Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Contagious   Listen
adjective
Contagious  adj.  
1.
(Med.) Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily exhalation; catching; as, a contagious disease.
2.
Conveying or generating disease; pestilential; poisonous; as, contagious air.
3.
Spreading or communicable from one to another; exciting similar emotions or conduct in others. "His genius rendered his courage more contagious." "The spirit of imitation is contagious."
Synonyms: Contagious, Infectious. Although often used as synonyms, originally these words were used in very diverse senses; but, in general, a contagious disease has been considered as one which is caught from another by some near contact, by the breath, by bodily effluvia, etc.; while an infectious disease supposed some entirely different cause acting by a hidden influence, like the miasma of prison ships, of marshes, etc., infecting the system with disease. In either case, a pathogenic microorganism is the direct cause of the disease. This distinction, though not universally admitted by medical men, as to the literal meaning of the words, certainly applies to them in their figurative use. Thus we speak of the contagious influence of evil associates; their contagion of bad example, the contagion of fear, etc., when we refer to transmission by proximity or contact. On the other hand, we speak of infection by bad principles, etc., when we consider anything as diffused by some hidden influence.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Contagious" Quotes from Famous Books



... young bodies have their due. Learn for yourselves numberless manly sports and games, and resolutely continue to teach them and practise them yourselves in the midst of your scholars. Love open air and exercise yourselves first; this love will be contagious, and will communicate itself to those around you. No atom of true dignity will be lost, and a priceless fund of good humor will be gained for yourself, and a mutual good feeling will be established forever between you and your scholars. Do this, and we shall ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop

... gentleman upon his own account. In this career he met with great success, and would certainly have married an heiress in the end, but for an unlucky check which led to his premature decease. He sank under a contagious disorder, very prevalent at that time, and vulgarly ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... to be satisfied. For the good work thus done was not limited by the extent of the British dominions, vast as they are. The example of the homage thus paid by the Parliament and the nation to justice and humanity was contagious; the principle on which the bill was founded and was carried being such that, for mere shame, foreign countries could hardly persist in maintaining a traffic which those who had derived the greatest profit ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... recoiling from me as from the touch of something unclean and contagious, her mind conceiving already by some subtle premonition some shadow of the thing that I had done. And then Gervasio spoke, and his voice was soothing ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... has something contagious," he said, "and it has scared the servants away. As Mr. Brown said, he looked spotty. I suggested to your husband that it might be as well to get the house emptied—in case ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Mrs. Rebecca Moore, our old Revolution correspondent, took me to a meeting at Mrs. Mueller's, about the Contagious Diseases Acts—fifty or sixty ladies present—was introduced, and several invited me to speak for them when I returned to London. Miss Rye, who has made between thirty and forty trips across the Atlantic with little girls, taking over more than 10,000 ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... camp was sickly. The men now suffered from the fatigue of the long voyage through slush and marsh. Many had fever and dysentery. Ulcerated legs were prevalent; and this disease appeared to be contagious. Many men died from these malignant ulcers, which in some cases entirely destroyed the foot. The women did not suffer from this complaint. It originated from a poisonous grass that festered the wound it gave, and rapidly produced an incurable ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... in this town, in order to transport them, with a favorable wind, to the West Indies, as the said master and the officers of the said ship have declared to us, asking from us a let-pass and clearance, by which foreigners may be assured that this city is not infested by a plague or any other contagious disease. Since certainly it is a part of our official duty to meet the needs of our citizens and to offer testimony to the truth, especially for those who ask it of us, we assure all those to whose care this matter belongs, that through the goodness ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... relatives of old Van Quintem were three elderly ladies, who, by some contagious fatality, remained unmarried. After pining romantically over their doom for some time, they had settled down to the conviction that they were much happier single than wedded, and that they had escaped a great many dangers and disappointments—which was ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... suspicious, because from what you told me she always had her dog with her. Then he said her dog must be feeling it very keenly, you remember. I tried him with my pessimistic conclusions to see how he took it. You see, as soon as I saw the dog I put contagious disease out of the question. Natural forces unguided seemed impossible, but natural forces of some nature that we can't yet understand seemed probable. Still I was wrong to suspect Hilderman, quite wrong. Besides he couldn't possibly ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... water. It was an extraordinary sight. The fanaticism, frenzy, and the shrieks of the crowd made a great impression on me. The play was a tragedy, a passion play; and the religious emotion was so intense and so contagious that, although I could not understand a word, I found myself weeping ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... manganese, and with chlorides in the preparation of hypochlorides of lime, known in commerce under the name of bleaching powder, and improperly called chloride of lime, which is used as a disinfectant in contagious diseases, in bleaching stuffs, and in the manufacture of paper from vegetable fibers, and in the manufacture of gelatine extracted from bones, as well as in fermenting molasses and in the manufacture of sugar from beet root. Sulphur is also used ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... this plague of crime which forms such a gloomy and painful contrast with the splendor of present-day civilization. The 19th century has won a great victory over mortality and infectious diseases by means of the masterful progress of physiology and natural science. But while contagious diseases have gradually diminished, we see on the other hand that moral diseases are growing more numerous in our so-called civilization. While typhoid fever, smallpox, cholera and diphtheria retreated before the remedies which enlightened science applied by means ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri

... fixed sequence in time, that is to say when they are rhythmical, they can be and inevitably are, as by a sort of inner compulsion, imitated by the onlookers. "As soon as the expression is fixed in rhythmical form its contagious power is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... Gordon in a hard voice, "Mr. Meserve is too sick to be moved, and his disease may be contagious. You might lose all your other boarders, and whether he recovers or not, you would be obliged to fumigate your house, and have his room repapered ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... enough, in considering the effects before us, to say that they are the results of a panic. No doubt there has been a panic, a contagious consternation, spreading itself over the commercial world, and strewing the earth with innumerable wrecks of fortune; but that accounts for nothing, and simply describes a symptom. What is the cause of the panic itself? These ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... enables us to recognize and value at their worth. He fills his place in the scheme of creation; but it is for us to see that his place is not next to ours at table, where his unresponsiveness narrows the conversational area, and dulls the contagious ardour of speech. He may add to the wisdom of the ages, but he lessens the gayety ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... ruined in public opinion, when further accumulations arose to his disgrace. It was now supposed to have been discovered, that the late dreadful defeat of Forum Terebronii was due to his bad advice; and, as the young Hostilianus happened to die about this time of a contagious disorder, Gallus was charged with his murder. Even a ray of prosperity, which just now gleamed upon the Roman arms, aggravated the disgrace of Gallus, and was instantly made the handle of his ruin. AEmilianus, the governor of Moesia and Pannonia, inflicted some check or defeat ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... edifying sermons, or important documents, or charming romances: our tribal citizens know nothing about that and do not want to know anything: all that they do know is that incest, prostitution, abortion, contagious diseases, and nudity are improper, and that all conversations, or books, or plays in which they are discussed are improper conversations, improper books, improper plays, and should not be allowed. The Censor may prohibit all such plays with complete certainty that there will be a chorus of "Quite ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw

... palpably had been as ill at ease as myself, and who had not escaped the contagious habit of speaking in a hushed whisper, suddenly began, in a loud and cheery manner, to tell us something of the history of Graywater Park, which in his methodical way he had looked up. It was a desperate revolt, on the part of his strenuous ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... aimed quite obviously at me, and as at the moment I could think of nothing in reply short of hurling a plate I sank into a silence which seemed to be contagious, for it spread throughout the table. Three or four rough-looking men, of whom one, a certain Captain Magnus, belonged to our party and the rest to the ship, continued vigorously to hack their way through the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... corner of a street he examined his wife, who appeared to be cold in spite of the fur-lined pelisse in which she was wrapped. He thought she seemed pensive, and perhaps she really was so. Of all communicable things, reflection and gravity are the most contagious. ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... who was a diligent, sober man, and the more useful, as he spoke both the Spanish and Portuguese languages. The diseases by which we suffered, were fluxes, and fevers of the putrid kind, which are always contagious, and, for that reason alone, would be more fatal on board a ship than any other. The surgeon's mate was very soon laid up, and those who were appointed to attend the sick, were always taken ill in a day or two after they had been upon that service. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... turned the corner into the Sixteenth Century, the tide of the Renaissance was at its full. The mortification of the monasteries, as we have seen, had given place to a spirit of feasting—good things were for use. The thought was contagious, and although the Paulian idea of women keeping silence in all due subjection has ever been a favorite one with masculine man, yet the fact is that in the matter of manners and morals men and women are never far apart—there is a constant transference ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... the flickering fires. Half-a-dozen circles are absorbed in as many games at cards; others are swallowing greedily some improvised fantastic tale; and some are singing, in wild, irregular cadence, the favorite songs of the Plains. Their example soon becomes contagious, and group after group chimes in with the uproarious chant. Listen! From the farthest extremity of the encampment comes a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... the work was pushed at this stage was exciting and contagious; at or before daylight every soul in the great establishment was up. The boundary-riders were always starting off for a twenty or thirty mile ride, and bringing tens of thousands of sheep to the wash-pen. At that huge lavatory there ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood

... charge into the thickest of the enemy, when the rout of the latter at once became complete, some of them flinging away their weapons and leaping overboard, whilst others tore up the hatches and sprang headlong into the hold. Example of this kind is always contagious; if one gives way, another does the same, and is immediately imitated by a third, and so it was in the present case; the panic instantly spread, and before we well knew what was happening the two boats' crews had joined forces, our enemies had ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... you, but a boy that never needed reform. Do not smile, for as whooping-cough and measles are juvenile diseases, and yet some juveniles never have them, so are there boys equally free from juvenile vices. True, for the best of boys' measles may be contagious, and evil communications corrupt good manners; but a boy with a sound mind in a sound body—such is the boy I would get you. If hitherto, sir, you have struck upon a peculiarly bad vein of boys, so much the more hope now of your ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... which was on a level with Valentine's, and only separated from it by Edward's. The two ladies entered the drawing-room with that sort of official stiffness which preludes a formal communication. Among worldly people manner is contagious. Madame de Villefort received them with equal solemnity. Valentine entered at this moment, and the formalities were resumed. "My dear friend," said the baroness, while the two young people were shaking hands, "I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... she had clothed herself after a most royal fashion, and was armed with a ponderous spear. But her appearance—so different from what the Doctor had imagined—caused him to laugh, which entirely spoiled the effect intended; for the laugh of the Doctor was so contagious, that she herself was the first to imitate it, and the Amazons, courtier-like, followed suit. Much disconcerted by this, the Queen ran back, followed by her obedient damsels—a retreat most undignified and unqueenlike, compared with her majestic ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Armstrong laughed banteringly. "I believe you've got the June bug fluttering in your bonnet too. It's contagious this time ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... with the aboundance of their floure and fruites, breathing forth a most sweet and delectable odoriferous smell. Wherwithall my appaled heart did not verie lightly reuiue himselfe (it might bee in a pestilent ayre and contagious ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... a bandaged neck, who was looking at her, laughed. Maslova could no longer contain herself and burst into loud laughter, and such contagious laughter that several of the children also burst out laughing, and one of the sisters ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... monks assemble pity-stricken multitudes upon the plain of Paquara to atone with tears and penitence for the insults offered to the saints in heaven by Ezzelino's fury. It laid a deep hold upon the Italian imagination, and, by the glamor of loathing that has strength to fascinate, proved in the end contagious. We are apt to ask ourselves whether such men are mad—whether in the case of a Nero or a Marechal de Retz or an Ezzelino the love of evil and the thirst for blood are not a monomaniacal perversion of barbarous passions which even in ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... Established by act of Congress approved March 3, 1879, its sphere of duty was enlarged by the act of June 2 in the same year. By the last-named act the board was required to institute such measures as might be deemed necessary for preventing the introduction of contagious or infectious diseases from foreign countries into the United States or from one ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... They were shortly reduced to the most dreadful extremities of suffering; every direst expedient that starvation could prompt and despair execute was resorted to for a few days' prolonging of life. Then came the scourge of contagious fever, sweeping numbers away with desolating fury. While these terrible calamities raged among the Hurons, the Iroquois seized the opportunity of again invading them. The village of St. John, containing nearly 3000 souls, was the first point of attack. The feeble inhabitants offered ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... Death, the Soul, Futurity, and the Neighbourhood of them, in the Countenance: By this wonderful Art, these good People unfold strange Mysteries, as under some Irrecoverable Disease, to foretell Death; under Hypocondriack Melancholy, to presage Trouble of Mind; in pining Youth, to predict Contagious Love; and an Hundred other Infallibilities, which never fail to be true as soon as ever they come to pass, and are all grounded upon the same Infallibility, by which a Shepherd may always know when any one of his Sheep is Rotten, viz. when ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... Insubordination is contagious. And I found after a while that my asters were not running true; queer things were happening among the sweet peas, and in the ranks of the hollyhocks all was not as it should be. And the last charge was made upon me by the children's gardens. ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... credible by the ascertained fact, that the palaces of princes are less accessible to contagious diseases than the dwellings of the multitude; and that in places of importance, the influx from those districts which have suffered least, soon repairs even the heaviest losses. We must remember, also, that we do not gather ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... their neighbours. But the flutter in their hearts was nothing compared with that in the heart of the heir himself as he walked across the park on the day after his return to call at the Vicarage and invite Rosalind to accompany him in a ride. What passed—whether the flutter was contagious, what brought back the deserted colour to Miss Rosalind's cheeks, why they rode so slow and left so much of their course to the decision of their steeds,—all this and many other matters for wonder, history recordeth not, as is quite proper. But ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... will," responded the General, with a convulsive smile. "And do you know, my dear," he added, "the absurd idea which has haunted me since I received this infamous letter?—for I believe that infamy is contagious." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... pretend to account for it at all. The merits of the cause have, perhaps, begun to be properly appreciated. Unusual efforts have been made by our friends of late. Whole nations and epochs are sometimes seized with a contagious mania for peculiar species of literature, as for everything else. But I will hint to you a suspicion which I have recently entertained, namely, that, after all, the rapid sale and ready market for every species of Fourier ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... was contagious; the lad's spirit was roused, and he exclaimed warmly: "What do you say? that I am afraid of struggles and trouble? I am ready to stake everything, even my life, only to win fame. But to measure stone, to batter defenceless blocks with a mallet and chisel, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... is gazetted as a contagious disease which is dangerous within the meaning of the Act, and syphilis and leprosy are contagious and loathsome diseases within the ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... and so forth; and these diseases have the horrible characteristics of becoming latent. A man who contracts this kind of a disease can never be really sure that he is cured. All venereal diseases are highly contagious. ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... with a contagious or infectious disease has any right to communicate the same to another. Indeed, it is the moral duty of every person so affected to do all in his power for the protection of others from the same ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... days. In the morning, the patients are not able to unclose their eyes for some time after they are awake. As soon as I observe these appearances, I immediately send the child home; for I have ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the disease is contagious, and if a child be suffered to remain with it in the school, the infection will speedily ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... says, in the middle of March, for then it smells sweetest, and is most aromatic. Hot and dry in the 2^o, binding, strengthening, discussive, cephalic, neurotic, and cardiac. Is a good preservative against epidemic and contagious disease; helps digestion. The powder of the root, dose [dr.]j. The decoction, in wine, stops spitting of blood, dose [dr.]ss to [dr.]jss. The saline tincture opens all obstructions of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various

... this Golgotha style of writing is likely to become contagious, and to be pushed to a more harrowing extravagance at each successive imitation, Mr. Maturin would ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... made more or less of an investigation, and sat in on a Board of Operatives' meeting. Therefore, I left off my earrings, bought no Black Jack, did not feel constrained to say, "It ain't," though saw no reason why I too should not indulge in "My Gawd!" if I felt like it. I find it one of the most contagious expressions in the language. The girls did not seem to know who I was or what I was. Not until the second day did the girl who stood next to me ask my name—a formality gone through within the first five minutes in any New ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... for the outburst of applause, started by the most sinister of aspect among the auditors, was vehement and so contagious that the hussah was unanimous as ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... told, as occurring at the moment when they might have been excused for entertaining other and more selfish thoughts. They were expecting the intelligence of the death of Louis XV. It had been agreed, as the disorder was one frightfully contagious, that the court should depart immediately upon learning it could be of no further assistance, and that a lighted taper, placed in the window of the dying monarch's chamber, should form a signal for the cavalcade to prepare for the journey. The taper was extinguished; a tumult of voices and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... fallinge out to be generally contagious through this continent, the people alsoe sent over arrived heere at the most unseasonable time of the yeare, beinge at the heat of Sommer, and divers of the ships brought with them most pestilent infections, wherof many of their people ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... Latin diminutive of variola), a specific contagious disease characterized by an eruption of vesicles in the skin. The disease usually occurs in epidemics, and is one of childhood, the patients being generally between two and six years old. The incubation period is from ten to fifteen days; there are ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... Nanette's last months with the friendly prospect that her wishes might be fulfilled.—Schiller's hope, after a dialogue with Goethe on the subject, had risen to certainty, when with the liveliest sorrow he learnt that Nanette was ill of that contagious Hospital Fever, and, in a few days more, that she was ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... degree such feelings, they appear to indicate religious insanity. It was so marvelous and so mysterious, as to be mistaken by a poet laureate, who profanely calls it a being 'shaken continually by the hot and cold fits of a spiritual ague': 'reveries': or one of the 'frequent and contagious disorders of the human mind,'[65] instead of considering it as wholesome but bitter medicine for the soul, administered by the heavenly Physician. At times he felt, like David, 'a sword in his bones,' 'tears his meat.' God's waves and billows ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... young men, the young women, and the girls, the zest and pleasure of the show shone in their eyes and movements, and spread through the hall and up the crowded staircase, like a warm, contagious atmosphere. At all times, indeed, and in all countries, an aristocracy has been capable of this sheer delight in its own splendor, wealth, good looks, and accumulated treasure; whether in the Venice that Petrarch visited; ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... contagious, as courage always is, and the diminished band decided to press on still further, until God should show his sign. This resolve made, all turned to Nicholas for his approval of their decision, and so intense ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... influx of intelligence into the mind of a speaker, is in exact ratio with the knowledge he has acquired. He may have, without this previous preparation, "free utterance," as it is called; but this utterance brings no rational convictions; it sways only by the power of contagious enthusiasm. Moreover, as in the case of Mr. Adkin, every lay preacher takes with him into the pulpit a taint from worldly and business contact, and his presence there must turn the thoughts of many hearers from ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... looks pretty bad, sure enough; but then, I suppose, if God is planning—" hello, the fellow by his side has gone, and on this other side too—"I guess I'd better go too." And off he goes. Fear is very contagious. There is great power in feeling a man by your side. And two-thirds of ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... such a word caused a feeling of repulsion. The horrible affliction known as leprosy, which has almost vanished before the effects of modern science, is common in Iceland. It is not contagious but hereditary, so that marriage is strictly prohibited to ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... cannot be a warning against disease, it can only be an indication of its presence. It does not warn us against the dangers of a contemplated course of conduct, nor can it tell us what conduct has led to the pain experienced. And in the case of contagious diseases, what amount of warning is there given? In some case the victim is stricken and is dead in so short a time as not to know with what it is he has been afflicted, and certainly without any chance of being warned. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... hardship and exposure, monthly periods and childbirth, better. Civilization is so hard on the body that some have called it a disease, despite the arts that keep puny bodies alive to a greater average age, and our greater protection from contagious and germ diseases. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... meningitis proved to be a blessing in disguise, for it educated both combatant officers and men as to the necessity of observing certain simple precautions to prevent the spread of any contagious disease; and it also showed them that when disease once got out of hand it would be possible to put whole battalions hors de combat. Col. Mercer kept his brigade moving about on the sod in tents all winter, and as a result, there was very much less sickness in his brigade than ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... fond is now at stake—for you are fond of Julie! She has a sincere attachment for your little girl, they play together like the happiest of creatures. Would you let the companion of your daughter pine away with despair? Misfortune is contagious! It brings ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac

... Japanese at Portsmouth, which terminated one of the most horrible hecatombs of peoples on record in the history of warfare. The methods and rules of their teaching, the inspiration of their inventors, the penetrating nature of their institutions, the reproductive influence of their example, the contagious activity of their doctrines, the active proselytism of their reforms, the irresistible fascination of their originality, the exuberant florescence of their Christianity, all exert a profound influence upon European culture and on the morals, the politics, and the destinies ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... philosophy. It was all beautiful, noble, true and pure. It seems to me that Naville has improved in the art of speech during these latter years. He has always had a kind of dignified and didactic beauty, but he has now added to it the contagious cordiality and warmth of feeling which complete the orator; he moves the whole man, beginning with the intellect but finishing with the heart. He is now very near to the true virile eloquence, and possesses one species ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... matters (whence its efficacy in bleaching) and purifies the air from infection. This law is resolved into the two following laws: Chlorine has a powerful affinity for bases of all kinds, particularly metallic bases and hydrogen: such bases are essential elements of coloring matters and contagious compounds, which substances, therefore, are decomposed and destroyed ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... by reading such books, take it into his head to turn shepherd, and wander through the woods and fields, singing and playing on a pipe; and what would be still worse, turn poet, which, they say, is an incurable and contagious disease." ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... bubonic plague (black death) Contagious, often fatal epidemic disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia (syn. Pasteurella) pestis, transmitted from person to person or by the bite of fleas from an infected rodent, especially a rat; produces chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... which greeted this explanation were so contagious that poor Wild-Cat himself was compelled to join in it, and treat ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... a little surprised, took the money, and began to clap his hands as desired. The example was contagious, and spread all over the room; for the audience, gentle and simple, though they might not have followed the blank verse in all its bearings, could at least appreciate a kiss. It was the unusual acclamation raised by this means which had led Somerset ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... most frequently affects the ox. It is probable that about 5 per cent. of these animals sold in Dublin are more or less affected by this malady. There are two forms of pleuro-pneumonia—the sporadic, or indigenous, and the foreign, or contagious. It is the latter form which has become the scourge of the ox tribe in this country, though unknown here until the year 1841, when it appeared as an epizooetic, and carried ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... If doubt is contagious, confidence is still more so. Gradually the marchioness felt reassured by the perfect assurance of her husband. The blood came back to her cheeks; and smiles reappeared on pale lips. She said in ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... given England the war you hoped for,—not a war against soldiers and sailors, who, unlike those who followed Colonel Pepperell and Washington and Isaac Hull and Grant and De Grasse to victory, require the protection of a contagious diseases act, but ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... sleepless night, a long march, and hard fighting, would say to his officers, "We must push on—we must push on!" as unconcernedly as if his muscles were of steel and hunger an unknown sensation. Such fortitude was contagious. The men caught something of his resolution, of his untiring energy, and his unhesitating audacity. The regiments which drove Banks to the Potomac were very different from those that crawled to Romney through the blinding sleet, or that fell back with the loss ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... then as Rowe published it, one is impressed with its Restoration quality. It seems almost deliberately modelled on Dryden's prefaces, for it is loosely organized, discursive, intimate, and it even has something of Dryden's contagious enthusiasm. Rowe presents to his reader the Restoration Shakespeare: the original genius, the antithesis of Jonson, the exception to the rule and the instance that diminishes the importance of the rules. Shakespeare "lived under a kind of mere light of nature," ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe

... fee. Room for no more doctors just now, when the knowledge of human anatomy and physiology has shown the way to a thousand uses of preventive surgery. Room for no more doctors, when the knowledge of the microbes and their germs has given the hope of successful warfare against all contagious diseases; room for no more doctors, when antiseptics and anaesthetics have proved their value in a thousand pain-saving ways. Room for no more doctors now, when the doctor must be an honest man, with a sound knowledge of the human body and a mastery of the methods ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... contain, as such a benefit ought to be made known to the world. He replied, "It is a mixture which slowly produces the substance called by chemists chlorine, which is well known to be generally destructive to contagious matters; and a friend of mine who has lived for many years in Italy, and who has made a number of experiments with it, by exposing himself to the danger of fever in the worst seasons and in the worst places, believes that it is a secure preventive. I am not convinced ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... wise to stay at home when one knows not where to go. Besides, the line has not replied, and bad examples are contagious; moreover, is it fair to demand of fathers of families, of merchants and tradesmen, in fact of soldiers of necessity, an effort before which professional soldiers withdraw? The fact is the Government had fled. Perhaps a few ministers ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... ship Le Rodeur, with a crew of twenty-two men, and with one hundred and sixty negro slaves, sailed from Bonny, in Africa, April, 1819. On approaching the line, a terrible malady broke out,—an obstinate disease of the eyes,—contagious, and altogether beyond the resources of medicine. It was aggravated by the scarcity of water among the slaves (only half a wine-glass per day being allowed to an individual), and by the extreme impurity ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... excavating near the city walls, between the Porta S. Lorenzo and the Porta Maggiore, we found an amphora of great size, containing the corpse of a little child embedded in lime. He had probably died of a contagious disease. The corpse had been reduced to a handful of tiny bones; and the impression of them was so spoiled by dampness and age that it was found impossible to cast ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... negroes was not less than eighty or ninety thousand. As no exact register of the births and funerals has been kept at Charlestown for several years, we cannot ascertain the proportion between them. Formerly, when bills of mortality were annually printed, the common computation was, that, while no contagious disorder prevailed in town, one out of thirty-five died yearly, or one out of each family in the space of seven years. However, the list of deaths is often increased by the sailors and transient persons that die in the town, and by malignant distempers imported into it. ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... speak, he distinguishes their voices, and we ourselves distinguish them in the dialogue. The growling of Vautrin, the hissing of La Gamard, the melodious tones of Madame de Mortsauf still linger in our ears. For such intensity of evocation is as contagious as an enthusiasm or ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... exaggerated and magnified it until it became of social value. Taking this private mishap as her basis, she puts into each of her heroines something of herself. This explains the passionate tone of the whole story. And this passion could not fail to be contagious for the women who read her stories, and who recognized in the novelist's cause their own cause and the cause ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... a power to evoke energy in others. It acts through sympathy, one of the most influential of human agencies. The zealous, energetic man unconsciously carries others along with him. His example is contagious and compels imitation. He exercises a sort of electric power, which sends a thrill through every fibre, flows into the nature of those about him, and makes them ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... not till the closing decade of the 19th century that the stock-breeders of the United Kingdom found themselves in a position to prosecute their industry free from the fear of the introduction of contagious disease through the medium of store animals imported from abroad for fattening on the native pastures. By the Diseases of Animals Act 1896 (59 & 60 Vict. c. 15) it was provided that cattle, sheep and pigs imported into the United Kingdom should ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... travel before I was in fact well enough. The consequence was, that I frequently took relapses, and sometimes had to lie out under trees, even in time of rain, within sight of houses, the people being unwilling to give me shelter therein, fearing that my disorder was contagious. ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward

... 'we go' business sounds rough at first, but it's contagious. Fao and Deggi caught it, and I feel like I'm coming down with it myself. How about ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... foretell destiny, but I cannot change it. M. de la Perouse would laugh if he heard my words, as the son of Priam laughed when Cassandra prophesied; and see, you begin to laugh yourself, Count Haga, and laughing is contagious: your companions are catching it. Do not restrain yourselves, gentlemen—I am accustomed to an ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... concubinage was familiarly practised by the clergy, as well as laity, of the period; and, so far from being reprobated by the law of the land, seems anciently to have been countenanced by it. [77] This moral insensibility may probably be referred to the contagious example of their Mahometan neighbors; but, from whatever source derived, the practice was indulged to such a shameless extent, that, as the nation advanced in refinement, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it became the subject of frequent legislative enactments, in which the concubines ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... desirable I can well imagine Broadly speaking An admirable idea In a literal sense By sheer force of genius You can imagine his chagrin I hazard a guess It challenges belief He has an inscrutable face Very fertile in resource I am loath to believe It is essentially undignified Example is so contagious I am not in her confidence Taken in the aggregate It is a reproof to shallowness There is a misconception here I strongly suspect it so He was covered with confusion It was a just rebuke A pleasing instance of this It lends dignity to life She has a desultory liking for music It seems incredible ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser

... caught the contagious habit. Bonds are issued to build school houses, town halls, ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... Grinnell read his paper upon the extent of the cattle interest and the necessity of protecting our cattle from contagious diseases, in this connection, the following resolutions ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... Fired by the contagious spirit of Paul, Israel, forgetting all about his previous desire to reach home, sparkled with response to the summons. But Doctor ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of the obstacles to rapid colonization in New France. It was epidemic, contagious and often fatal. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that the epidemic was prevalent amongst the French only when they were established on the soil, being rarely discovered on ship-board. Jacques Cartier had experienced the horrors of this disease in the winter of 1535-6, when out ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... new-found laws, Hidden in nature, that might bridge the flaws Between two beings, end this endless cark, And make hearts know what lips have never said! Oh! for some spell, by which one soul might move With echoes from another, and dispread Contagious music through its chords, above The touch of mimic art: that thou might'st tread Beneath thy feet ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... his eye-brows, and broke out in such a clear, bell-like, canorous laugh—so contagious in its merriment, that I joined him; and I fancied I heard Mrs. Muggins beating a hasty retreat down the front stairs. It seems improbable to me that Mrs. Muggins had been listening at the key-hole of ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... appearing near a village he has a grudge against in the form of a male child, and wanders about crying bitterly, until some kind-hearted, unsuspecting villager comes and takes him in and feeds him. Then he develops a contagious disease that clears that ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... the value of what they extorted was probably much less than the value of what they destroyed. The fields lay uncultivated. The very seed corn had been devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, and contagious maladies produced by famine, had swept away the herds and flocks; and there was reason to fear that a great pestilence among the human race was likely to follow in the train of that tremendous war. Near fifteen thousand houses had been burned ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... then true: sithens there haue bene most terrible intestine and ciuile warres, as in many and most autenticall histories it is recorded: sithens also that some prouinces of the sayd kingdom, euen in these our dayes, haue bene afflicted with pestilence and contagious diseases, and with famine. [Sidenote: Chinian stories.] Howbeit, that the foresaid three benefits do mightily flourish and abound in China, it cannot be denied. For (that I may first speake of the salubritie of the aire) the fathers of the societie themselues are witnesses; that scarcely ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... thought it was something about money, to her a matter of the most complete indifference. And so everything became bustle and commotion, and the preparations for the wedding were put in hand at once. The atmosphere was full of congratulations, of blushes and wreathed smiles. "Marriage is certainly contagious; when it once begins in a family, one never knows where it will stop," the neighbours said: and some thought Mrs. Warrender much to be felicitated on getting all her young people settled; and some, much to be condoled with on losing her last girl ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... flow through the provinces of North and South Carolina, Georgia, etc. It is perhaps the most pleasing, the most bewitching country which the continent affords; because while it preserves an easy communication with the sea-port towns, at some seasons of the year, it is perfectly free from the contagious air often breathed in those flat countries, which are more contiguous to the Atlantic. These lands are as rich as those over the Alleghany; the people of New Garden are situated at the distance of between ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... that of a host apologizing to a guest because the children of the family have measles and at the same time attempting to convince the guest that measles are hardly ever contagious. I relieved his quite obvious embarrassment by assuring him that Mrs. Powell much preferred taking chances with snipers' bullets to the discomfort of a destroyer in an ugly sea; and that, having journeyed six thousand miles ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... of him as a politic king and the sagacious founder of a dynasty, cannot have been indifferent to the welfare of a subject for whose needs he had provided with so prompt a liberality. In the vicinity of a throne the smiles of royalty are wont to be contagious—and probably many a courtier thought well to seek the company of one who, so far as we know, had never forfeited the goodwill of any patron or the attachment of any friend. We may, too, imagine him visited by associates who loved and honoured the poet as well as the ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... neighbouring State had led a successful campaign on the issue of Negro disfranchisement. Plainly unconstitutional, it was declared to be as plainly necessary for the preservation of the white race and white civilisation. The example had proved contagious, and Fetters and his crowd, who dominated their State, had raised the issue there. At first the pronouncement met with slight response. The sister State had possessed a Negro majority, which, in ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt

... and so I leaned back in my chair and laughed loud, long, and, in fact, uproariously. The meeting came to a sudden pause. The first expression on every face was that of amazed horror, but my laugh was contagious, and presently someone else joined in, and before order was restored the room rang with the laughter of a dozen men. All this time I was in an agony of self-reproach in spite of my laughter. I virtually broke up the meeting, and it was not until the clergyman, who presided, had ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... learned in every distress, What sent thea mun prea te far succour, doubtless: Sea that all lepers to Sylvester must prea, That he wawd frae tham ther disease take away. Laykwais, thea that han the falling saickness, Te be eased therfre thea mun prea to Sent Cornelis: In contagious air, as in plague or pestilence, Te hally Sent-Ruke[43] thea mun call far assistance. Fra paril of drawning Sent Carp keep the mariners: Fra dayng in warfare Sent George guard the soldiers: Sent Job heal the poor, the ague Sent German: For te ease the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... both the Senate and the House appointed standing committees on immigration. The several investigations which were held culminated in the law of 1891, wherein the list of ineligibles was extended to include persons suffering from a loathsome or contagious disease, polygamists, and persons assisted in coming by others, unless upon special inquiry they were found not to belong to any of the excluded classes. Thus for the first time the Federal Government assumed complete control of immigration. ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... member of Parliament; and yet it seemed that there was no end to his horses and carriages, his servants and retinue. He had been at this work for a great many years, and practice, they say, makes perfect. Such companions are very dangerous. There is no cholera, no yellow-fever, no small-pox, more contagious than debt. If one lives habitually among embarrassed men, one catches it to a certainty. No one had injured the community in this way more fatally than Mr. Sowerby. But still he carried on the game himself; and now, on this morning, carriages and horses thronged at his gate, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... more evil from such a state of discord than the mere loss it is to both; it influences the whole heart-life, creating sometimes bitterness, sometimes universal suspicion, sometimes cynicism. Hatred is contagious, as love is. They have an effect on the whole character, and are not confined to the single incident which causes the love or the hate. To hate a single one of God's creatures is to harden the heart to some extent against all. Love is the centre of a circle, which broadens ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... conducted by the Sisters of Charity, though the hours were long and the wages were only $10 a month, there was an exceptional air of cheerfulness and interest among the workers. This was due to no special privileges of theirs, but to the contagious spirit of personal interest and kindness inherent in all the ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt

... has concentrated all the powers of His Spirit at Cane Ridge—it is the common conviction. The people all over the country believe that God is there. The excitement runs high, and yet higher; it becomes contagious—a religious epidemic—the ruling element being the thought of the presence of the Divine Majesty, and the emotional nature of man the field of its operations. All the ignorance of a genuine panic is there. There were no well-informed unbelievers ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880

... already seen her dance, but then that was before he knew who she was. It had been in a theater, and his enthusiasm must have been prompted in a measure by that of the audience about him. The emotion of a large assembly was always contagious—sweeping the individual along with it. Whereas, in private, her dancing, lacking the glamour and artificiality of the stage, would be a very different thing. It would appear in a more realistic, commonplace light. Any faults which the atmosphere ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... her that was the first time in his life he had known anyone to say they were ready to die and would willingly expose themselves to such a contagious disease. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... prose-poem in which Hazlitt kindles with genuine enthusiasm to describe the fearful glories of the great battle. Even to one who hates the most brutalising of amusements, the spirit of the writer is impressibly contagious. We condemn, but we applaud; we are half disposed for the moment to talk the old twaddle about British pluck; and when Hazlitt's companion on his way home pulls out of his pocket a volume of the 'Nouvelle ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... sicken at the same time in no less than nine out of the thirty-five cases. Either their illnesses, to which I refer, were non-contagious, or, if contagious, the twins caught them simultaneously; they did not catch them the one from the other. This implies so intimate a constitutional resemblance, that it is proper to give some quotations in evidence. Thus, the ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... herself, Dr S. saw reason to feel much anxiety on her account. Grief and sickened hope and the wear of the terrible life she and Georges were leading combined to break down her strength. Phthisis, too, although not a contagious malady in the common sense of the term, is apt to exercise on debilitated persons constantly exposed to the companionship of its victims an extremely baleful effect, and to this danger Pauline was daily and nightly subjected. She became feverish, a sensation of unwonted languor ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... She even referred with giggling laughter to the fact that she had borrowed from Nellie in order to discharge her liabilities for the final twenty-four hours at the boarding-house. Giggling laughter being contagious, as they were walking side by side close together, they all laughed. And each one secretly thought how ridiculous was such behaviour, and how it failed to reach the ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... If any contagious disease exists among those who use such a closet, the fecal material should be carefully sterilized before being removed, as by means of corrosive sublimate, carbolic acid, chlorinated lime, or any one of the many commercial ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris

... scarcely less childlike than his; above all when, delighted with some of his own simple and priestly pleasantries, he broke out in an open and frank peal of laughter which showed his white and regular teeth, a peal so contagious that all the scholars laughed loudly in their turn. It was such a sweet, simple group in the bright sunlight, which lighted their dear ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee

... attacked by the Parthian armies, the reply of Pompey was that he was willing to appoint arbitrators who should decide all the disputes between the two nations. The moderation and caution of these answers proved contagious. The monarchs addressed resolved to compose their differences, or at any rate to defer the settlement of them to a more convenient time. They accepted Pompey's proposal of an arbitration; and in a short time an arrangement ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... Miss Rose, cruelly. "Why, I shouldn't think that you had ever seen one. You didn't do it at all properly. Why, your uncle Cray would have done it better." Mr. Cray's nephew fell back in consternation and eyed her dumbly as she laughed. All mirth is not contagious, and he was easily able to refrain from ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... cartridges, had their shoes shined at the next corner, and slowly wended their way toward the depot. Their actions were almost mechanical. Suicide is an attack of insanity, a sort of mental plague. If one has caught the fever, one is doomed. There is no escape from it. At the same time it is contagious. The literary man was somewhat infected by it. All his interests in life seemed to be dulled, obliterated as it were. He could only think the one thought, "Morrison is going to kill himself. But who knows, he may, after all, turn up ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... lightens death. He passed: but yet for many a lustrous year His light of song bade England shine and hear. As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread, So from the man of men, divine and dead, Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard, Fulfilled and quickened England; thought and word, When men would fain set life to music, grew More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew. The simplest soul that set itself to song Sang, and may fear not time's or ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... by the class.—Inattention, restlessness, and mischief are great sources of distraction from the class themselves. All these things have a tendency to be contagious, and in any case always break in upon the train of thought of the recitation. Because of this the teacher must win the inattentive and restless, and must check the restless, if he would ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts

... to be considered is the transmission of contagious disease to the fetus in utero. The first disease to attract attention was small-pox. Devilliers, Blot, and Depaul all speak of congenital small-pox, the child born dead and showing evidences of the typical small-pox pustulation, with a history of the mother having been infected during ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... It's contagious unless you are accustomed to it. I've seen safe and sane youngsters go quite off their heads at these shows, and dash down and caper around like the maddest shenzi of them all. Felt it myself at first. It draws you; like wanting to jump off when you look down from ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... wrote to Garrick on March 6:—'Mr. C. Fox pays you but a bad compliment; as he appears, like the late Mr. Secretary Morris, to enter the society at a time when he has nothing else to do. If the bon ton should prove a contagious disorder among us, it will be curious to trace its progress. I have already seen it breaking out in Dr. G——[Goldsmith] under the form of many a waistcoat, but I believe Dr. G—— will be the last man in whom the symptoms of it will be detected.' Garrick Corres. i. 613. In ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... she had heard that a contagious disease was ravaging the vicinity. "Is he indeed ill?" ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... window with Harry Anguish. The latter was flushed and nervous and acted like a man who expects that which is unexpected by others. With a strange confidence in his voice, he sought to cheer his depressed friends, but the cheerfulness was not contagious. The sombreness of a burial hung ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... Dot slowly, dropping upon one of the arms. "But for all its cleanness it's about as bare and as inviting as the contagious ward of a hospital, or the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... intellect and virtue, it would be absurd to suppose that the hundredth man will stand still, merely because he is rich. Patriotism is a liberal and a social impulse; its influence is irresistible; it is contagious, and is propagated by the touch; it is infectious, and mixes itself with the air ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... by them with far more than the solemnity of times past; and there was a strictness of walk and conversation among them, which showed how much in sincerity they were indeed regenerated Christians. The company of persons inclined to the prelatic sect was eschewed as contagious, and all light pastimes and gayety of heart were suppressed, both on account of their tendency to sinfulness, and because of the danger with which the Truth and the Word were threatened by the Arminian Antichrist ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... cannot be made without running risks. When you have chosen your field for fighting, you must concentrate upon it, letting your other interests take their chance. To do this, however, men must have convictions, and conviction must rest upon knowledge, or else ignorant clamor and contagious panic will sweep away every reasonable teaching of military experience. And so Cervera went forth with his four gallant ships, foredoomed to his fate by folly, or by national false pride, exhibited in the form of political pressure disregarding sound professional ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... flutter of a frock and herself stepped on to the veranda. Mechanically Anthony set down the paper as if it had been contagious. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... identical wonders attributed to them? If people wanted merely to tell "a good square lie," as the American slang has it, invention does not seem to have such pitifully narrow boundaries. It appears to follow that there are contagious nervous illusions, about which science has not said the last word. We believe that the life of children, with its innocent mixture of dreams and waking, facts and fancies, could supply odd parallels to the stories we have been ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... degradation that constitutes the comic; for then contradiction and deterioration would always amuse. Amusement is a much more directly physical thing. We may be amused without any idea at all, as when we are tickled, or laugh in sympathy with others by a contagious imitation of their gestures. We may be amused by the mere repetition of a thing at first not amusing. There must therefore be some nervous excitement on which the feeling of amusement directly depends, although this excitement may most often coincide with a sudden transition ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... dying, not hesitating to enter filthy alleys, dark, cold cellars, or with me to climb rickety flights of stairs into dark attics. I have found in almost every place one or more Christian women who kindly offered to assist me, but few would dare visit those filthy places, fearing contagious diseases. Having had the small pox, and all other common contagious diseases, with my very plain habits of living, I dared to visit the sick and dying in any of these loathsome places, many of which ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... out into the street, and then drove me out of the shop. When I got outside and my fear had left me, I sat down on an old wagon tongue and laughed until I was entirely out of breath. Allison came out, and my laughter must have been contagious. He leaned up against a post and laughed until he cried. His anger had left him, and we were soon fast friends again. At the proper time I ventured the opinion that the rifle could not go off again, and that it would be well enough to finish the cutting process. He consented and ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves

... me creditt my Belissia false. [Kneele. Forgive me, holy love, that I delay So long to scourge the more than heathnish wrongs Of this iniurious villaine, whome me thinks— Blow him hence to hell With his contagious slander! yet before Thou doest fall by me as, if heaven have not Lost all its care of Innocence, thou must doe, Tell me what Divell urgd thee to detract From virtue thus, for of thy selfe thou couldst ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... that, if this spirit became contagious, it would be the ruin of the enterprise; and he thought it best to exterminate the gangrene; at once, and at whatever cost, than to wait until it had infected the whole system. He ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... have known. Of all the men of talents, whose writings I have read up to this hour, Mr. Malthus has the most perplexed understanding. He is not only confused himself, but is the cause that confusion is in other men. Logical perplexity is shockingly contagious: and he, who takes Mr. Malthus for his guide through any tangled question, ought to be able to box the compass very well; or before he has read ten pages he will find himself (as the Westmorland guides express it) 'maffled,'—and disposed to sit ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... that claimed the attention of the commons, was a bill for improving the regulations already made to prevent the spreading of a contagious distemper, which raged among the horned cattle in different parts of the kingdom. The last bill of this session that had the good fortune to succeed, was brought in for punishing mutiny and desertion of officers and soldiers in the service of the East India company, and for the punishment of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... gone, Grace rang, and when a servant came she sent for the manager of the hotel. To him she explained that in a few minutes a sick man would be brought to the house; that his illness was not at all contagious; that No. —— of her apartments must be prepared for him, and he must be carried there ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... after the other, La Nouvelle Heloise, Delphine, Adolphe, and Ourika. But the listener's yawns proved contagious, for the book slipped out of the reader's hand ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... tumult in London in 1886 afforded, it is said, a good opportunity of observing how people who had originally maintained an indifferent attitude were gradually carried away by the general excitement, even to the extent of joining in the outrages. In this instance the contagious effect of expressional movements was undoubtedly facilitated by their connection with so primary an impulse as that of rapine and destruction. But the case is the same with all the activities which appear as the outward manifestations of our strongest feeling-states. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... for the natural vivacity of her disposition inclined her to all kinds of pranks. Opposition irritated her to such a degree as to set her crying. But what tears! Suddenly, in the midst of her sobs, she would burst out laughing, for her soul was all gayety, spontaneous, contagious gayety, the gayety of the birds when ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... by the methods of that system, are not genuine. The many cases benefited by those methods have been and are such as are amenable to mental healing, of whatever kind. A writer in the "American Medical Quarterly," January, 1900, avers that Eddyism is an intellectual distemper, of a contagious character; that it is epidemic in this country, and that, in its causation, its rise and spread, it presents a close analogy to the great epidemics ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... poultry throughout the country to go to roost; and the fleet of canoes at anchor between Gibbet Island and Communipaw slumbered on their rakes, and suffered the innocent oysters to lie for a while unmolested in the soft mud of their native banks. My own feelings sympathized with the contagious tranquillity, and I should infallibly have dozed upon one of those fragments of benches which our benevolent magistrates have provided for the benefit of convalescent loungers had not the extraordinary inconvenience of the couch set all ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... excitement were extreme though not contagious. "Listen, Sam!" he shouted. "How's THAT ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... himself will become a Protestant." This advice was followed. The Bishop of London made no reply, but contented himself with saying to the bearer of the letter that Lady Strafford had been breathing a contagious atmosphere which had carried her away, and that anything he could write to her would probably not remedy the evil. This silence on the part of a man whom she had trusted implicitly, finished opening the eyes of Lady Strafford, and she soon ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... intensely to official work during certain hours of every day in the summer, when the hour of relaxation came he laid aside his task. With all his cares, he was never the grim man forcing himself to be gay. His contribution to the pleasure of a company was spontaneous and contagious. Not the least highly developed of his qualities was the Bishop's sense of humor. He was an incomparable raconteur, and many an incident of village life gave him material for a story which, with certain poetic license of embellishment that he sometimes allowed himself, set his hearers ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... quaint or striking in connection with them, and finds in his recollections ready pegs on which to hang historical incident and antiquarian curiosities of many kinds. He passes from point to point in a delightfully cheerful and contagious mood. Mr. Ritchie's reading has been as extensive and careful as his observation is keen and his temper genial; and his pages, which appeared in The Christian World Magazine, well deserve the honour of book-form, with the additions he has been able ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... now have put a stop to this idle gossiping, if I had not hoped to convince you of the folly of it. It is no wonder, I confess, that at your age you should learn to imitate a style of remark which is but too prevalent in society. Nothing, indeed, is more contagious. But let me also tell you, that girls of your age, and of your advantages, are capable of seeing the meanness of it, and ought to despise it. It is the chief end of education to raise the minds of women above such trifling as this. But if a young person who has been taught ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... distinct agreements, are absolutely forbidden, and in 1868 the Representatives of the European Powers assembled at St. Petersburg agreed to abolish the use in war of explosive bullets below the weight of 14 ounces, and to forbid the propagation in an enemy's country of contagious disease as an instrument of war. It laid down the general principle that the object of war is confined to disabling the enemy, and that weapons calculated to inflict unnecessary suffering, beyond what is required for attaining that ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... of mire, or of floundering like a hog in a salt marsh. Ha! ha!" and Quipsome Hal went off into such a laugh as might have betrayed his identity to any one more accustomed to the grimaces of his professional character, but which only infected the others with the same contagious merriment. "Come thou home now," he said to Ambrose; "my good woman hath been in a mortal fright about thee, and would have me come out to seek after thee. Such are the women folk, Master Headley. Let them have but a lad to look after, and they'll bleat after ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... privilege of human frailty. The man erred; and his error terminates in itself. But an error of principle does not terminate in itself; it is a fountain; it is self-diffusive; and it has a life of its own. The faults of a great man are in any case contagious; they are dazzling and delusive by means of the great man's general example. But his false principles have a worse contagion. They operate not only through the general haze and halo which invests a shining example; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... irresponsible, palpably and completely given over to joy. One found one's self transported into something of this same mood before one had a chance to speculate at all as to whether there was any causal relation between the specific quality of tobacco the youngster was smoking, and that contagious, undeniable delight. What is called personal magnetism is perhaps more than anything else the ability to provoke in others sympathetic experiences ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... never separated in Babylonia; not only the priests but also the gods performed magical ceremonies. Ea, Merodach's father, overcame Apsu, the husband of the dragon Tiamat, by means of spells: he was "the great magician of the gods". Merodach's division of the "Ku-pu" was evidently an act of contagious magic; by eating or otherwise disposing of the vital part of the fierce and wise mother dragon, he became endowed with her attributes, and was able to proceed with the work of creation. Primitive peoples in our own day, like the Abipones of Paraguay, eat the flesh of fierce and ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie



Words linked to "Contagious" :   transmittable, contagious disease, contagious abortion, catching, infectious



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com