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Wont to   /woʊnt tu/   Listen
Wont to

adjective
1.
In the habit.  Synonym: used to.  "You'll get used to the idea" , "...was wont to complain that this is a cold world"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wont to" Quotes from Famous Books



... I go,"—"No," said he "always with vivacity," at this passage; "not quite nakid, I shall have my uniform on:" Let us be exact, since we are at it! After which the singing proceeded again. "The late Graf Alexander von Wartenberg"—Captain Wartenberg, whom we know, and whose opportunities—"was wont to relate this." [Busching (in 1786), ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... Minister at Hull, where for his lifetime he was well beloved. Most facetious in discourse, yet grave in his carriage, a most excellent preacher who, like a good husband, never broached what he had new brewed, but preached what he had pre-studied some competent time before. Insomuch that he was wont to say that he would cross the common proverb which called Saturday the working-day and Monday the holyday of preachers. It happened that Anno Dom. 1640, Jan. 23, crossing Humber in a Barrow boat, the same was sandwarpt, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... that girdled Macon with greenery, where Sidney Lanier and his brother Clifford used to spend their schoolboy Saturdays among the birds and rabbits. Near by flows the Ocmulgee, where the boys, inseparable in sport as well as in the more serious aspects of life, were wont to fish. Here Sidney cut the reed with which he took his first flute lesson from the birds in the woods. Above the town were the hills for which the soul of the poet longed ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... sunflower, campanula, and convolvulus, and the scarlet ranks of the geraniums, are standing at "attention" to welcome this morning inspection by the ruler and commander-in-chief of all the world of flowers. The inspecting officers, rather late as inspecting officers are wont to be, are overhauling and examining the flowers. These inspectors, also roused by the sun, are the butterflies and bees. Splendid red admirals are flying up, and alighting on the sunflowers, or hovering over the pink masses of valerian. ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... heat. The sea was a good friend, bringing tempering breezes. In the short winter there might be a little frost, a little snow, and a fair supply of rain. For the rest of the year, one golden day was wont to succeed another, with the sun and the sea breeze ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... Rtiyah: the Bedawin call one of them the Goz et-Hannn ("Moaning Sand-heap"). They declare that when the Hajj-caravan passes, or rather used to pass, by that way, before the early sixteenth century, when Sultn Selim laid out his maritime high-road, a Naubah ("orchestra") was wont to sound within its bowels. This tale, which, by-the-by, is told of two other places in Midian, may have been suggested by the Jebel el-Nks ("Bell Mountain") in Sinai-land; but as the Arabs perform visitation and sacrifice to the "Moaning-heap," the superstition ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... crying tentatively one to the other. Louis would gladly have talked, but Stair sat grave and silent. At last, visibly unquiet, he betook himself up through the wood to the edge of an old turf-built fold where in summer the cows were wont to be milked. Here he occupied himself with the priming of his gun and looked to his pistols. An undefined glimmer from the sky and the absence of trees on the heathery slopes enabled him to dispense ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... as loudly as his father was wont to do," muttered the miller, casting an angry glance at the young gentlemen; "I shall have ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... long column. Above his gray steel armor, a falcon's wing rose from his crest. It was the insignia which always marked him to his men in the midst of battle. Where it waved might always be found the fighting and the honors, and about it they were wont to rally. ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... for a moment. Apparently he was amazed at the daring of the boy who had rushed into his presence. His fierce eyes began to roll wickedly and he uttered one of those deep, hoarse growls, such as are wont to strike fear alike into animals and men. He glared at Kit very much as a cat surveys a puny mouse whom she purposes ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.

... came to Brittany in Caesar's time were men. Those who remained "took to themselves wives among the daughters of Philistia," as strong men ever are wont to do when they seek to govern savage tribes. And note this—instead of raising the savages or barbarians to their level, they sink to theirs. The child takes the status of the mother. The white man who marries an Indian woman becomes an Indian and their children ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... his master's gratitude, so tells Straparola,' said the Duke of Orleans, in his dry satirical tone; 'and whereas he had been wont to promise his benefactor a golden coffin and state funeral, Puss feigned death, and thereby heard the lady inform her husband that the old cat was dead. "A la bonne heure!" said the Marquis. "Take him by the tail, and fling him on the muck-heap ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... adversaries of improvement are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is termed the "march of intellect;" and here I will confess, that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they are in the right. It is a very absurd, because a very ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... which the ill-bred and censorious deny to any of our sex) when we are absolutely convinced of being in the right [otherwise it is not steadiness, but obstinacy] and when it is exerted in material cases, is a quality, which, as my good Dr. Lewen was wont to say, brings great credit to the possessor of it; at the same time that it usually, when tried and known, raises such above the attempts of the meanly machinating. He used therefore to inculcate upon me this ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... tough as hickory and wont to drive headlong to his destination, Casey did not remain in town to loiter a half a day and sleep a night and drive back the next day, as most desert dwellers did. He hurried through with his business, filled up with gas and oil, loaded on an extra can of each, strapped his ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... them it was not possible to offer their sacrifices; and to think of leaving on those sacrifices is to every Jew plainly impossible, who are still more ready to lose their lives than to leave off that Divine worship which they have been wont to pay unto God. Alexandra, therefore, discoursed with those that had the keeping of these strong holds, that it was proper for them to deliver the same to her, and to Herod's sons, lest, upon his death, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... often you and I Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... What more likely than that, 'in the second year of his reign' (v. 1), waking thoughts of the future of his monarchy should trouble the warrior-king, scarcely yet firm on his throne, and should repeat themselves in nightly visions? God spoke through the dream, and He is not wont to answer questions before they are asked, nor to give revelations to men on points which they have not sought to solve. We may be sure that Nebuchadnezzar's dream met ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... time heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along—dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off—or to pause like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers. He showed her too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armour up above—how this had ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... the way, Alick and Paddy following close after him. Little would any of their friends have recognised in the two half-naked blackamoor lads the neat midshipmen who were wont to walk the deck of Her Majesty's ship Ranger, in all the pride of blue cloth, gold-laced caps, and gilt buttons. Now, except a pair of scanty drawers, a shirt fastened round the waist with a piece of rope-yarn, and a ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... dead silence and carelessness—according to its demerits? Is He a just God? Or has He likes and dislikes, favourites and victims; as human rulers and statesmen, and human parties too, and mobs, are wont to have? May He not, even, like those Epicurean gods, despise men? find a proud satisfaction in deceiving them; or at least letting them deceive themselves?—in playing with their ignorance, and leaving them to reap the fruits of ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... she sent no message to any one. Weeks elapsed, and the idlers who waited about the woodland paths where they knew that she was once wont to walk with her companion, never saw her, watch for her as patiently as they might. From haunting the wood, they soon got on to hovering round the cottage, and to looking in stealthily at the window. They saw her sitting on the same seat that she ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... up the bank, And waly, waly down the brae, And waly, waly yon burn-side, Where I and my love wont to gae. I lean'd my back unto an aik, And thought it was a trusty tree, But first it bow'd, and syne it brak, Sae my true love did ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... her face with its tender and beautiful eyes. Sometimes in the warm summer days they went off together to the woods and lanes; sometimes, to the meadows where the daises grew in tufted grass; and little Agnes was wont to braid them in a wreath around her brow. She said one day on returning that she would soon wear a wreath of stars. As regularly as the Sabbath came, they went to the chapel together, side by side. The sexton made a path for them, as they walked up the broad aisle which was now crowded with earnest ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... other parts of the Nilghiris, where the bird is excessively common, very much resemble those of O. emeria, but they are somewhat neater and more substantial in structure. They differ a good deal in size and shape, as the nests of Bulbuls are wont to do. Some are rather broad and shallow, with egg-cavities measuring 31/4 inches across, and perhaps 1 inch in depth; while others are deeper and more cup-shaped, the cavity measuring only 21/2 inches across and fully 11/2 inch in depth. They are composed in some cases almost ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... famous, but the World War has dimmed their glory. It used to be said that their equal could not be found for general excellence and moderate prices. From half-past eight to ten in the morning, large numbers of people were wont to breakfast in them on a cup of coffee or tea, with a roll and butter. Melange is with milk; "brown" coffee is darker, and a schwarzer is without milk. In all the cafes the visitor may obtain coffee, tea, liqueurs, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... stared across, the next morning, in bewildered astonishment, at the place where the shop of Robert Bruce had been wont to invite the public to enter and buy. Had it been possible for an avalanche to fall like a thunderbolt from the heavens, they would have supposed that one had fallen in the night, and overwhelmed the house. Door and windows were invisible, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? not one now to mock your own grinning? ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr

... left him quite composed and fully conscious, but oppressed with continual drowsiness. In order to shake it off, between twenty-two and twenty-three,(185) this very day he tried to mount his horse and go for a ride, as he was wont to do every evening in good weather, but the coolness of the season and the weakness of his head and legs prevented him, so he went back to his seat a little way from the fire. He greatly prefers this chair to his bed. We all pray God to preserve ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... inch broad, black as Erebus, the letters shouted at him against an orange background. Every window of the second story contained a placard. On the first story, in the show window where Petrosini had been wont to ravish epicurean eyes by shad and red snapper, perch and trout, cunningly imbedded in ice blocks upon a marble slab—in that window, framed now in the hated orange ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... of Charles II. were wont to give their patients "mummy powder," that is, pulverised mummy. They argued that the mummy had lasted for a very long time, and that the patients ought to do so likewise. Pliny imagined that diamonds must be found in company with gold, because ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... was wont to court Ruth's counsel concerning her wifely part in Arthur's work, thus often getting Leonard's as well. Sometimes she impeached his masculine view of things, in her old skirmishing way. Then she would turn rose-color once more and ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable

... To know the limits of human philosophy is the 'better part' of all philosophy; and though the conviction of our ignorance is humiliating, it is, like every true conviction, salutary. Amidst this night of the soul, bright stars—far distant fountains of illumination—are wont to steal out, which shine not while the imagined Sun of reason is above the horizon! and it is in that night, as in the darkness of outward nature, that we gain our only true ideas of the illimitable dimensions of the universe, and of our true ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... lost the favour of thy countenance." "Your crime!" answered the sultan, "wretched man! do you not know it? Follow me, and I will show you." The sultan then took Aladdin into the apartment from whence he was wont to look at and admire his palace, and said, "You ought to know where your palace stood; look, mind, and tell me what has become of it." Aladdin did so, and being utterly amazed at the loss of his palace, was speechless. At last recovering himself, he said, "It is true, I do ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... went over Ponte S. Angelo I was wont to look over the parapet at the opening of the sewer that carried off the dregs of that portion of the city where I was residing. One day I looked for it, and looked in vain. The Tiber had swelled and was overflowing its banks, and for a week or fortnight there could be no question, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... dawn, when the Boy was wont to leave him, that, according to his ancient faith, the dear-earned wings were given him, the angel guardian led him, and the true and beautiful pure spirit was welcomed by its kindred into ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... and went out of the front door. Usually he was wont to whistle as he crossed the lots that would serve as a short cut to his own house; but somehow tonight he was busily engaged with his thoughts, and forgot to indulge in this ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... books and slates and wall-maps and I know not what. It was a mental peculiarity of mine that at five o'clock in the morning I could apply myself with gusto to mathematics, a subject loathsome to me at any other time of the day. Opening the book at some section which was wont to scare me, I used to say to myself: "Come now, I'm going to tackle this this morning! If other boys can understand it, why shouldn't I?" And in a measure I succeeded. In a measure only; there was always a limit at which my powers failed me, strive ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... may gnaw his gums," M. Radisson was wont to say; and I assure you there was no twiddling of thumbs that morning. Bare had M. Radisson finished prayers, when he gave sharp command for Groseillers, his brother-in-law, to look to the building of the Habitation—as the French ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... for Hessen and Saxon are horsemen; when they are set in the saddle, they are then not so easily hoisted out again. As for the high-country horsemen, they, said Luther, are dancing gentlemen. God preserve the Landgrave; for a valiant man and Prince is of great importance. Augustus Caesar was wont to say, "I would rather be in an army of stags, where a lion is general, than to be in an army of lions where a stag ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... you! Let me know, in return, whether you have fought a duel yet with your milingtary landlord, and whether Lausanne is still that giddy whirl of dissipation it was wont to be, also full particulars of your fairer and better half, and of the baby. I will send a Christmas book to Clermont as soon as I get any copies. And so no more at present ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... before rightly," quoth she, "and it is (as physicians are wont to hope) a token of an erected and resisting nature. Wherefore, since I see thee most apt and willing to comprehend, I will therefore heap up many reasons together. For consider the great weakness of ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... by washing! Such women ain't common, I tell you. If they were, a man might marry, and make money by the operation." I looked at this person with somewhat the same kind of inverted admiration wherewith Leigh Hunt was wont to gaze upon that friend of his "who used to elevate the commonplace to a pitch of the sublime," and he looked at me as if to say, that, though by no means gloriously arrayed, I was a mere cumberer of the ground, inasmuch as I toiled not, neither did I wash. Alas! I hung my diminished ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... the ship moved on; 335 Yet never a breeze up blew; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools— We were a ghastly ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Back a thousand times: And how abhorred my Imagination is now, my Gorge rises at it. Here hung those Lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your Gibes now, your Gambols, your Songs, your Flashes of Merriment, that were wont to set the Table on a Roar: No one now to mock your own Jeerings: quite Chop-fallen. Now get you to my Lady's Chamber, and tell her, Let her paint an Inch thick, to this Favour she must come. Make her laugh ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Bill looked again at the shifting crowd upon which his eyes were wont to rest with the speculative gaze of a farmer who leans upon the fence that bounds his land, and regards his wheat-fields ripening for the sickle. He liked Jack, and the soul of him was bitter with ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... had some tea; and then Florence entreated him to take her to some neighbouring shop, where she could buy the few necessaries she immediately wanted. It being quite dark, the Captain consented: peeping carefully out first, as he had been wont to do in his time of hiding from Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself with his large stick, in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary by any ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... and across the running brook, whose waters this day murmured more sadly than 'twas their wont to do, the funeral train had passed; and in the dark, moist earth, by the side of many other still, pale sleepers, who offered no remonstrance when among them another came, they had buried the departed. From the windows of the homestead lights were gleaming, and in the common ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... winced as she made this acknowledgment to herself about her daughter, it only gave her a kind of pitying tenderness of manner towards her; much of the same description of demeanour with which mothers are wont to treat their weak and sickly children. A stranger, a careless observer might have considered that Mrs. Thornton's manner to her children betokened far more love to Fanny than to John. But such a one would have been deeply mistaken. The very daringness ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... evil men, Came ower their sunny dwellin', Like thunder-storms on sunny skies, Or wastefu' waters swellin'. What aince was sweet is bitter now, The sun of joy is setting; In eyes that wont to glame wi' glee, The briny tear is wetting fast, The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... the evil is not confined alone to Boston. Other cities suffer in the same way. It is but a few years since the second city in the Commonwealth was stirred almost to its foundations by the discovery of an association of boys and girls who were wont to indulge their passions in one of the school-houses of the city; and not long ago another somewhat similar affair was discovered by the authorities, but hushed up for ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... came indistinctly the sound of the organ in a prelude, it would seem, to the day. 'Twas Sir Julian's wont to rise early and draw—it may be—inspiration from the full vibrant chords of ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... quarter of an hour that Mr Thornycroft had subsequently given him, to preserve that calm demeanour which was his study and his pride. He came in to Deb where she sat alone, and expressed his feelings as the ordinary man is wont to do to the woman who ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... the fathers are visited on the children," he was wont to say, "then surely the good deeds of the children are repaid to the fathers." His marked reverence for his wonderful son spread outwards, and Sabbatai became the object of a wistful worship, of ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... there faithfully depicted are the very dress, the very little hat, and the still smaller shoes which she was wont to wear in life! The figure, complexion, colour of eyes and hair, are all hers to a shade. In short, a resemblance to his child gradually developes itself before the old gentleman's vision, till at last clasping both my hands, and with tears in his eyes, he ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... not by sight,' he said once; 'and by no one so much as by those who are in politics is this necessary.' It is the evidence of things not seen, the eternal principles, the great invisible moral sanctions that men are wont to call the laws of God, which alone supply a safe guide through this ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... a small room like to that of any scribe, for on the tables were palettes, pens of reed, ink in alabaster vases, and sheets of papyrus pinned upon boards. The walls were painted, not as I was wont to paint the Books of the Dead, but after the fashion of an earlier time, such as I have seen in certain ancient tombs, with pictures of wild fowl rising from the swamps and of trees and plants as they grow. Against the walls hung racks in which ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... managed to invent any suitable excuse for refusing. He never remained long after the meal was eaten. When all the other fisher-lads were walking the cliffs with their own particular lasses, Rufus was wont to trudge back to his hermitage and draw his mantle of solitude about him once more. He had never walked with any lass. Whether from shyness or surliness, he had held consistently aloof from such frivolous pastimes. If ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... more, for the servant was in attendance, and he could not humiliate himself before the man who had been wont to respect him as Sir Oswald Eversleigh's heir. He took up his hat and cane, bowed to the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... wonderful fact that they never pass by the monument of Olynthus. They say that formerly the people used to perform the accustomed rites to the dead in the month Elaphebolion, but now they do them in Anthesterion, and that on this account the fish come up in those months only in which they are wont to do honour to the dead." The river is the chief source of the food-supply, so to send fish, not seeds and flowers, is ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... excepted, this was a sign that no violence was contemplated on that occasion at least. "Contemplated," however, is a word very expressive, when used in connection with the out-breakings of human passions, as they are wont to exhibit themselves among the ignorant and excited. It matters not whether the scene be the capital of some ancient European monarchy, or the wilds of America, the workings of such impulses are much the same. Now, ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... was imposed on them. They were intended to serve as a bulwark for the Roman settlements south of the Po, and to ward off from Italy the incursions of the migratory northern tribes and the aggressions of the predatory inhabitants of the Alps, who were wont to make regular razzias in these districts. The process of Latinizing, moreover, made rapid progress in these regions; the Celtic nationality was evidently far from able to oppose such resistance as the more civilized nations of Sabellians ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... on the brink of a delf, the site of which is now occupied by the Prescot-street Bridewell. This person used to try experiments with food, such as cooking spiders, blackbeetles, rats, cats, mice, and other things not in common use; and, it is said, was wont to play off tricks upon unsuspecting strangers by placing banquets before them that were quite unexpected and unprecedented in the nature and condition of ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... loop-hound. On the occasion of those sparse first nights granted the metropolis of the Middle West he was always present, third row, aisle, left. When a new loop cafe was opened, Jo's table always commanded an unobstructed view of anything worth viewing. On entering he was wont to say, "Hello, Gus," with careless cordiality to the head-waiter, the while his eye roved expertly from table to table as he removed his gloves. He ordered things under glass, so that his table, at midnight or thereabouts, resembled a hot-bed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... little widow. She had the air of a person not used to be on foot and unattended—a kind of aerial butterfly air, as of one who belonged to the useless and ornamental class of society; utterly different from the appearance of such humble female pedestrians as were wont to make the courts and alleys of the Temple a short-cut in their toilsome journeys to and fro. Happily a porter appeared, who was able to direct her to Mr. Saltram's chambers, and civilly offered to escort her there; for which ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... energy of Plattville concentrates on the Square. Here, in summer-time, the gentlemen are wont to lounge from store to store in their shirt sleeves; and here stood the old, red-brick court-house, loosely fenced in a shady grove of maple and elm—"slipp'ry ellum"—called the "Court-House Yard." When the sun grew too hot for the dry-goods box whittlers ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... similar reason, psychologists are wont to insist that the introductory course in their subject, no matter for what class of students, with general or with professional aims, should be definitely a course in psychology as distinguished from educational ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... a parlour-trick; she was slow in her movements and quiet in her manner until she talked of horses or anybody she loved; then her great eyes would flash and her laugh ring out, also she would gesticulate as her mother had been wont to do, until the climate, maybe, of a northern country had served to repress the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... seems so cold, And the voice that is wont to storm, We are certain to find, a big, broad mind And a heart that is soft and warm. And he carries his woes in a lordly way, As only the great souls can: And it makes us glad when in truth we say, We are kin ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the fancy. He brought the marble from the Pentelic quarries; nothing grosser was permitted in the construction. In the shade of a portico of many columns of Corinthian model he passed his days reading to chosen friends, and living as the Athenians were wont to live in the days of Pericles. In my youth I dwelt much with him, and he so loved me that at dying he gave me the house, and the gardens and groves around it. They will help me now to make partial amends for injustice ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... to be the entire factory, adding the two office girls; the model, who was wont to run around our part of the world now and then in a superior fashion, clad in a scanty pale-pink-satin petticoat which came just below her knees and an old gray-and-green sweater; plus various male ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... he despises all things present, in order to obtain invisible goods to come. Now so long as a man retains the life of the body he does not show by deed that he despises all things relating to the body. For men are wont to despise both their kindred and all they possess, and even to suffer bodily pain, rather than lose life. Hence Satan testified against Job (Job 2:4): "Skin for skin, and all that a man hath he will give for his soul" [Douay: 'life'] i.e. for the life of his body. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... was then seen sallying forth from the porch of his Hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his household. The second service was (as is commonly the case, in rural districts) more numerously attended than the first one; and it was our Parson's wont to devote to this ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... her then another answer, by a Priest of Thine, a certain Bishop brought up in Thy Church, and well studied in Thy books. Whom when this woman had entreated to vouchsafe to converse with me, refute my errors, unteach me ill things, and teach me good things (for this he was wont to do, when he found persons fitted to receive it), he refused, wisely, as I afterwards perceived. For he answered, that I was yet unteachable, being puffed up with the novelty of that heresy, and had already perplexed divers unskilful persons with captious questions, as she had ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... the revolutionary society of Paris. He meets Josephine; Barras delivers her to the coming man. They are wedded, and from that date the stage widens, the wars in Italy break out, and the young general begins to whirl his sword at Mantua, Arcole, and Rivoli—from which he was wont to date his military birth, saying on that occasion, "Make my life begin at Rivoli;" and finally at Montebello and Venice, where, in the late spring of 1797, he is joined by Josephine. There from the French capital they seemed to stand afar as ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... ramifications; and it is spreading still, like some strange organism the one condition of whose life is reproduction, knitting the greatest centres of commerce with the loneliest and remotest villages that were wont to lie far out of the travelled ways of men, and bringing Ultima Thule ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... waiting a long time for you, that's all," Hilliard replied, endeavouring to use the tone of frank friendliness in which he had been wont to address her. "I got nervous and irritable. I felt uneasy about you. It's all right now: Let us walk on a little. You want money. Well, I have three hundred pounds and more. Call it mine, call it yours. But I must know that you're not going to do anything foolish. Of course, you don't tell me ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... was at the door, And Moone was wont to sing, Many a maid and bachelor Whirled into the ring: Standing on a tilted wain He played so sweet and loud The Mayor forgot his golden chain And jigged it with ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... longer passage, yet as they are said to be more obliging to passengers and more reasonable in the expense, and, as some say, also, the vessels are better sea boats, has been the reason why so many passengers do not go or come by the way of Harwich as formerly were wont to do; insomuch that the stage coaches between this place and London, which ordinarily went twice or three times a week, are now entirely laid down, and the passengers are left to hire coaches on purpose, take ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe

... men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to Drowne's workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be sensible of a mystery in the carver's conduct. Often he was absent in the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... stream; huge trees lying prostrate, twisted and jammed together where the angry flood had hurled them; bare unsightly poles and piles, sticking from the water at every angle, reminding us of the granaries and godowns that were wont to be filled with the agricultural wealth of the districts for miles around; hard metalled roads cut abruptly off, and bridges with only half an arch, standing lonely and ruined half way in the muddy current that swept noiselessly past the deserted city. It was a scene ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... and for the first time in the cowboy's presence she did not experience that singular chill of gloom which he was wont to ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... their celestial urn Were wont to stream before mine eye Where'er it wandered in the morn Of blissful infancy. This glimpse of glory, why renewed? Nay, rather speak with gratitude; For, if a vestige of those gleams Survived, 'twas only in my dreams. Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve No less than nature's threatening ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... at 9. of the clocke the winde came vp at the East, which ordinarily about that time was wont to come out of the North Northwest off the shoare: yet we wayed and halled off South with that winde all night into the Sea, but the next morning we halled in againe to the lande, and tooke in 6. Tunnes of water for our ship, and I thinke the Hinde ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... cunning and shrewdness, bait him in the field, or set your trap by some carcass where he is wont to come. In some cases he will uncover the trap, and leave the marks of his contempt for it in a way you cannot mistake, or else he will not approach within a rod of it. Occasionally, however, he finds in a trapper more than his match, and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... were wont to say regretfully that there were no Mayflowers in Spencervale; the Spencervale young fry, when they wanted Mayflowers, thought they had to go over to the barrens at Avonlea, six miles away, for them. Old Lady Lloyd knew better. In her many long, solitary rambles, she had discovered ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... for young Durgin at the best, and the fellow had run away. A trip to the small Connecticut town of Rockdale, where Hardy had once resided, and to which it had long been his wont to return as often as once a month, seemed to Garrison imperative at ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... intellectual gifts that he seemed more meet to teach every one than to learn things from anybody. On matters concerning government his judgement was sound; he was highly esteemed by prominent men both in Spain and out of it; Philip II was wont to consult him in difficult cases, and would send messengers from Madrid to Salamanca; when he visited Madrid on University business he was admitted to private audience and received signal marks of royal favour; with respect to offers of bishoprics and the Archbishopric ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... campong of Liato, but a rude wharf on the opposite side affords a less picturesque though safer landing, for the swirling currents of the swift stream require more careful navigation than the amphibious boatman, unembarrassed by clothing, is wont to bestow on craft or passenger. The spirit of enterprise is also in abeyance, scotched if not killed by the struggles of the memorable pilgrimage through the Minahasa. The quiet haven in the shadow of the guardian hills looks an ideal haunt of peace. A Dutch battleship lies at anchor, and the red ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... from the mixture, suddenly dropped off, and Sainte-Croix dropped to the ground as though felled by a lightning stroke. At supper-time, his wife finding that he did not come out from his closet where he was shut in, knocked at the door, and received no answer; knowing that her husband was wont to busy himself with dark and mysterious matters, she feared some disaster had occurred. She called her servants, who broke in the door. Then she found Sainte-Croix stretched out beside the furnace, the broken glass lying by his side. It was impossible to deceive the public as to the circumstances ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the next greatest chief in Burg-firth after Thorstein Egilson. He was a man of broad lands and hardy of mood, and wont to do well to his friends; he had to wife Ingibiorg, the daughter of Asbiorn Hordson, from Ornolfsdale; the mother of Ingibiorg was Thorgerd, the daughter of Midfirth-Skeggi. The children of Illugi and Ingibiorg were many, but few of them have to do with this story. ...
— The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald - 1875 • Anonymous

... It was a nasty job, too. I had Morales barbecue a cabrito for my lunch, and it was good, but I'm hungry again." Austin attacked his meal with an enthusiasm strange in him, for of late his appetite had grown as errant as his habits. Ed boasted, in his clubs, that he was an outdoor man, and he was wont to tell his friends that the rough life was the life for him; but as a matter of fact he spent much more time in San Antonio than he did at home, and each of his sojourns at Las Palmas was devoted principally to sobering up from his last ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... into the well, and in the water he saw his own visage, how he was disturbed and defaded, nothing like that he was. What may this mean? said Sir Palomides, and thus he said to himself: Ah, Palomides, Palomides, why art thou defaded, thou that was wont to be called one of the fairest knights of the world? I will no more lead this life, for I love that I may never get nor recover. And therewithal he laid him down by the well. And then he began to make a rhyme of ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... at last to fancy resembled her in more points than one. Maude was ceasing to be an object of perfect indifference to him. She was an engaged young lady, and as such, entitled to more respect than he was wont to pay her, and as the days wore on he began to have serious thoughts of making her his confidant and counselor in a matter which he would never have ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... went round to the other side. In the corridor we met the gardener, Akim, who had been wont to amuse us with his grimaces, but at this moment I could see nothing comical in him. Indeed, the sight of his thoughtless, indifferent face struck me more painfully than anything else. In the maidservants' hall, through which we had to pass, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... process with me; subjects have been wont to blow up their sovereigns," answered her father, with a chuckle, "and you blow up me. You have not told me about Lord Brompton. It is a long time since you have ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... beautiful women called again to his senses and his soul. With the cooler moment came a reminder that these lovely faces were for the most part mere masks, tricking out a very ordinary woman, more likely than not unintelligent, unhelpful, as the ordinary human being of either sex is wont to be. What seemed to him the crown of a man's career, was, in most cases, a mere incident, deriving its chief importance from social and pecuniary considerations. Even where a sweet countenance told ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... for there would be a riot call immediately if not sooner as the Frontier Boys used to say. The porter hustled the Mexican through the narrow aisle and shut him into the tall thin closet where a supply of bedding was wont to be kept, just as the conductor looked into ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... by Delia's Society. On all these matters Delia shut her proud lips. Indeed her new reticence with regard to militant doings and beliefs struck Lady Tonbridge as more alarming than the young and arrogant defiance with which on her first arrival she had been wont to throw them at the world. Madeleine could not rid herself of the impression during these weeks that Delia had some secret cause of anxiety connected with the militant propaganda. She was often depressed, and there were moments when she shewed a nervousness ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... divided the West-Siders from the East-Siders, or it would have been difficult to tell what might have happened. Viggo Hook, the West-Side general, was a handsome, high-spirited lad of fifteen, who was the last person to pocket an injury, as long as red blood flowed in his veins, as he was wont to express it. He was the eldest son of Colonel Hook of the regular army, and meant some day to be a Von Moltke or a Napoleon. He felt in his heart that he was destined for something great; and in conformity with this conviction assumed a superb behavior, which his comrades ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... former years. On the evening of his arrival, while resting in his room at a hotel, he was visited by a man wearing the uniform of the Fire Department, who grasped his hand with more warmth and enthusiasm than ordinary visitors were wont to do, at ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... his charges in parliament, Tarte was thrown into more and more intimate relations with the Liberal leaders. He knew that for him there was no Conservative forgiveness; as he was wont to say: "I have spoiled the soup for too many." It was not long before Sir John Thompson could congratulate Laurier, in one of the sharpest sayings parliament ever heard, upon having among his lieutenants—"the black Tarte and the yellow Martin." ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... with only a moderate breeze blowing. But though the gale had ceased, the weather was still thick, and the sky so obscured by clouds that we could not see the sun, or even fix upon the quarter of the heavens in which he stood. Thus, those means upon which the natives are wont to rely for directing their course upon their long voyages, wholly failed us. The canoe was furnished with a small ship's compass, a present to Rokoa from the missionaries, but this had been broken, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... my wavering soul your blind, undoubting, earnest faith in Christ and in His church: at once the source of your noblest deeds on earth, your brightest hopes in heaven! Oh, let it open for me, as it was wont to do for you; and I will struggle with fire and sword against its enemies! Hear me, the son of countless generations, the sole heir of your thoughts, your courage, your ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Olivia can envy these tideless-blooded souls their happiness—their apathy? Is her high spirit so broken by adversity? Not such the promise of her early years, not such the language of her unsophisticated heart! Alas! I scarcely know, I scarcely recollect, that proud self, which was wont to defy the voice of opinion, and to set at nought the decrees of prejudice. The events of my life shall be related, or rather the history of my sensations; for in a life like mine, sensations become events—a metamorphosis which you will see in every page of my history. I feel an irresistible ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... Dave Darrin, at a bound, stood before the astonished Fred. Dave's eyes were flashing in a way they were wont to do when he was ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... face; she remembered their coming; and now, between her fits of grief, she scanned him close and saw that Death had wiped away the furrows here and there, and smoothed his forehead and rolled back the years from off him until his face reminded her of the strange, wayward child who was wont to live a life apart from his fellows, like some wild wood creature, and who had passed almost friendless through his boyhood. Fully he had filled her widowed life, and been at least a loving child, a good son. On him her withered hopes had depended, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts



Words linked to "Wont to" :   accustomed



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