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Physique   Listen
noun
Physique  n.  The natural constitution, or physical structure, of a person. "With his white hair and splendid physique."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Physique" Quotes from Famous Books



... commandant, accompanied by an imposing retinue, both Spanish and Indian, rowed out to the Golden Boar. Captain Drake and the gentlemen of his company had been to their wardrobes and donned their best, and the visitors by no means carried off the prize for the splendour of their array. As far as physique was concerned the Dons were completely outclassed. Sallow and listless from tropical fevers and loose living, they stood in sharp contrast to the brawny, clear-skinned Englishmen. The difference was obvious even to their own proud eyes, ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... nervous temperament, like Cecil, can bring out of an exhausted body an energy, an outburst of final and intense effort, of which those of stronger physique do not seem capable. But it drains the remaining vital forces, and the reaction is terrible. Was it this flaming-up of the almost burned-out embers of life that animated Cecil now? Or was it the Divine Strength coming to him ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... the most frightful things: his unbridled fancy, his unoccupied creative power, took revenge, and all this weakened him. He looked with admiration at his wife's robust health: she had the physique of a wild beast. But at times their quarrels, their reconciliations, brought revelations with them: he could perceive her sorrows as well. She did not complain, she did not say a word, she could not do so; but at times she wept and gave way as only the most despairing can. Her nature was ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... I think it's so wonderful you passed the final physical, Mike. You're really so deceptive. I never had imagined you had such a steely physique." ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman

... subconsciously assumes an attitude of hostility. There seem to be two varieties of the species. One is much more ruddy in appearance than the other, and its body is the smoother; but they are much alike in physique and helplessness. The figure of a sausage-skin four or five and even six feet long, and capable of elongation to almost double, containing muddy water in circulation and one end exhibiting a set of ever-waving tentacles, conveys a not unflattering notion of the animal as it lies coiled ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... I was talking to the other day described him as a moral pervert. He said he was a type of insanity usually associated with physical incapacity or a low order of intelligence, but when, as in Mannering's case, both physique and intelligence were above the average, the moral pervert is a greater danger to the community than an army of ordinary criminals. If ever I said a prayer it would be when a madman of that type ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... Nothing is stated as to the cause of this complication, but it is doubtless connected with requisitions of fish for the Court, and probably the fishing folk of Japan had already developed the fine physique and stalwart disposition that distinguish their modern representatives. Two years later, instructions were issued that hereditary corporations (be) of fishermen should be established in the provinces, and, shortly afterwards, the duty ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... elbow-to-elbow touch. Under such conditions a few men of the highest excellence are worth more than many men without the special skill which is only found as the result of special training applied to men of exceptional physique and morale. But nowadays the most valuable fighting man and the most difficult to perfect is the rifleman who is also a skillful ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... difference in patients," he remarked, "and when you began to improve you 'hustled.' But my treatment, those prescriptions, offset the poison—call it microbes, if you wish—in your blood and gave your physique and constitution and general health a chance. The ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... a week's stay at the Menegam, I took a walk through some of the most important streets of the city of Semhee. The first impression which a traveler received in making a tour through the city is from the fine physique of the girls and women. One is struck with their independence, graceful carriage, and, as they only wear two or three garments, it is self evident that they are not dependent on corsets or waist stiffening for their erect bearing. ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... Miss Chase has a malignant enemy who is trying to frighten her into death or insanity," he said. "Another such experience as this of to-night would probably effect her enemy's purpose. She is of a very nervous physique, and this shock told most terribly upon her. I warn you that the perpetrator should be discovered at once, and severe punishment meted out for the offense. If this proves impossible, why not send the young girl home ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller

... the scene of an engagement, had thrown away his gun and accouterments, and alone in the woods sat down and commenced thinking—the first opportunity he had for doing so. Rolling up his sleeves, and looking at his legs and general physique, he thus gave utterance to his feelings: "I am whipped—badly whipped—and somewhat demoralized, but no man, thank God, can say I'm scattered!" And so, the Chicago Times, though kicked out of respectable ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... completed that he realized how utterly wearied and tired out he was. His limbs were sore and stiffened from his cramped position, and being unable to sleep at all on the journey, he was completely exhausted when he sought his couch at the hotel at Bozeman. Being of a strong and healthy physique, however, and upheld by an ambition to succeed in the mission he had undertaken, Manning arose in the morning, and after a refreshing bath and an excellent breakfast, was quite rested and fully prepared to continue ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... says that that is not the saddest, saddest sight he ever saw, is a disgrace to the mother that bore him. To see a young fellow like that with such a PHYSIQUE—and God only knows what undeveloped qualities in him, only ripe for the gallows at five-and-twenty, is enough to make the angels weep. He knows no evil but physical pain, and that he considers but a temporary ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... that of any other canal constructed on this continent. The Ohio Canal was finished about 1830. The labor in the then facilities for conducting important public enterprises was Herculean, but Mr. Kelley's indomitable will, and iron constitution and physique triumphed over all difficulties. Mr. Kelley neither charged nor received any pay for his first year's services in superintending the preliminary explorations and surveys for the Ohio Canal. The pay of the Acting Canal Commissioner was $3,00 ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... The last of all the Greys Was "doing police detail,"—it had come To this; in vain the rare historic bays That crowned the pictured Puritans at home! And yet 'twas certain that in grosser ways Of health and physique he was quite improving. Straighter he stood, and had achieved some praise In other exercise, much more behooving A soldier's taste ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... to live but only in a miserable way. Some of the lowest tribes of men, like the South African Bushmen, or the Digger Indians, have been forced by stronger tribes to withdraw into the desert and to exist upon a lower plane of life. The physique of such peoples betrays the hardships which they have suffered. Men also flee from an unfavorable environment, thus escaping death or degeneracy, if the way into a more favorable locality lies open to them. Much of migration ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... during that time, as many as seven concerts in a day. I have sung as often as thirty-five times in one day, and on such occasions I was thankful that I had a strong and durable voice, not easily worn out, as well as a stout physique. Hogge and Dr. Adam appeared as often as I did, but they didn't ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder

... the army passed in the order of the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Twentieth, and Fourteenth Corps. It was, in my judgment, the most magnificent army in existence—sixty-five thousand men, in splendid physique, who had just completed a march of nearly two thousand miles in a hostile country, in good drill, and who realized that they were being closely scrutinized by thousands of their fellow-countrymen and by foreigners. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... large, and the articulation was perfect as she walked, showing that she had had the run of fields in her girlhood. Yet she did not stoop as is the habit of country girls; nor was there any unevenness of physique due to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... saw him for the first time, was attracted at once by his manly bearing and splendid physique. His frame was large, his shoulders broad, his body inclined to be fleshy. His very presence, however, was magnetic, still his manner was plain and without affectation. He looked the picture of dignity and power as he received the guests in their turn and ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... exaggerant cold, received, and taken, and caught by her the other day of last week, when we were travelling, and riding, and going to the village of Burnley. My little ones, my children, my offspring, Squire, I am excussitated to say, are in the finest, the best, the happiest state of their juvenile physique that I have ever known, remembered, and borne ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... feminine colony in the other. It may be said right here, that, so far as those sturdy "refugees" the Posts were concerned, professional and personal attentions from Dr. Bayard were both declared unnecessary. Mrs. Post was a woman of admirable physique and somewhat formidable personality. She did not fancy the elaborate manners of the surgeon at their first meeting, and allowed her lack of appreciation of "His Elegancy" to develop into positive ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... solitary home, while I crossed the river in a sampan, and then set out over the hills to Chungking. It was more than ever noticeable, the poor hungry wretchedness of the river coolies. For three days past all the trackers I had seen were the most wretched in physique of any I had met in China. Phthisis and malaria prevail among them; their work is terribly arduous; they suffer greatly from exposure; they appear to be starving in the midst of abundance. My coolie showed well by contrast with the trackers; he was sleek and well fed. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... felt as if he had seen the unveiling of a sculptured figure which transcended mediocrity. A flannel shirt, open on a splendidly rounded throat, emphasized shoulders that fell straight and, for a woman unusually broad, though not too broad for grace. She was an Amazon in physique yet so nicely balanced of proportion that one felt more conscious of delicate litheness than of size. As her breath came fast with excitement the fine arch of her heaving bosom was that of a Diana. Belted about a waist that had never known the cramp of stays, she wore ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... seemed to be gathering slowly. He was, ordinarily, a man of strong physique, courageous, and a fighter every inch of him, but his strength had been beaten out by the waves and chilled by the cold, and the sight of the men with whom he had lived and worked for years drowning one by one, had broken his nerve. He ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... the many common features of the two accounts—the origin as a half-breed between Mahomedans of Western extraction and Northern Chinese, the position in the vicinity of the Great Wall, the superior physique, intelligence, and special capacity for trade, it seems highly probable that the Tungani of our day are the descendants of Marco's Argons. Otherwise we may at least point to these analogies as a notable instance ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... sculptor, called upon him and said: "I would like to have you sit to me for your bust." "I will, Mr. Volk," replied Lincoln. This was the first time that Lincoln sat to an artist for the reproduction of his physique in this manner. Previous to this he had posed only for ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... we see a still further advance in the military art, as it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect. The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East, the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... idyl or epic, though, in spite of its scenes being mainly rural, it perhaps approaches more nearly to the epic. There is an Homeric simplicity in its descriptions of half-drunken warriors with their superb physique, their bravado, their native dignity and singleness of character. Marianka, the beautiful heroine, passes from one picture to another in her quiet, regular toil. Whether, clad in a loose skirt of pink ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... surety for the same, failing which he should go to gaol for that period. This seemed to be rather a harsh sentence to pass upon a man who was over fifty years of age, entirely destitute of means, of very inferior physique, and who had been charged at the instance of an individual who could certainly have protected himself against five such men as Grant. No doubt the accused was an eccentric man, and probably a nuisance, and it is even possible that his conduct left the magistrate no alternative ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... lot; capable seamen, indeed, but of the adventurous and irresponsible sort, for service before the mast on a whaler was not eagerly sought by the men of the merchant service. For a time Indians were plenty, and their fine physique and racial traits made them skillful harpooners. As they became scarce, negroes began to appear among the whalemen, with now and then a Lascar, a South Sea Islander, Portuguese, and Hawaiians. The alert New ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... power.] Strength.— N. strength; power &c. 157; energy &c. 171; vigor, force; main force, physical force, brute force; spring, elasticity, tone, tension, tonicity. stoutness &c. adj.; lustihood[obs3], stamina, nerve, muscle, sinew, thews and sinews, physique; pith, pithiness; virtility, vitality. athletics, athleticism[obs3]; gymnastics, feats of strength. adamant, steel, iron, oak, heart of oak; iron grip; grit, bone. athlete, gymnast, acrobat; superman, Atlas, Hercules, Antaeus[obs3], Samson, Cyclops, Goliath; tower of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... 1,052.8 and on schoolboys a mean of 1,056, while among the undergraduate students of Cambridge University he found a mean of 1,059.5. Several men of very high specific gravity in the last group had distinguished themselves in athletics. "Workhouse boys are in most cases of poor physique, and one can hardly find a better antithesis than the general type of physique common among the athletic members of such a university as Cambridge."[65] There is no more conclusive evidence of an organic difference between man and woman than these ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... Happy Jack took his place on the rim of the rock to make a dive, his magnificent physique of six feet and two hundred pounds looming up like a Numidian cavalryman, when Dad observed, "How comes it, Jack, that you are so pitted in the face and neck with pox-marks, and there's none ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... characteristic—a quick, shuffling walk which enables him to carry liquids without spilling them. This man walks with a long, swinging stride; he is obviously not a waiter. His dress and appearance in general exclude the idea of a hawker or even a hall-porter; he is a man of poor physique and so cannot be a policeman. The shop-walker or salesman is accustomed to move in relatively confined spaces, and so acquires a short, brisk step, and his dress tends to rather exuberant smartness; the station official patrols long platforms, often at a ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... near the equator. It is satisfying to know one place where the native races have a good time in competition with the whites, not only the Chinese, who have reached power and influence here, but also the Malays, natives of India, Arabs, etc. The Chinese rickshaw men here are of superb physique, and the excellence of the service renders this the most agreeable method of getting about. Moreover, it is a pleasure to watch their athletic movements and long easy stride, as if they were half flying. Some of them pass the carriages. They are jolly, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... Dr. Devoe gave a good deal of attention. Not only was his hair singed, but his neck and hands were badly burned, and his swoon was so obstinate as to indicate great exhaustion. This could scarcely be otherwise, for he possessed no such physique as young Houghton had developed. Moreover, he had passed through a mental strain and excitement which no one could comprehend except Mara, and she but partially. Houghton had put his coat under the head of the unconscious man, and was doing his best for him. So also was Miss Ainsley ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... in the case of men, so in the case of women, we must make allowance for race and climate. A full and rotund development of physique is far rarer in northern than in southern Europe. The English race is taller, less solidly built, slighter than the ancient Greek. Among us hard tendons usually take the place of solid muscles. And the practise of athletic games by women undoubtedly tends to make them in some ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... historic and well known. Even in the will of King Alfred, two hundred years later, some of the best towns in west Somerset and Dorset are spoken of as "Among the Welsh kin," and there is yet full evidence, in both dialect and physique, of strongly marked British descent among the ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... should be in partnership with his wife. The man being fitted with sturdier physique, with strong ability to combat, should take up the heavy burden of business, for those are the things he can do the best. The wife should take up the home part of the duties of the firm, and when evening falls each member of the firm should try to lessen or take away the cares ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter

... Patty turned and looked back, down the long room. Farnsworth stood where she had left him, and his majestic pose, as he held his gilded trident, suited well his stalwart, magnificent physique. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... was sleeping on the stove, crimson in the face, a heavy, oppressive sleep; the children were looking at him in wonder, and Yefrem ... Yefrem, alas, was asleep, too, but in a cold little lumber room in which he had been locked by his wife, a woman of very masculine and powerful physique. He had gone to her in the shed and begun threatening her or telling her some tale, but had expressed himself so unintelligibly and incoherently that she instantly saw what was the matter, took him by the collar and deposited him in a suitable place. He slept in the lumber room, however, very ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... sound of which the ferocious Apache warriors turn in wild stampede, as a flock of sheep would madly flee from a pack of wolves, seems to me the last word in fearsome predicaments for a man who had ever been used to fighting for his life with all the energy of a powerful physique. ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... MEN.—Women naturally love men of strength, size and fine physique, a tall, large and strong man rather than a short, small and weak man. A woman always pities a weakly man, but rarely ever has any ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... pains in selecting their office boys as they do in selecting any other group, for it is in them that they see the future heads and assistant heads of the departments. In hiring office boys "cleanness, good manners, good physique, mental agility, and good habits are primary requisites," according to Mr. J. Ogden Armour in ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... constriction of business in Europe, which was acutely aware that the disturbance in the Balkans threatened to destroy the peace of Europe. Conditions were not yet quite ready there for a cataclysmic war. For example, statistics had not quite demonstrated to Germany that the physique of her people and the rate of increase of their families were declining while the expenditures for superpreparedness for war was demanding either retroaction in that regard or else an expenditure from the principal of their property. Germany did make in one year the sacrifice of five per ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar

... petites boutiques, ou cultivent la terre. Vous en voyez quelques-unes sur les batimens destines au cabotage. Peu osent se hasarder sur les vaisseau employes aux voyages de long cours, parce qu'ils craignent d'etre transportes et vendus dans les iles.—Au physique, tous ces noirs sont generalement vigoureux,[1] d'une forte constitution, capables des travaux les plus penibles; ils sont generalement actifs.—Domestiques, ils sont sobres et fideles.—Ce portrait ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... wedding-day would seem like a silver wedding. Harry was quiet, unobtrusive, and manly. He might seem commonplace at first beside the brilliant Kate and his more gifted sister; but thorough manhood is never commonplace, and he was a person to whom one could anchor. His strong, steadfast physique was the type of his whole nature; when he came into the room, you felt as if a good many people had been added to the company. He made steady progress in his profession of the law, through sheer worth; he never dazzled, ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... beneath the jaws stood out like cords, and the bright blue eyes were deep-set beneath a spare brown forehead. But he had provided a complete suit of black for the occasion, and wore a shirt of worked cambric, which disguised what is really splendid in the physique of these oarsmen, at once slender and sinewy. Both bride and bridegroom looked uncomfortable in their clothes. The light that fell upon them in the church was dull and leaden. The ceremony, which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... days, whilst our concentration was in course of completion, I rode about a great deal amongst the troops, which were generally on the move to take up their billets or doing practice route marches. I had an excellent opportunity of observing the physique and general appearance of the men. Many of the reservists at first bore traces of the civilian life which they had just left, and presented an anxious, tired appearance; but it was wonderful to observe the almost hourly improvement ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... under the heavy strains of constant flying, saved him from errors of judgment or ill-advised decisions. His temperament was, indeed, ideal for a racing airman. He was quiet and collected, with a natural tendency to resist excitement or confusion. His physique was admirable, and he had that elasticity of strength, both in body and nerve, which are invaluable to a pilot when on long flights. Also, and this was of importance, Lieut. Conneau had a natural cheerfulness of disposition which carried him without irritation ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... Granger for a fisher of men; greed had sent him into the South Florida land business. His bland self-possession, his impressive physique, his confidence-winning voice and bearing constituted a profitable stock in trade. In the slang of his craft—shall we say "graft"?—he "played the church game strong." Under the sway of his hypnotic personality God-fearing, bank-fearing old couples brought forth hidden wealth to place ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... spite of the lack of most which money buys; in spite of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her devotion to her father, Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and stronger. At fourteen her physique was that of superb womanhood. She had inherited her body wholly from her father. For generations back, the Millers had been marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six feet tall, and magnificently made; and the women were much above the average ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... paying their passages to that country from Australia. Then, on arrival, they have to arrange the important matter of engaging native carriers to take their outfit to the Mambare River gold-fields—a tedious and expensive item. And only experienced men of sterling physique can stand the awful labour and hardships of gold-mining in the Possession. Deadly malarial fever adds to the diggers' hard lot in New Guinea, and the natives, when not savage and treacherous, are as unreliable and as lazy as ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... querulous. In particular, he loathed the foreman, a pious humbug who allowed no swearing, but indulged in something far more degraded—the Cockney repartee. The London intellect, so pert and shallow, like a stream that never reaches the ocean, disgusted him almost as much as the London physique, which for all its dexterity is not permanent, and seldom continues into the third generation. His father, had he known it, had felt the same; for between Mr. Elliot and the foreman the gulf was social, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... be a strong, healthy boy. He had Daniel's physique and Eleanore's eyes. Yes, they were the eyes with that blue fire; and they had Eleanore's elfin-like chastity and her hatred of all that is false and simulated. Daniel saw in this a freak of nature of the profoundest significance. All the laws of blood seemed unsubstantial and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... which they roam, and have become surer-footed and more active and durable. Conditions and circumstances which in a few generations effect desirable changes in horses will assuredly be influential in respect of the physique and stamina and moralities of man. North Queensland will establish a type, just as Tierra del Fuego did many centuries since, and the type will be that which is best fitted to maintain itself. It will be brown of complexion, hardy and alert. North Queensland is expansive ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... of Memphis, who had been warm friends for years, happened to be opposing counsel in a case some time ago. The older of the two was a man of magnificent physique, almost six feet four, and built in proportion, while the younger was barely five feet and weighed not more than ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... Saxon-Norman blood, had the vigorous and comely physique of that race. Nowhere else in the land were the generality of white men and women so fine-looking. Easy circumstances had enabled them to become gracious as well, with the dignified and pleasing manners characterizing Southern society before the Civil War. High intelligence was another racial ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... shadow, accentuating the anatomical structure with rough and angular decision, give the effect of illustrative diagrams to his studies. Harmony of proportion and the magic of expression are sacrificed to energy emergent in a powerful physique. Redundant life, in sinewy limbs, in the proud carriage of the head upon the neck, in the sway of the trunk backward from the reins, the firmly planted calves and brawny thighs, the thick hair, broad shoulders, spare flanks, and massive gluteal muscles of a man of twenty-two or upwards, whose ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... Edge Partington helped me in arranging and dealing with the things which I had brought back to the British Museum. Dr. Keith examined and reported upon some skulls which I had obtained, and advised me upon my notes on physique. Dr. Stapf helped me in matters of botanical identification; Mr. S.H. Ray has given me the full benefit of his wide knowledge of South Pacific linguistics, and has written the appendices to the book. And, finally, Dr. Haddon has very kindly ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... 'my whisker.' It is the true type of a great number of stories which originated in the Southern and South-Western United States, the point of which almost invariably turns on vexing, grieving, or maltreating some victim, who is an inferior as regards wit, fortune, or physique. It is worth remarking that the only really original and characteristic class of jokes which the slave States originated are strongly marked with that cruelty and vulgarity which naturally attend the morbidly vain and semi-civilized man, who is so unfortunate as to have inferiors by fortune ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... makes the center and cynosure of this thrilling scene. Taller by a whole head than either his companions or the sentries, Payne, the assassin, sits erect, and flings his barbarian eye to and fro, radiating the tremendous energy of his colossal physique. ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... stretched out in a big arm-chair in front of the fire. His eyes were closed, but Patty saw he was not asleep, as he was slowly smoking a cigar. Patty saw him sidewise, and she stood for a second contemplating the handsome profile and the fine physique of the man, who looked especially graceful in his careless ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... captive should offer to face single handed an animal that was known to be one of the most powerful of those in the amphitheatre filled them with admiration. Accustomed as they were to gaze at athletes, they were struck with the physique and strength of this young Briton, with the muscles standing up massive and knotted through ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... not so good as I would have desired, and although I am in the evening of life, I realize that I have not yet "finished my course." There is still much more for me to do in this sorrowful, sin-cursed world. God has, among other blessings, given me a strong physique. By his unmerited power I am keeping the faith, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood must have rebelled at such ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... relied upon for regular attendance at the wharfs and loading-stages. They have learnt, however, to take an occasional taste of the rakivodka spirit, and when reminded that they are Mohammedans, say that the indulgence was prohibited when no one worked hard. These porters are men of powerful physique, and display very great strength in bearing separate burdens; but they cannot work together and make a joint effort to raise heavy loads, beyond the power of one man. Singly, they are able to lift and carry eighteen poods, ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon

... the land of their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, and not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every intelligent black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our author himself would be regarding his in the following hypothetical case: Some fine day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, sets up an establishment, and becomes ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... August 1914 the Germans numbered 250. But they were soon eliminated, and their places for the most part filled by Englishmen, the smelters from Middlesbrough importing not only their fine Yorkshire physique and dialect, but their ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... calm, and not too handsome, thanks to the ocean." The last phrases are peculiarly true of Clive Winthrop, who is sometimes called the ugliest man in Washington, yet who commands attention in any room that he enters because of his fine physique, his noble head, and his distinction of bearing and speech. Rugged he is, "thanks to the ocean," but he looks as if he could swim against the strongest current. On the other hand, it cannot be said that Dolly Valentine varies. She is lovely at breakfast, lovelier at luncheon, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... intelligence nor life in matter; and find neither pleasure [25] nor pain therein. The Master's practical knowledge of this grand verity, together with his divine Love, healed the sick and raised the dead. He literally annulled the claims of physique and of physical law, by the superiority of the higher law; hence his decla- [30] ration, "These signs shall follow them that believe;... if they drink any deadly thing, it shall ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... dash of the Khalifa's mounted men was superb. So it came about that after Omdurman the Sirdar decided to reinforce the Egyptian cavalry with a newly raised squadron or two composed entirely of Blacks. Ex-dervishes of suitable smartness and physique were permitted to join the new body, the ranks of which were filled in a very short time, for hundreds eagerly volunteered. The accounts I have since heard of the 1st Black Cavalry are eminently favourable. There ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... three hundred books, and it was well patronized. We asked for more books and a reading room, to which I shall refer again. Our battalion had recruited to its full strength, viz., the full complement of officers and 800 rank and file. The average age in the regiment was twenty, physique all that could be desired, and with careful and progressive training, we hoped to be amongst the finest regiments in H.M. service. Having no gymnasium, the only means of training was the usual drill. The sport season opened with spring, and we commenced playing cricket on Good ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... door of the room where the dancing was done a confused uproar overflowed, as if several men of powerful physique were banging a number of pokers against a number of saucepans, and blowing whistles, and occasional catcalls, and now and then beating a drum and several sets of huge cymbals, and ceaselessly twanging at innumerable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various

... recruited ranks, were brought to Aunt Cornelia and Pap John. When Jeff married his fourth wife—Zulena Spivey, a powerful, vital, affluent creature, of an unusual type for the mountains,—and the children (there were nine of them by this time) went to live with their step-mother, whose physique and disposition promised a longer tenure than any of her predecessors, Pap and Aunt Cornelia sat upon the lonely hearth and assured each other with tears that never again would they take into their home and their lives, as their very ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... girl's school year be turning her mind towards the future and her work as a mature woman. In the summer she has time to assimilate all she has done, to get her bearings, and to plan wisely for the year, or years, to come. For a girl of strong physique the summer vacation gives an opportunity to add towards what she is going to do eventually; to specialize in some line of work, to take a library, or scientific, course. Many girls, however, who wish to spend their summer in this fashion ought not ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks

... indeed—some two or three years after the catastrophe—when he passed through a stage of mental and moral tumult, natural to a man of strong passions and physique. Even in their first married life, Phoebe had been sometimes jealous, and with reason. It was her memory of these occasions that had predisposed her to the mad suspicion which wrecked her. And when she had deserted him, he came violently near, on one or two occasions, to things base and irreparable. ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... big man, loose (in physique only of course), broad, and black-bearded, his face about the colour of a gun-stock. We called him by the nickname he bore {304} (he bore it very good-naturedly), because he had spent the years of his youth among the countless little ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... passions, and hopes. It struck me that Mr. Gladstone was the victim of suppressed excitement and overstrained nerves, and that it was only the splendid masculine will, the great strength of his fine physique, which kept him ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... toujours le meme, ne produit plus aujourd'hui les memes effets qu'il produisait ci-devant sur les Suisses, parce qu'ayant perdu le gout de leur premiere simplicite, ils ne la regrettent plus quand on la leur rappelle. Tant il est vrai que ce n'est pas dans leur action physique qu'il faut chercher les plus grand effets des ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... of the man and of his will. That he preached and dragged a man from the depths of hell by day and deliberately descended into infernal abysses by night, was but another revelation of the wild, inconsistent humors which tore his soul, Youth and indomitable physique gave him as yet clear eyes and muscles of iron, for all he abused them, but the humors of his soul from ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... he said; "I ask no pity in that regard—and need none. Nature has given my brother a physique that would shame a Greek statue, but he and I ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... careful way across the debris, Kaydessa obeying his guidance in turn. Then they were on a sloping downward way which led to a staircase—the treads weather-worn and crumbling, the angle so steep Travis wondered if it had ever been intended for beings with a physique ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... his hat and stood waiting for the girl, whose motions were marvellously graceful, especially if her large and vigorous physique be considered. No sylph could have glided with less awkwardness, and yet a spindle more closely resembles the bole of a giant oak than Maggie Windsor the frail damsels who bent beneath the keen blasts of New ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... Inner Himalaya) as far as the Hindu Kush is separated from the Kashmiri population by language as well as by physical characteristics.... There is little in the Dard to enlist the sympathies of the casual observer. He lacks the intelligence, humour, and fine physique of the Kashmiri, and, though undoubtedly far braver than the latter, has none of the independent spirit and manly bearing which draw us towards the Pathan despite all his failings. But I can never see a Dard without thinking of the ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... vertebra in order to regulate the contraction of each muscular fasciculus according to the requirements of equilibrium. The trick is so easy that we have seen youths belonging to the Ligue d'Education Physique immediately imitate Mr. David after seeing him ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... "should have an equal start. If his father can endow him with a good physique and his mother with some common sense in his early education, that should be his heritage. If the father can't give him a good physique, if the mother has spent in chasing men the years in which she should have been preparing ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... task I am now performing to the best of my ability. I find the work a little trying. There is too much ledger-lugging to be done for my simple tastes. I have been hauling ledgers from the safe all the morning. The cry is beginning to go round, "Psmith is willing, but can his physique stand the strain?" In the excitement of the moment just now I dropped a somewhat massive tome on to Comrade Gregory's foot, unfortunately, I understand, the foot in which he has of late been suffering twinges of gout. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... of things behind them; where standards have at first no organized sanction. Financially Burlingame was honest enough, his defects being associated with those ancient sources of misconduct, wine and women—and in his case the morphia habit as well. It said much for his physique that, in spite of his indulgences, he not only remained a presentable figure but a lucky ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... rang the bell. In a few minutes Mary Woodruff appeared, bringing tea and biscuits. She was a neat, quiet, plain-featured woman, of strong physique, and with set lips, which rarely parted save for necessary speech. Her eyes had a singular expression of inquietude, of sadness. A smile seldom appeared on her face, but, when it did, the effect was unlooked for: it touched the somewhat harsh lineaments with a gentleness ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... A woman of generous physique was singing in a shrill, nasal voice a pathetic ballad. She sang without expression, bringing her hands with monotonous gestures alternately to her breast. Her squat, matronly figure, beef from the heels up, looked singularly absurd in her short skirt. Her face was excessively over-painted, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... to think," he said to himself one day, "that boys took their physique from their mothers an' their brains from their fathers, but it doesn't seem to have worked out like that with Henry. He doesn't seem to have got anything from me.... It's a rum business, whatever ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... likewise of our party; he was an American of the Brahman type, a child of Cambridge and Boston, a man of means, and an indefatigable traveller. He had the delicate health and physique of the American student of those days, when out-door life and games made no part of our scholastic curricula. He may have been forty years old, slight and frail, with a thin, clean-shaven face and ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... to Ethel as if her own dream had come true, for here indeed was a man of her own blood with stamina of physique and mental and moral courage, who professed and practiced all she had found that was good among the people of her enforced adoption and in addition much that, to her with her racial prejudice in his favor, seemed even better than the ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings

... running horse; he cannot produce cattle that are the best both for milk and beef. He is urged to try scientific breeding on the human race. How would he have man changed? Would he experiment for more intellect, or a bigger and stronger physique? Would he breed for art and civilization or would he breed for strength and physical endurance? What qualities are desirable for the human race? This would be a very hard question even to entrust to a popular vote. While the capacity of cattle to produce ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... fellow enough, and found no difficulty in turning the talk into other and more pleasant topics. The two, though so opposite in point of character and physique, were very good friends. Dale was a slim, lightly-built young fellow of eighteen, with a fair complexion and an open boyish face. He was a general favourite, and, though not athletically inclined, was always ready to assist in acting cox or kindred work. Max Durend ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... unconscious of the greatness of it as a bear. He could not remember that he had ever fully tried it. He never had lifted a weight when he had not known that, if necessary, he could lift a little more. His physique had fulfilled the promise of his sturdy youth, and he was as little aware that it, too, was remarkable as he was of the fact that men and women turned in admiration to look again at his dark, unsmiling face ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... believed the earth was real heaven and who strived to make it so. Notice the cast of superior intellectuality caused by devoting his time and mentality to natural thoughts, instead of allowing absurd civilized theories to take root in his expansive brain. Behold the magnificent physique, the result of the constant care and attention he gave to the machinery nature provided him with. Ah, me! such a noble being, and to think that there is not another piece of flesh and blood on earth at the present time to ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... Bill's Wild West aggregation as Eagle Wing—a youth who is credited with having given the renowned scout-showman more trouble than all his braves, bronchos and "busters" thereof combined. Being of superb physique and a daring horseman, Moreau had been forgiven many a peccadillo, and had followed the fortunes of the show two consecutive summers until Cody finally had to get rid of him as an ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... his retirement from the Board of the Birmingham Bank, he had a slight attack of paralysis, from which he never properly recovered. Others followed at intervals, with the result that his fine physique was completely broken up. In the first week of December, 1864, I spoke to him on the platform of the Great Western Railway at Snow Hill. He was being half carried to the train, on his way to the sea-side. He never returned to Birmingham, but died at Brighton, January 4th, 1865, being 73 ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... wanderings. He accepted the proposal upon condition that in his old age he should be returned home, and exchanged for a younger man of his blood. I agreed, provided one younger could be found who, besides the requisite physique and the virtues of intellect and courage, was also deaf and dumb, like himself. A treaty was thus perfected. I call it a treaty as distinct from a purchase, for Nilo was my friend and attendant—my ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... all this varied discipline is to develop physique, self-control, self-respect and what the Japanese call the spirit of association, or, as we might say, good fellowship. The spirit of association is needed in order to promote greater administrative, educational and social efficiency. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... universally esteemed as a wholesome and nutritious diet. In that pleasant work, Irving's "Astoria," a tribe of Indians are described who subsisted entirely on fish, whose rotund appearance contrasted strongly with the physique of their brethren of the forest. The profusion with which the finny tribes propagate their species is a peculiarity said to be imparted to those who partake freely and regularly of them for food, a supposition which would seem to be strongly supported by facts. Fishermen are proverbial for ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... wasn't there, but he left word for me that he and Rose were married, and he was going to take my advice and go home to his people. The office force said that with him was a girl of glorious Titian hair and super-physique, ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... been arguing the matter in a corner, now joined them. Loiseau, foaming with rage, was for delivering up "the hussy" bound hand and foot to the enemy. But the Count, coming of three generations of ambassadors, and gifted with the physique of the diplomatist, was on the side of skill ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... and to satisfy the expectations of his patrons, to apply himself to his studies with a perseverance and industry which came near undermining his health. He looked during his student days overworked, and if nature had endowed him with a less magnificent physique he would, no doubt, have succumbed to the strain of this perpetual over-exertion. But after his marriage a happy change came over him. The joyous substratum of his nature (what he himself called his pagan self) broke through its sombre integuments and asserted itself. No sooner had ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... all events, was not unfavourable to the highest brain development and physical force. Bismarck and Moltke are very great smokers; neither is a temperance man. In effect, I am inclined to think that tobacco and stimulants are hurtful mostly in the case of inferior organizations of brain physique, where their use is only a concomitant of baser indulgences, and uncontrolled by intelligence and will. I am quite in favour, therefore, of legislative interference, and almost inclined ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... In size and physique Rand was the average there. The young Mexican was the shortest, slightest man in the house. But none knows better than the dwellers in the North Woods that it is unwise to judge men by mere size of body. It is well to look to the eyes ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... the first generation born in this country, the Chapmans were men of grand physique. The five sons of Colonel Henry Chapman, of Point de Bute, each measured six feet or over, and were finely proportioned. Two of the sons, Joseph and Stephen, were among the volunteers in the war of 1812, and they both lived to ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... squatted there, huddled in coverings to the chin, and eying the darkness in a sort of despair. The feverish drive of Wall Street, late suppers, and too much good fellowship had not physically hardened Marche. He was accustomed to have his bath tempered comfortably for his particular brand of physique. Breakfast, also, was a most carefully ordered informality ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers

... we shall see further on, the magical effect of the Ring and the Lamp extend far and wide over the physique and morale of the owner: they turn a "raw laddie" into a ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... certain, the educated man has the advantage over the uneducated, and his abler mind will sooner or later be of use to him, although his physique may be weaker than the other's. The gently-nurtured individual finds the preliminary trials of colonial life very hard indeed—he is heavily handicapped at the start—but there is no reason why he may not do well after a time. Gentlemen-immigrants ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... wretched fragility. Poor thing! She has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a small, close room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins, candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive; and so, as she has hardly any physique, a poet like Mr. Miles Coverdale may be allowed to ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... for treating women of this sort like spoiled children; excesses, instead of killing them, fatten them, preserve them, renew their youth. Under a lymphatic appearance they have nerves which maintain their marvellous physique; they actually preserve their beauty for reasons which would make a virtuous woman haggard. No, upon my word, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a most appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless neighbour, and roused herself to ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... possibly a little afraid of him. He had the physique of a fighter and the presence of a man accustomed to exercise a crude authority. Their protests and warnings died down; and, after all, a man's life and death are very much his own ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... found him well on his feet. He was associated with old Peter Carhart, who was in those days a national figure. Carhart's physique was like a rough model for a statue of Hercules, and his record was just as solid—a pile made for the pure joy of it, without cheap extortion or shady scandal. He had been a great friend of Samuel's father, but he watched the son for six ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald



Words linked to "Physique" :   homo, build, chassis, organic structure, bodily property, soma, figure, shape, body type, person, material body, somebody, someone, habitus, soul, form, somatotype, physical structure, mortal, bod, human body, man, lankiness



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