of justice; but ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... eight, would in course of time have succeeded to the duchy, had it not been for the ambition of his uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name himself as regent for his nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come of age, in a kind of honorable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but without a legal title to the throne, unrecognized in his authority by the Italian powers, and holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, Lodovico at last found his situation untenable; and it was this difficulty of a usurper to ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... peace and harmony have not been restored. Virginia, and all the slaveholding states, he thinks, "can and ought, calmly and explicitly to declare that the repeal of the fugitive slave law, or any essential modification of it, is a virtual repeal of the Union. The faithful execution of the law is the only means now left by which the Union can be preserved with honor to ourselves and peace to the country. Such a declaration on the part of the South will ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... mystery at Diamond X, Bud and his cousins were given virtual charge of another ranch in Happy Valley, not far from the main one managed by Mr. Merkel and his foreman Slim Degnan. But even on what was, practically, their own ranch, the troubles and adventures of the ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker

... coast, he embarked the men on a little Dutch ship. They were bombed, they were machine-gunned by waves of Japanese planes. Dr. Wassell took virtual command of the ship, and by great skill avoided destruction, hiding in little bays and ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

... the rest. It required, under a penalty of L40, that all negroes be freed after having rendered ten years of service.[28] This act may be attributed partly perhaps to the liberal influence of Roger Williams, and partly to the virtual absence of negroes in the towns near the head of the bay. It long stood unrepealed, but it was probably never enforced, for no sooner did negroes become numerous than a conservative reaction set in which deprived this peculiar law of any public ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... more; die &c 360. annihilate, render null, nullify; abrogate &c 756; destroy &c 162; take away; remove &c (displace) 185; obliterate, extirpate. Adj. inexistent^, nonexistent &c 1; negative, blank; missing, omitted; absent &c 187; insubstantial, shadowy, spectral, visionary. unreal, potential, virtual; baseless, in nubibus [Lat.]; unsubstantial &c 4; vain. unborn, uncreated^, unbegotten, unconceived, unproduced, unmade. perished, annihilated, &c v.; extinct, exhausted, gone, lost, vanished, departed, gone with the wind; defunct &c (dead) 360. fabulous, ideal &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... to add. With the death of Tao and the changing of the law concerning the virgins' wings, my mission on Mercury was over. But I did not think of that then, for with the war ended, my position as virtual ruler of the Light Country still held Mercer and me occupied with a multiplicity of details. It was a month or more after our return from the Twilight Country that Miela reminded me of father and my duty to him. "You have forgotten, my husband. But I have not. Your world—it calls you now. You ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... peace. The President nowhere says that he seeks the abolition of slavery. The blow he has dealt is directed against slavery in the dominions of the Confederacy. That Confederacy claims to be a nation, and some of our acts amount to a virtual recognition of the claim which it makes. Now, if we were at war with an old nation of which slavery was one of the institutions, it could not be said that we had not the right to offer freedom to its slaves. Objection might be made to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various

... within, as exemplified in the Dominican and Franciscan movements. The second great blow was aimed by Philip IV. of France, and this time it struck with terrible force. The removal of the Papacy to Avignon, in 1305, was the virtual though unrecognized abdication of its beneficent supremacy. Bereft of its dignity and independence, from that time forth it ceased to be the defender of national unity against baronial anarchy, of popular rights against monarchical usurpation, and became a formidable ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... can't earn a living, decayed chimney-sweeps and so forth. 'Disillusioned (or still illusioned) geniuses, would-bes, theorists, artistic natures, failed reformers, knaves and fools incompetent or over-old, broken evangelists and debauchees, inebriates, criminals, cowards, virtual slaves' ... Anyhow it's a home for Lost Hopes. (Do you see that?) My uncle is keen on anyone who tries to revolt against anything—governments, Russians, proprieties, or anything else—and Felicity is keen on anyone ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... centralization of control. In the process, while the cost of certain products has been reduced by economy in operating expenses, the enormous dividend requirements of heavily capitalized corporations has necessitated high prices, a large business, and the danger of overproduction, and a virtual monopoly has made it possible to lift prices to a level that pinches the consumer. By a grim irony of circumstance, these giant and often ruthless corporations have taken the name of trusts, but they do not incline to recognize that the people's rights are ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... rifle and bandoliers—the most dangerous of our foes. To-day he is the chief servant of the King in the Federation, the loyal head of the Administration under the Crown, one of the half-dozen Prime Ministers of the Empire, the responsible representative and virtual ruler of all races, classes, and sects in South Africa, acclaimed by the men he led in the battle and the rout no less than by the men who faced him across the muzzles of the Mausers ten years ago. Was ever so strange a transformation, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... out how impossible it would be for one brought up as she had been to associate with the women in the barracks, and that she considered it advisable that she should set up some business by which she might gain a respectable livelihood, Ben, although he felt that this would be a virtual separation a mensa et thoro, named no objections. Having thus obtained the consent of her husband, who considered her so much his superior as to be infallible, my mother, after much cogitation, resolved that she would embark her capital in a circulating library and stationer's shop; ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... would not peril his chances by a second flight. Starke did not know that Nevins was honest at least in one statement, that he expected dismissal. His fate was sealed, his pay was confiscated to square shortages. There was actually nothing to be gained by staying at Cooke in virtual confinement, perhaps eight or ten weeks, until his case could be decided in Washington and the orders received back in Arizona. It actually simplified matters in many ways for Nevins to go. Somebody, for instance, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... cases where the guilt seems beyond all doubt, has been discussed as a matter of serious concern, and the Committee can only bring before the public its responsibility, as represented by members of juries, for the virtual encouragement of this ...
— Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Various Aspects of the Problem of Abortion in New Zealand • David G. McMillan

... If Louis of his own initiative had summoned that body to confer over the situation, it would have been a very different thing; but a call of the States-General at the demand of the people was a virtual surrender of the very principle of absolutism. The work of Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV. would be undone; for it would involve an acknowledgment of the right of the people to dictate to the king, and to participate ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... life abroad, and could have no sympathy with Englishmen. There being, then, no one of the royal house available, who but Harold, the head of the great house of Godwin, the earl of the West Saxons, the virtual ruler of England, could be chosen? The English kings, although generally selected from the royal house, ruled rather by the election of the people as declared by their representatives in the Witan than by their hereditary right. The prince next ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... Prussia also refuses to accede to an agreement which his delegates had made, allowing Austria to bring her non-German provinces to the confederacy. In this he is sustained by Russia, who would not willingly see the former country restored to virtual independence by the supremacy which this plan would give her. A return to the old Diet is spoken of in some quarters, but perhaps the most likely result will be the concession of the presidency to Austria, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... natives, engrossed much of the land in the form of mainmort, and filled the new world with thousands of idle, unproductive, and often licentious friars. With an innate distrust and fear of individual initiative, it gave virtual omnipotence to royal officials and excluded all creoles from public employment. In this fashion was transferred to America the crushing political and ecclesiastical absolutism of the mother country. Self-reliance ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... the superearthly is an acknowledged element in the epopee. The term "machinery" implies ignorance of the import of the super-earthly in epic poetry, an ignorance attendant on materialism and a virtual unbelief. No poet who should accept the term could write an epic, with or without the "machinery." Such acceptance would betoken that weakness of the poetic pinion which surely follows a want of faith ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... with the main facts of the Sedan disaster and such subsequent outstanding events as the siege of Paris and the capitulation of Metz, they usually know very little about the manner in which the war generally was carried on by the French under the virtual dictatorship of Gambetta. Should England ever be invaded by a large hostile force, we, with our very limited regular army, should probably be obliged to rely largely on elements similar to those which were called to the field by the ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... The dear man in the Paris garden was then admirably and unmistakeably IN one—which was no small point gained; what next accordingly concerned us was the determination of THIS identity. One could only go by probabilities, but there was the advantage that the most general of the probabilities were virtual certainties. Possessed of our friend's nationality, to start with, there was a general probability in his narrower localism; which, for that matter, one had really but to keep under the lens for an hour to see it ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... and Arabic; they are read in every coffee house and barber shop, the common lounging places of the Ottoman, where he smokes his pipe and discusses politics. Their columns are chiefly devoted to the discussion of state affairs, and notices of public functionaries. The sultan is the virtual editor, and consequently the papers are popular, as containing opinions on state policy ex cathedra. These presses were established with the reluctant sanction of the ulemas, and the vigorous opposition ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... more free to volunteer the atonement which might permit her to dedicate herself to his remaining years. Thus, one day, after a conversation with Alban Morley, in which Alban had spoken of Darrell as the friend, almost the virtual guardian, of her infancy; and, alluding to a few lines just received from him, brought vividly before Caroline the picture of Darrell's melancholy wanderings and blighted life,—thus had she, on the impulse of the moment, written the letter which had reached Darrell at Malta. In it she referred but ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... were men not to be lightly spoken of, as they often are by those who never read a line of their works, and have not a thousandth part of their wit; who moreover little guess how many of the most familiar words which they employ, or misemploy, have descended to them from these. 'Real,' 'virtual,' 'entity,' 'nonentity,' 'equivocation,' 'objective,' 'subjective,' with many more unknown to classical Latin, but now almost necessities to us, were first coined by the Schoolmen; and, passing over from them into the speech of others more or less interested in their speculations, have gradually ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... satire as a man whom the intellect had liberated from dogma-worship. Nor did he ever lose this rationalist tolerance. "You know," he once wrote to a friend, "I have never imprisoned the word religion.... They" (the churches) "are all virtual beams of one sun." Few converts in those days of the wars of religion wrote with such wise reason of the creeds as did Donne in ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... of this non-restriction, and from causes notoriously historical, numbers of blacks, half-breeds, and other non-Europeans, besides such of them as had become possessed of their "property" by inheritance, availed themselves of this virtual license, and in course of time constituted a very considerable proportion of the slave-holding section of those communities; (c) that these [14] dusky plantation-owners enjoyed and used in every possible sense the identical rights and privileges which were enjoyed ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... air fleet ploughed deep into our lines in their famous "cloud-bank" formation, with down-playing disintegrator rays so concentrated as to form a virtual curtain of destruction. It seared a scar path a mile and a half wide fifteen ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan

... on trial, and not the genuine principle of democracy. It is not the genuine, virtual democracy which conspired against the republic, and which rebels, but an unprincipled, infamous oligarchy, risen in arms to destroy democracy. From Athens down to to-day, true democracies never betrayed any country, never leagued themselves with enemies. From the time ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... of this virtual dissolution of family-life which has great interest as connected with German erudition. The English or American scholar, whose social hours are mainly spent with his family, or in the mixed society of the sexes, would never think of introducing the subjects of his study into such ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... and ecclesiastical tithes, and promulgated a flatulent declaration of the rights of man. Bread-riots broke out in Paris on October 5; a mob marched on Versailles and invaded the palace, and on the 6th the national guard brought the king and queen to Paris, where they remained in virtual captivity. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... contagion was spreading even among the troops themselves; in fact, that there was no security for the throne, or for the cause of religion and of public order, unless the armies of France should restore Ferdinand, then a virtual prisoner in his own palace, to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... tangible fact—the clearly expressed desire to live a common life." In sum, the Jews throughout the Middle Ages, which was prolonged for them until a little less than two hundred years ago, comprised a nation as virtual in point of their own claim and its recognition by other nations as in the days when they were established in Palestine. Renaissance, Reformation, and the rediscovery of the world by science failed to make an impression on the thick ghetto walls; and Jewish isolation, even as late as the ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... while English law, after the actions which it appropriated to the recovery of real property had fallen into the most hopeless confusion, got rid at last of the whole tangled mass by a heroic remedy. No one can doubt that the virtual abolition of the English real actions which took place nearly thirty years since was a public benefit, but still persons sensitive to the harmonies of jurisprudence will lament that, instead of cleansing, improving, and simplifying the true proprietary actions, we sacrificed ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... Hartington whether communications had taken place with the Papal See as to prelates in India, and Lord Granville directed me to answer that no such communications had been made by Her Majesty's Government. As, however, I thought that communications had been made by Errington, I felt that this would be a virtual lie, and wrote to Hartington to ask him. Hartington then took the answer upon himself, and in his reply to me he said that there had been some discussions on a closely connected matter, but not exactly on that mentioned in the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... action being, in full flight, that of a screw propeller whose axis of rotation forms a slight angle with the vertical, the distance of flight per virtual "revolution" of "screw" wing far exceeds the pitch distance ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various

... half disposed to raise my price on account of the pitiful manoeuvre it contained. We had already come to terms, the publishers finding that the price was little more than nominal, and the answer was a virtual conclusion that the article was intended to affect my estimate of the value of the intended work in France, and to bring me under subjection to ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... growing scarcity of the whales and the blow to the demand for oil dealt by the discovery of petroleum, checked the development of the industry. Now the rows of whalers rotting at New Bedford's wharves, and the somnolence of Nantucket, tell of its virtual demise. ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... Adams of course acceded. But out of the apparently simple condition relating to the appointment of officers there grew a very serious trouble. There were to be three major-generals, the first of them to have also the rank of inspector-general, and to be the virtual commander-in-chief until the army was actually called into the field. For these places, Washington after much reflection selected Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox, in the order named, and in doing so he very wisely went on the general principle that the army was to be organized de novo, without reference ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... of our war with Tripoli it has been shown that the young American navy performed brilliant service. The Barbary States took naturally to piracy, and Great Britain, by securing immunity for her vessels through the payment of tribute, also secured a virtual monopoly of the commerce of the Mediterranean. Her policy was a selfish one, for she believed the United States was too weak to send any effective warships into that part of the world. The story of Tripoli convinced her of ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... cast them aside as sheer impostures, were not the main facts vouched for by evidence, not from the Jansenists alone, but from their bitterest opponents, so direct, so overwhelmingly multiplied, so minutely circumstantial, that to reject it would amount to a virtual declaration, that, in proof of the extraordinary and the improbable, we will accept no testimony whatever, let its weight or character be what it may. Accordingly, we find dispassionate modern writers, medical and others, while reminding us, as well they may, that enlightened ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... Under this pressure he yielded. Mr. Black drafted a new reply to the commissioners, Mr. Stanton copied it, Holt concurred in it, and, in substance, Mr. Buchanan accepted it. This affair constituted, as Messrs. Nicolay and Hay well say, "the President's virtual abdication," and thereafterward began the "cabinet regime." Upon the commissioners this chill gust from the North struck so disagreeably that, on January 2, they hastened home to their "independent nation." From this time forth the South covered ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... made evident that the mercenary greed of the parties who were trading in the labor of this class of the Chinese population was proving too strong for the just execution of the law, and that the virtual defeat of the object and intent of both law and treaty was being fraudulently accomplished by false pretense and perjury, contrary to the expressed will ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... Caliph was the acknowledged ruler. The Caliph here referred to must have been El-'Adid, who died on Monday, September 13, 1171—being the last of the Fatimite line. A short time before his death, Saladin had become the virtual ruler of Egypt, and had ordered the Khotba to be read in the name of the Abbaside Caliph el-Mostadi of Bagdad. (See the Life of Saladin, by Bohadin: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, p. 61.) It is clear, therefore, that Benjamin's absence from Europe must be placed between ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela

... of greedy and unprincipled adventurers" in England succeeded in having an agent of their own appointed deputy governor. This was Samuel Argall. Lord Delaware, the Governor, dying in 1618, Argall became virtual dictator, and under his arbitrary and self-seeking rule the people suffered. Meanwhile others, in England, were at work in the interest of the Virginia Company, under whose auspices, from the granting of the new charter, the colony had existed. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... city. Natives of the place, returning from Rome, or from provincial service elsewhere, had invested their gains in long leases of state lands, or of the farms belonging to the imperial res privata or privy purse, and had become virtual proprietors of the rich fields or beautiful gardens in which they had played as children. One of such persons, who had had a place in the officium of the quaestor, or rather procurator, as he began to be called, was the employer of Agellius. ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... a plot was brewing against his life, a pair of strong arms were needed to hold him down. Over and above this, letters of sympathy flowed in; grateful patients called to ask with tears in their eyes how the doctor did; virtual strangers stopped the servant in the street with the same query. Mary was sometimes quite overwhelmed by ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... Tribes. The Kingdom of Judah was recognized as a nation for about one hundred and thirty years longer; then, about 588 B.C., it was brought into subjection by Nebuchadnezzar, through whom the Babylonian captivity was inaugurated. For three score years and ten Judah was kept in exile and virtual bondage, in consequence of their transgression as had been predicted through Jeremiah.[153] Then the Lord softened the hearts of their captors, and their restoration was begun under the decree of Cyrus the Persian, who had subdued ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... confederation of the other North American Colonies.[57] The analogy is only partial, for this reason, that whereas Ireland is almost wholly dependent economically on Great Britain, Newfoundland has little direct trade with Canada, and moreover enjoys a virtual monopoly of one particular commodity, namely codfish, by which it manages to support its small population. Nevertheless, no one can doubt that with its favoured geographical position, and with its great natural ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... possessed the happy magic that secures many such) who knew him best during this latter part of his career, would naturally be pained to have it represented, though only by implication, as a sort of deepening declension ending in a virtual retraction. Of such friends Carlyle was the most eminent, and perhaps the most highly valued, and, as co-trustee with Archdeacon Hare of Sterling's literary character and writings, he felt a kind of responsibility that no mistaken idea ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... secret to grant him his daughter's hand. The daughter had no objections to marry a man possessed of such wealth, and the marriage was duly celebrated. Shortly after this the father died—without discovering, it is to be hoped, the hoax that had been perpetrated—and Alexei Petrovitch became virtual possessor of a very comfortable little estate. With the change in his fortunes he completely changed his principles, or at least his practice. In all his dealings he was strictly honest. He lent money, it is true, at from ten to fifteen per cent., but ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace



Words linked to "Virtual" :   virtual reality, realistic, virtual image, practical, essential



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