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Auction   Listen
noun
Auction  n.  
1.
A public sale of property to the highest bidder, esp. by a person licensed and authorized for the purpose; a vendue.
2.
The things sold by auction or put up to auction. "Ask you why Phryne the whole auction buys?" Note: In the United States, the more prevalent expression has been "sales at auction," that is, by an increase of bids (Lat. auctione). This latter form is preferable.
Dutch auction, the public offer of property at a price beyond its value, then gradually lowering the price, till some one accepts it as purchaser.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Auction" Quotes from Famous Books



... alarmed. "That game never works. Of course they'd deny it and swear you down, for bribing witnesses is as easy as bribing members. I'll tell you what to do. Beat them at their own weapons. Raise a purse that will swamp theirs. That's the way the world goes. It's an auction. The highest bidder ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... slaves, who hold their lands by the most uncertain of all tenures,"[108] We are told, that the provision ground, the creation of the negro's industry, and the hope of his life, is sold by public auction to pay his master's debts. Is it wonderful that the term prudence should be unknown in the ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret, and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant's price. I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet's heart That small and sickly eyes ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde

... a midshipman's pay was always nothing, and find yourself, Master Godfrey," said Ned. "And as for your chest and its contents, they've been sold by auction on the capstan-head long ago, so that it would be a hard job to get them ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... the brethren, in the letter to the London merchant's wife, were of a kind which Calvin severely rebuked. Similar or worse violences were perpetrated by French brethren at Lyons, on April 30, 1562. The booty of the church of St. Jean had been sold at auction. There must be no more robbery and pillage, says Calvin, writing on May 13, to the Lyons preachers. The ruffians who rob ought rather to be abandoned, than associated with to the scandal of the Gospel. "Already reckless zeal was shown in the ravages committed in the churches" (altars and images ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... voyage he met with the negro in a way that to him was more memorable. He and the young fellows with him saw, among the sights of New Orleans, negroes chained, maltreated, whipped and scourged; they came in their rambles upon a slave auction where a fine mulatto girl was being pinched and prodded and trotted up and down the room like a horse to show how she moved, that "bidders might satisfy themselves," as the auctioneer said, of the soundness of the article to be sold. John Johnston ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... the City, but in a coach, and sossed(9) up my leg on the seat; and as I came home, I went to see poor Charles Barnard's(10) books, which are to be sold by auction, and I itch to lay out nine or ten pounds for some fine editions of fine authors. But 'tis too far, and I shall let it slip, as I usually do all such opportunities. I dined in a coffee-house with Stratford upon chops ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... made such a sensation in the bibliographical world when it was sold at auction in the latter part ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... Mr. Nicol the printer sold by auction a number of books and manuscripts in his possession, which had formerly belonged to the well-known publisher Dodsley; and in arranging them for sale, the original agreement for the sale of the manuscript of 'Peter Wilkins,' by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various

... Then followed an auction, the strangest that history has recorded. On one side the King, on the other the Church, began to bid eagerly against each other for the favour of those whom tip to that time King and Church had combined to oppress. The Protestant Dissenters, who, a few ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... would also have turned stubborn and have suffered the articles to go to the auction-room had not her personal pride and interests demanded the sacrifice. But she had already introduced Lord Sudleigh to these family treasures, and she could not endure to go to Sudleigh Castle and take with her no heirlooms to be surety for her respectability. So that, after all, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... insecurity of her position were more apparent to him than they had ever been before. She was in the power of her creditor, who might turn her out of the little black house, sell the place at auction, and thus, perhaps, deprive her of the whole or a large part of his father's ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... you up there. One advantage of membership is that its roster includes experts in every known line of erudition, from scarabs to skeeing. For example, I am now going to telegraph for aid from old Millington, who seldom misses a book auction and is a human bibliography of the wanderings of all rare volumes. I'm going to find out from him what British publication of the late seventeenth century in Latin is very valuable; also what volumes of that time have changed hands in the ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... little immigrants flourished and multiplied in the bountiful pastures of the Santa Clara Valley, sending off three swarms the first season. The owner was killed shortly afterward, and in settling up his estate, two of the swarms were sold at auction for $105 and $110 respectively. Other importations were made, from time to time, by way of the Isthmus, and, though great pains were taken to insure success, about one half usually died on the way. Four swarms were brought safely across the plains in ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... once granted. The paymaster of Lieutenant Thompson's regiment estimated that the effects of the young officer would sell, at auction, for about 20 pounds; and this sum William Gale gladly paid, thereby obtaining a complete outfit of regimental and civilian clothes, and under linen of all descriptions. Another 30 pounds bought him a horse ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... neighbourhood of four or five harbours, in any one of which they would have found immediate shelter and security. The prizes, which happened to be richly laden, were safely conveyed to Jamaica, and there sold at public auction, for the benefit of the captors, who may safely challenge history to produce such another instance ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Public Auction.—At three o'clock this afternoon there will be sold to the highest bidder all the common property of the Little Sisters of Samaria, at the home of the Sisterhood, in Bonhomme Street. The sale will dispose of the building, ground, and the complete furnishings ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... it can be otherwise in a society based upon human servitude. To live on the labors of a helot people blunts the finer sensibilities of men and women alike; when you can look unshrinkingly at the separation of husband and wife on the auction-block, when you can see innocent children taken from their mothers and sold into eternal separation, I think it is not unnatural in me to fear that a woman with my convictions would not be happy mated with a Southerner. All this ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... intact until 1865. The manner in which they came to be exhumed is the most curious transaction in the progress of revolutionary history. It was a consequence of the passion for autographs and the collector's craze. Seventy thousand autographs were sold by auction in Paris in the twenty-eight years from 1822 to 1850. From the days of the Restoration no letters were more eagerly sought and prized than those of the queen. Royalist society regarded her as an august, heroic, and innocent victim, and attributed the ruin of the monarchy ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... converted," told them I "wanted to be," and immediately we knelt in prayer. How I did weep, and how badly I felt! I can see the back of that little sewing-rocker now swimming in my tears. (I wonder where that rocking-chair is now! The last I knew it was in California, having left us at an auction—an occasion not unfamiliar to most of preacher-families.) They told me to pray, and I prayed with all my heart. If ever there was a little boy who felt that he was a great sinner, I was the boy. I remembered all the things I ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees

... of one Benjamin Fox on the very day and within an hour of the theft, together with its case and two bows, for the insignificant sum of four dollars. After the legal period of redemption had expired it had been put up at auction and bid in by the pawnbroker for a small advance over the sum for which it had been pawned. It lay exposed for purchase on Fox's shelf for some months, until, in December, 1895, a tailor named James ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... ere he read a syllable, he laboured to compose himself. What could it be? Was the thing exploded? Was he already the common talk and laugh of men? Was he ruined and disgraced? He read at length—The property and estates of Walter Bellamy, Esq., were announced for sale by auction. His first sensation on perusing the advertisement was one of overpowering sickness. Here, then, was his destruction sealed! Here was the declaration of poverty trumpeted to the world. Here was the alarum sounded—here ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... earth. Before bringing the mushrooms up out of the caves they are covered over with a cloth to avoid contact with the outer air, which is apt to turn them brown. They are then placed in baskets that contain twenty-three to twenty-five pounds and sent to market, where they are sold at auction as they arrive. Or they may be sent to preserved-vegetable manufacturers, who contract for them at an ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer

... day of August, precisely at half-past two, Merry Down was to be sold by auction at ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... a man was convicted of stealing three galvanized iron roofs. His explanation that he had had the good fortune to win them at an auction bridge party was rejected by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various

... answered—She was gone with such and such ladies to an auction. "But why give her that title ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... yearling. Said property is situated in Lowndes County, Alabama. If, after maturity, any part of the unpaid indebtedness remains unpaid, Jones and Co., or their agents or assigns, are authorized and empowered to seize and sell all or any of the above described property, at private sale or public auction, as they may elect, for cash. If at public auction, before their store door or elsewhere, in Fort Deposit, Alabama, after posting for five days written notice of said sale on post office door in said town, and to apply the proceeds of said sale to the payment, first of ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey

... called, "The Monarch of the Glen," and well known all over the world from engravings, was recently exposed to auction, when it fetched the enormous price of 6,510 pounds. It is said that the painter sold it off his easel for 800 guineas. The bidding at the sale began at 2,000 pounds, and by bids of one hundred guineas reached 4,000 pounds, at which price it ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... disposal—already much diminished by the cost of my expensive voyage. Signor Polizzi, however, informed me that he was not at liberty to dispose of the article, inasmuch as it did not belong to him, and was to be sold at auction shortly, at the Hotel des Ventes, with a number of other ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... their Spanish suits for the uniform of British officers, which they obtained from the effects of some of those who had fallen upon the previous day, these being, as is usual in a campaign, at once sold by auction, the amount realized being received by the paymaster for the benefit of the dead men's relatives. Major MacLeod had witnessed their ready presence of mind in throwing the rope across the road, and so checking the French charge, and giving time ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... their resources, with depleted stock, for they had begged about all the odds and ends people would consent to part with. What goods remained to them were of inferior worth and slow to dispose of, so they concluded their enterprise with a "grand auction," Peter Conant acting as auctioneer, and cleaned up the entire stock "in a blaze of glory," as Mary Louise enthusiastically described ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... Tibbs has determined to dispose of the whole of her furniture by public auction, and to retire from a residence in which she has suffered so much. Mr. Robins has been applied to, to conduct the sale, and the transcendent abilities of the literary gentlemen connected with his establishment are now devoted to the task of drawing up the preliminary advertisement. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... she could be raised if one cared to spend a little money on doing it; that one projectile probably had not ruined her beyond repair; that she was a menace to navigation in Papeete Harbor and hence would have to be gotten out of the way, either by dynamite or auction; that—well, any number of thats should have occurred to Cappy Ricks to suggest the advisability of keeping track of the wreck of the Valkyrie. However, for some mysterious reasons—his resentment against the German cause, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... up some sort of auction business, but his real-estate mania had ruined it and eaten up all he had except three thousand dollars, which Dora had contrived to save from the wreck. With this she had bought a cigar-and-stationery store on Washington Heights by means of which she now supported the family. He ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... solicitor of the Loughboro' Factory Company, stating that law proceedings were about being instituted in Dublin, at the Superior Courts. He could only reply by regretting his inability to meet the demand, and offering, as an instalment, to auction all his furniture and books, and forward the proceeds. And so things went on, despair deepening into despair, until one morning he came to me, his face white as a sheet, and held out to me, with tremulous hands, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... he contributed almost daily for twelve years, comprehended many sly digs and gentle scoffings at those of his unhappy fellow citizens who became notorious, through his instrumentality, in their devotion to old book-shelves and auction sales. And all the time none was more assiduous than this same good-natured cynic in running down a musty prize, no matter what its cost or what the attending difficulties. "I save others, myself I cannot save," was ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... of this day they took us all on shore, lodging us in two rooms near the Stadt-house, our bark, with all our money and goods, being taken from us, except what we happened to have about our persons, and soon after our vessel and goods were sold by auction. We were fed with bad meat, which our stomachs could ill digest, being very weak with having been so long on short allowance, and if we desired to have better we had to buy it with our own money. Several of us had fortunately some money about us, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... and perilous career of foreign conquest. The joy which this great success excited in Rome had its echo in the Roman custom, continued down to a late age, of concluding the festal games with a "sale of Veientes," at which, among the mock spoils submitted to auction, the most wretched old cripple who could be procured wound up the sport in a purple mantle and ornaments of gold as "king of the Veientes." The city was destroyed, and the soil was doomed to perpetual desolation. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... and Amos stood watching the men carrying out bales or kegs on their shoulders. When one part of the cargo had been assembled on the dock, an auction was held forthwith to sell it off at ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... plantation near Fayetteville, N. C., and I belonged to J. B. Smith. His wife wus named Henrietta. He owned about thirty slaves. When a slave was no good he wus put on the auction ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... butter man, who had originally been in the mock-auction line, "don't ye see, we can all stay at the auction, and kind o' bid on the things. Hey?" The butter man nodded ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... collection, "non in Bibliotheca, sed in gremio Jovis;" "not in a library, but in paradise." It is not given to every one to cast angle in these preserves. They are kept for dukes and millionaires. Surely the old Duke of Roxburghe was the happiest of mortals, for to him both the chief bookshops and auction rooms, and the famous salmon streams of Floors, were equally open, and he revelled in the prime of book-collecting and of angling. But there are little tributary streets, with humbler stalls, shy pools, as it were, where the humbler fisher ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... M. de Vauversin, with a cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient, kindly look of a dog! The entertainment wound up with a tombola, or auction of lottery tickets: an admirable amusement, with all the excitement of gambling, and no hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness; for there, all is loss; you make haste to be out of pocket; it is a competition who shall ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... great deal more good would have resulted if everybody had carried a tin mug of water and thrown it upon the fire. Still, they did learn this truth at last, and the result was that one day the old fire-engine was sold by auction in the marketplace of the nearest town and bought for a trifle by one of ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... Kagig simply. "Such women suffer more terribly than the hags who merely die by the sword. Ten times by the count —during ten succeeding massacres I have seen the Turks sell Armenian wives and daughters at auction. I am ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... yours the other day at an auction, and though I knew him not the least, yet being your friend, and so like you (for, do you know, he is excessively,) I had a great need to speak to him-and did. He says, "he has left off writing to you, for he never ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... had unlimited credit at Congress Hall Hotel, which was kept by a Mr. John Sturdevant, and where I was greatly respected as the son of the owner of the property. So I went there, and fared well, and, as Professor Dodd prophesied, read all the time. One night I went into an auction of delightful old books. My money had run low; there only remained to me ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... have much money, many ribbons for orders, and as for titles, they are the cheapest and most convenient of all, as they cost absolutely nothing. Ah, a jest just now occurs to me. We will amuse ourselves a little to-day. We will have a title-auction. Call our courtiers, attendants, and servants. We shall have a gay time of it! We will have a game at dice. Bring the dice! I will at each throw announce the prize, and the dice shall then decide who ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... four years after the disappearance of her husband, while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped before the house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose furniture was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction. He had green feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with a displeased look. "Three francs!" cried the auctioneer. "A bird that can talk like ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... But when the Auction did begin, Bidders, alack! were lacking; Back numbers hove in sight in shoals, Yet seemed to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various

... bottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield; ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Nicodemus to death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton—the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard—a grisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tanyard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in the skeleton. ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain

... held rather cheap in consequence. They are the days when in Liverpool the privateers were daily fitting out or bringing in the "prizes," and when, in Lord Street Offices, distant cargoes of "living ebony" were put to auction by steady, intensely respectable, Church-going merchants. But especially they are the days of war and the fortunes of war; days of pressgangs, to kidnap unwilling rulers of the waves; of hulks and prisons filled to overflowing, even in a mere commercial port like ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... very day they flayed Atta Troll. At auction they Sold his hide. A furrier bid Just ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... begin, however, let us make a passing remark upon a custom that seems lately to have come in vogue, namely, to publish in the daily papers damaging criticisms upon pictures offered for sale at auction, such criticisms generally appearing one, or at most two days before the sale. The want of good taste, or even of abstract justice, in such a proceeding, must be apparent to every one who will pause a moment to ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... view that they should remain for inspection under certain conditions, leaving ten pounds per annum to an attendant to show the instruments. Whether the wishes of the testator were carried out in any way there is no information, but the instruments are said to have been disposed of by auction a short time after ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... not argue the matter, sir," said the Colonel, and at last the two solicitors went disappointed away. But in the three weeks which elapsed before the auction, four more applications were made, still without result, and then came the sale, months of work, and at last the whole of the appliances of the mine that could be got ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... difference between an auction and seasickness? One is the sale of effects and the other is ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... of their treasures now; prices I think are too high even for Americans. The old Daimyo families evidently have enough business sense to take advantage of the market, though some are hard up and sell more for that reason. A week ago we went to an auction room where there was a big collection of genuine old stuff, much finer than appears in the curio shops, and this weekend there is another big sale by a Marquis. However, it is said they keep the best things and unload on the nouveau riche; not but what a lot of it ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... confiscated the property of the ancient ecclesiastics who once held a constitutional place in the Estates of Utrecht—although many of those individuals were now married and had embraced the reformed religion who had demolished, and sold at public auction, for 12,300 florins, the time-honoured cathedral where the earliest Christians of the Netherlands had worshipped, and St. Willibrod had ministered, were roundly rebuked, on more than one occasion, by the blunt ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... power of making requisitions upon the States for quotas of men. This practice in the course of the late war, was found replete with obstructions to a vigorous and to an economical system of defense. It gave birth to a competition between the States which created a kind of auction for men. In order to furnish the quotas required of them, they outbid each other till bounties grew to an enormous and insupportable size. The hope of a still further increase afforded an inducement to those who were disposed to serve ...
— The Federalist Papers

... day of a series of rather prolonged and tedious sittings, he was obliged to confine his work to an hour and a half in the forenoon. Mrs. Wrandall was having a few friends in for auction-bridge immediately after luncheon. She asked him to stay over and take a hand, but he declined. He did ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... English pale ale attained the dignity of a barony. No Minister has yet made chocolate a viscount. At present, banks and minerals go in as of right, while soap is left out in the cold, and even cotton languishes. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer put up titles to auction, while abolishing the legislative function of the Lords, there would be millions in it. But as we English are not logical, our mending would probably resolve itself into fatuous tinkering. We might ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... round that." He paused a moment, and then, as a new idea seemed to be painfully borne in his round eyes, continued cautiously: "Was that the reason why you wouldn't touch any of them dresses from the trunks of that opery gal ez skedaddled for Sacramento? And yet them trunks I regularly bought at auction—Rosey—at auction, on spec—and they didn't realize the cost ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... shining. And things went on as before—not quite as before; for with the nurse question settled the craving got in its work again, and the next week was a bad one. There were good days, when he taught her double-dummy auction bridge, followed by terrible nights, when he walked the floor for hours and she sat by, unable to help. Then at dawn he would send her to bed remorsefully and take up the fight alone. And there were quiet nights when both slept and when he would waken to the craving again ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... and for what was wanted for accoutring, quartering, or removing them, included also an infinite consumption for the pleasures, luxuries, whims, and debaucheries of our civil or military commanders. Most of those articles were delivered in kind, and what were not used were set up to auction, converted into ready money, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... white man had been caught in the attempt to break into a house, and were sent to prison, to await their trial for burglary; and the other white man was also sent to prison, until he could be tried, for stealing a pocket-book in an auction store. ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown

... Golden Gate City they—for the mate and captain were joint partners—bought the Coral at auction, paying just two-thirds the sum they expected to give for the vessel they needed. However, when she was fitted up and provisioned, they found very little of their funds left, and they could but feel some anxiety as to the result of the extraordinary ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... and then immense excitement reigned in the little place for at the corner where the two main streets crossed each other at right angles a cheap-jack had set up his stall and, with flaring naptha lamps to show his goods, was selling by auction the most wonderful clocks at the very lowest prices in fact, the most superior glass, china, clothing, and furniture that the people of Firdale had ever had the privilege of seeing. Erica listened with no little amusement to his fervid appeals ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... him the trial of something better. Send the "incurables" to the auction room, and fit him out anew with what should be the visible expression of your love and your desire for his welfare. Why expect him to take these on trust any more than you expect the daughters to do this? Yet their apartments are poems of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... hands, organs, dimensions, affections, passions.'" But lottery tickets were not the only things offered-for sale at Garraway's. Wine was a common article of sale there in the early days, and in the latter career of the house it became famous as an auction-room for land and ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... knows well that a true workman never gives up his own inventions for money, no more than a soldier would give up his cross. That is his glory; he is bound to keep it for the honor it does him! Ah! thunder! if I had ever made a discovery, rather than put it up at auction I would have sold one of my eyes! Don't you see that a new invention is like a child to a workman? He takes care of it, he makes a way for it in the world, and it is only ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... auxiliary to the tariff act of 1846 in augmenting the revenue and extending the commerce of the country. Whilst it has tended to enlarge commerce, it has been beneficial to our manufactures by diminishing forced sales at auction of foreign goods at low prices to raise the duties to be advanced on them, and by checking fluctuations in the market. The system, although sanctioned by the experience of other countries, was entirely new in the United States, and is susceptible of improvement ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... infantry he commanded, added a corps of hussars, which he raised and provided with horses and accoutrements sold by auction. My demand on this account was upwards of sixty thousand florins, to which I received neither money nor reply. He had also expended a hundred thousand florins for the raising and equipping his three thousand pandours; in consequence of which a signed agreement had ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... land the expense is greater, as, after an application being made, the land is put up to public auction, and may fetch a very low or higher price according to the bidding. The land secured, contracts are made with natives of the lower class to clear the forest and plant cinchona. The contracts are often sublet to Indians. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... pocketbook weren't good enough to raise a millrei on—let alone a shilling. The Portuguese officials begged him not to distress himself. They gave him a week's grace, and then proposed to sell the brig at auction. This meant ruin for Morrison; and when Heyst hailed him across the street in his usual courtly tone, the ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... when the consul returned to Tarraco, and before he removed to any other place, the same persons revolted again. They were again subdued; but, on this second reduction, met not the same mild treatment; they were all sold by auction, that they might not any ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... cardcase or a button-hook, or something. And how many biscuit-boxes have you got, and clocks, and that sort of thing? I advise you to have an auction as soon as we get away. Hallo! that's a nice little thing; look pretty on your pretty white neck I should say, Nell. Who gave you that?" He took John's necklace out of its box where it had lain undisturbed until now, and pulled it through his fingers. "Cost a pretty ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... current year's taxes on the 75,000 acres of Tennessee Land belonging to the estate of Silas Hawkins, deceased, and added that the money must be paid within sixty days or the land would be sold at public auction for the taxes, as provided by law. The bill was for $180—something more than twice the market value of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you think I'm in earnest? If I once get my foot on dry ground, catch me giving him so much ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... consciousness of the hideousness and vulgarity of what the public had previously wanted, that they simply starved the public out. It would be quite impossible at the present moment to furnish a room as rooms were furnished a few years ago, without going for everything to an auction of second-hand furniture from some third-rate lodging- house. The things are no longer made. However they may object to it, people must nowadays have something charming in their surroundings. Fortunately for them, their ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde

... 15th of June I attended a meeting of the Committee, and presented for audit the accounts of the expenditure incurred up to that date. On the 16th I had a sale of all my private effects, furniture, etc. by auction, and arranged my affairs in the best way that the very limited time at my ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... executed, and are of the highest interest. Indeed, their workmanship is such, that many antiquaries refused to believe that they were contemporary with the building itself. As if the little chapel had not suffered vicissitudes enough, it was put up to public auction at the Revolution in 1789, and used by its new proprietors as a stable and granary. They were careful to cover the whole of their ceiling with a thick coat of whitewash, and it is only in the last few years that the patriotic work ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... Bent Arrow runs red as pale blood under its crust of ice, Reese Beaudin heard of the dog auction that was to take place at Post Lac Bain three days later. It was in the cabin of Joe Delesse, a trapper, who lived at Lac Bain during the summer, and trapped the fox and the lynx sixty miles farther north ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... not only the value of the three craft, but also the head money upon the brigantine's cargo of slaves. Upon the declaration of judgment by the court the three vessels were promptly advertised for sale by auction, and brought to the hammer some three weeks later. As it was well known that all three were exceptionally fast craft the competition for their possession was expected to be particularly brisk, and the event ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... a famine there. If, now, the pressure of the war should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend some other point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing the Blacks to Slavery again; for I am told that whenever the rebels take any Black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction them off! They did so with those they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee river a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it! For instance, when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from Washington, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... decided that Annersley had come to his death at the hands of parties unknown. The matter was eventually shunted to one of the many legal sidings along the single-track law that operated in that vicinity. Annersley's effects were sold at auction and the proceeds used to bury him. His homestead reverted to the Government, there being no legal heir. Young Pete was again homeless, save for the kindness of the storekeeper, who set him to work helping ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... special sanction, but subject to any directions which may be given by the creditors in general meeting, or failing them by the committee, sell the property or any part of it for cash, including business goodwill and book debts, and either by public auction or private treaty, and generally exercise all the powers which the bankrupt might before adjudication have exercised in relation to the property, or which are by the Bankruptcy Act conferred on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... were two splendid fellows. Now their father died; he had a good deal of personal property, which was not easy to divide, but the brothers decided, in order that this should be no cause of disagreement between them, to put the things up at auction, so that each might buy what he wanted, and the proceeds could be divided between them. No sooner said than done. Their father had owned a large gold watch, which had a wide-spread fame, because it was the ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... stories we follow the adventures of three boys, who, after purchasing at auction the contents of a moving picture house, open a theatre of their own. Their many trials and tribulations, leading up to the final success of their venture, ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton

... vent, disposal; auction, roup, Dutch auction; outcry, vendue[obs3]; custom &c. (traffic) 794. vendibility, vendibleness[obs3]. seller; vender, vendor; merchant &c. 797; auctioneer. V. sell, vend, dispose of, effect a sale; sell over the counter, sell by auction &c. n.; dispense, retail; deal in &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... change. It is as though the establishment had had its hair cut and its beard trimmed; it is smartened up a little, but there is no other change. If, on the other hand, he goes bankrupt, or his kingdom is taken from him and his whole establishment is broken and dissipated at the auction-mart, then, even though not one of its component cells actually dies, the organism as a whole does so, and it is interesting to see that the lowest, least specialised, and least highly differentiated parts of the organism, such as the scullery-maid and the stable-boys, most readily find an ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... Babe of Grace, and free from the bonds of sin; or, as he more simply, but truthfully and characteristically expresses it—a beautiful specimen indeed of his simplicity of views—'he is replevined from the pound of human fraility—no longer likely to be brought to the devil's auction, or knocked down to Satan as a bad bargain.'—For ourselves, we cannot help thinking that this undoubted triumph of religious truth, in the person of Darby O'Drive, is as creditable to the zeal of Mr. M'Slime, as it is to his sincerity. Encouraged by this great success, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... are very clumsy and heavy, and are seldom used by Europeans, who, as Mr. Hardy had done, generally bring English saddles from home. After an absence of a month, Mr. Hardy returned with the welcome news that he had made his choice, and had bought at the public auction a tract of four square leagues, upon a river some twenty miles to the south of the town of Rosario, and consequently only a few days' journey from Buenos Ayres. Mr. Thompson looked a little grave when he heard the location of the property, but he only said that he was very glad that his friend ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... not proceed thus to the new land of the Jews. The lots in provinces and towns will be sold by auction, and paid for, not in money, but in work. The general plan will have settled on streets, bridges, waterworks, etc., necessary for traffic. These will be united into provinces. Within these provinces sites for towns ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... increasing the revenue, and obtained valuable assistance from the Wealth of Nations. He imposed two new taxes in 1777, of which he got the idea there; one on man-servants, and the other on property sold by auction. And the budget of 1778 owed still more important features to Smith's suggestions, for it introduced the inhabited house duty so strongly recommended by him, and the malt tax.[253] Then in the following year 1779 ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... this passage I have conformed to the emendation of the original first proposed by Gronovius, and admitted by Stroth and Bekker; scil. in publicum omne sumptum.—They did not let these salt-works by auction, but took them into their own management, and carried them on by means of persons employed to work on the public account. These salt-works, first established at Ostia by Ancus, were, like other public property, farmed out to the publicans. As they had a high rent to pay, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... had set in along the coast, and the guests of "Wake Robin" were driven indoors. Olga, when she wasn't playing auction, wandered from window to window, looking out at the dreary skies, venting her ennui on anyone within earshot. Archie Westcott, who was losing more money than he could afford to lose, now lacked the buoyant spirits ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... room is the auction room," King, indicating nearly half of the long living-room. "Now, Flip and I are auctioneers and you ladies are in reduced poverty, and have to bring your household goods ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... shore—must be explained and accounted for, or this public's heart will burst with unsatisfied curiosity. If it be Buck Davis, with the white mare that he traded his colt for, and the practically new sleigh-robe that he bought at the Sewell auction, why does Buck Davis, who lives on the river flats, cross our hills, unless Murder Hollow be blockaded with snow, or unless he has turkeys for sale? But Buck Davis with turkeys would surely have stopped here, unless he were selling a large stock in town. A wail from the ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling



Words linked to "Auction" :   mercantilism, auction pitch, outbid, auction sale, sell, bid, upset price, overbid, underbid, bridge, offer, commercialism



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