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Scrutinize   Listen
verb
Scrutinize  v. t.  (past & past part. scrutinized; pres. part. scrutinizing)  To examine closely; to inspect or observe with critical attention; to regard narrowly; as, to scrutinize the measures of administration; to scrutinize the conduct or motives of individuals. "Whose votes they were obliged to scrutinize." "Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face the closest."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scrutinize" Quotes from Famous Books



... trees between the field and the forest and transmit the signals. If the report runs "All right," a score of cacadoos will separate from the bulk of the band, take a flight in the air, and then fly towards the trees nearest to the field. They also will scrutinize the neighbourhood for a long while, and only then will they give the signal for general advance, after which the whole band starts at once and plunders the field in no time. The Australian settlers ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... end, and Mr. Bragg began to get to the end of Mr. Puff's patience. As Puff got older he got fonder of his five-pound notes, and began to scrutinize bills and ask questions; to be, as Mr. Bragg said, 'very little of the gentleman'; Bragg, however, being quite one of your 'make-hay-while-the-sun-shines' sort, and knowing too well the style of man to calculate on a lengthened duration of office, just put on the steam of extravagance, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... at so doleful a destiny, I apply to this eternity all the powers of my mind; I examine and scrutinize it in all its parts; and I survey, as it were, its whole dimensions. Moreover, to express it in more lively colors, and to represent it in my mind more conformably to the senses and the human understanding, I borrow comparisons from the Fathers of the ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... or Europe? Do we see, in their monuments and remains of art, increments of a pre-existing state of advance, or refinement, in the human family, in other parts of the globe? It is confessed, that in order to answer these enquiries, we must first scrutinize the several epochs of the nations with whom we are to compare them, and the changes which they themselves have undergone. Without erecting these several standards of comparison, no certainty can attend the labor. All nations and tribes upon the face of the globe, whom we can make ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... great to scrutinize the phenomenon closely; but they could see that a black volume of smoke issued either from its mouth or the top of its head, while it was drawing behind it a sort of carriage, in which a single man was seated, who appeared to control ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... stood, struggling to recover his breath and to regain sufficient calmness to deliver his message in proper form to the great Chief of the Blackfeet confederacy. While he stood thus struggling with himself Cameron took the opportunity to closely scrutinize his face. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... drove up an avenue of firs - did he scan the windows of the house, and immediately determine in his own mind which was HER window, oblivious to the fact that SHE might sleep on the other side of the building? did he, as they pulled up at the door, scrutinize the female figures who were there to receive them, and experience a feeling made up of doubt and certainty, that there was one who, though not present, was waiting near with a heart beating as anxiously as his own? did he make wild remarks, and return ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... Nature's ways, using Nature in this sense of the repudiation of expedients. Man is the tool-using animal, the word-using animal, the animal of artifice and reason, and the only possible "return to Nature" for him—if we scrutinize the phrase—would be a return to the scratching, promiscuous, arboreal simian. To rebel against instinct, to rebel against limitation, to evade, to trip up, and at last to close with and grapple and conquer the forces that dominate him, is the fundamental being of man. And from the very outset of ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... faithful depositories of political information than Boyer's partial publication. The spirited opposition to sir Robert Walpole excited an unprecedented anxiety in the nation to learn the internal proceedings of parliament. This wish on the part of constituents to know and scrutinize the conduct of their representatives, which to us appears so reasonable a claim, was regarded in a different light by our ancestors. But the frown of authority in the reign of George the second began to have less power to alarm a people whose minds were ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... over the candle to scrutinize the shading of her silks, the hollow sound of hoofs broke upon the silence, and in a minute afterwards ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... whole population into ten tribes in place of the existing four, with the object of intermixing the members of the different tribes, and so securing that more persons might have a share in the franchise. From this arose the saying 'Do not look at the tribes', addressed to those who wished to scrutinize the lists of the old families. Next he made the Council to consist of five hundred members instead of four hundred, each tribe now contributing fifty, whereas formerly each had sent a hundred. The reason why he did not organize ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle

... have all been duly collated, labelled and stamped, processes which should precede cataloguing them, they are next ready for the cataloguer. His functions having been elsewhere described, it need only be said that the books when catalogued and handed over to the reviser, (or whoever is to scrutinize the titles and assign them their proper places in the library classification) are to have the shelf-marks of the card-titles written on the inside labels, as ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... author in some provincial town composed a volume, he was bound in the first instance to submit the MS. to the censor appointed by the bishop and Inquisitor of his district. This man took time to weigh the general matter of the work before him, to scrutinize its propositions, verify quotations, and deliberate upon its tendency. When the license of the ordinary had been obtained, it was referred to the Roman Congregation of the Index, who might withhold or grant their sanction. So complicated was the machinery, and so vast the pressure upon the officials ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... visits to your young lady; I will order her certain potions, and at the end of eight days she will make acquaintance with Aspires Cemetery. In the villages, a death passes like a letter through the post-office, while at Paris they scrutinize too closely. But when will you send your country girl to the island, so that I can advise the Martial what part they have to play?' 'She will arrive to-morrow, and the day after she will be there,' answered ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... the second great figure in the history of the time. He has obtained the immortality which he so much desired, and we are, therefore, entitled and obliged to scrutinize his conduct with a niceness which would be ungracious and unnecessary in the case of a less distinguished man. After Pharsalia he had concluded that the continuance of the war would be unjustifiable. He had put himself in communication with Antony and Caesar's ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... scrutinize him too strictly; perhaps I am prejudiced in my judgment by the very high idea I had form'd of the man whom Emily Montague could love. I will own to you, that I thought it impossible for her to be pleased with meer beauty; and I cannot even now change my opinion; I shall find some latent ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... eyes it, as though he half suspected that it would not be pleasant to the taste, for all its fair looks. But I'll have him, in spite of his wits. You scrutinize too closely, Sir Pike! You had better take it at once, without useless inspection. What a noble fellow! How gracefully he moves through the water! I will make it float carelessly away from him, dancing on the silver surface, as though ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... below a brow as pure as marble and crowned by powdered locks all spangled with pearls. Her slender waist too, which her hoop showed off to perfection, did not fail to make a vivid impression on my heart. I had the better leisure to scrutinize these adorable charms as she happened to face in my direction to deliver several important portions of her role. And the more I looked, the more I felt convinced I had seen her before, though I found ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France

... recent finished plan, then explained the different parts of it, and generally concluded by saying, with the greatest good humour, "Now see, man, let us try to find fault with it;" and thus, by putting two heads together, to scrutinize his own performance, some alteration was probably made for the better. But, whatever expense an instrument had cost in forming, if it did not fully answer the intended design, he would immediately say, after a little ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he said. "I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make could have ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... more like these frail shapes to be wafted by frail and slender hands; I seem to feel the quiet glitter of prisms hanging from huge chandeliers in a ball-room, as I look at them; for they become, if you do not scrutinize them too closely as works of art, rather as prismatic memories bathed in the light of that other time, when men and women now grandfathers and grandmothers were young and handsome boys and girls, seeking each other out in the fashion of polite beaus and belles, ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... idea of this; they have not studied the method of Nature. With the true artist, as with Nature herself, the more full the representation, the more profound and enchanting is the sense of mystery. We look and look, as on a flower of which we cannot scrutinize the secret life, yet b; looking seem constantly drawn nearer to the soul that causes and governs that life. But in the French pictures suffering is represented by streams of blood,—wickedness by ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... me more or less according to her mood; but she did not usurp my sitting-room again. I used to sit by the hour at the lantern window, in a sort of greasy blankness, like a meat pudding, and vacantly scrutinize the loiterers who passed by on the hot asphalt of the Parade. Screened by the window curtains, I could see and hear without endangering my own privacy; and many were the odd interchanges of speech that fell from strangers ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... Eunice and her lawyers stepped out and quickly closed the door behind them. Contrary to the expectations of many, she wore no veil and each person in the great throng was highly gratified at an opportunity to scrutinize her features thoroughly. A way was made for her through the great throng and she walked to the prisoner's seat holding to the arm ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... ship-time, she'd learned the game and played it absorbedly. Calhoun was able to scrutinize her without appearing to do so, and he was satisfied again. When he mentioned that the Med Ship should arrive off Dara in eight hours more, she put the cards away and went into the ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... as if shrinking from an avenging spirit, while the perfume, like opium, filled his brain with strange fantasies. He strove to drown remembrance, but some force—it seemed not his own!—drove him irresistibly to untie that ribbon, to scrutinize many old theater programs and to gaze upon a miniature in ivory depicting a woman in the loveliness of her charms, but whose striking likeness to the young actress he had just seen filled his heart with strange fear. Some power—surely it could not have been his will which rebelled strenuously!—impelled ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... said La Tour, "and bid you exercise it at your peril. Prove to me the authority which constitutes you my judge; which gives you a right to scrutinize the actions of a compeer; to hold in duresse the person of a free and loyal subject of our king;—prove this, and I may submit to your judgment, I may crave the clemency, which I now despise—nay, which I would not stoop to receive from ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... been taken. The public mind is roused; all, from the highest to the lowest, frequent the classes of Mr Hullah. Royalty itself deigns to listen. "THE DUKE" himself takes delight in the peaceful notes of Exeter Hall, and the Premier has found leisure, from the business and service of the State, to scrutinize the performance of "the classes." It must surely be a pleasant thing to sing to princes, warriors, and statesmen—all that the country holds most in honour, love, and reverence. The impulse thus given is felt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... herewith (under separate cover) Sammy Speir, who got mislaid when you paid your morning visit. Miss Snaith brought him to light after you had gone. Please scrutinize his thumb. I never saw a felon, but I have diagnosed it as ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... laid on the word "piano" caused me to scrutinize the article I was indicating more thoroughly. Up to this time, though utterly amazed at the entrance of these people into my chamber, and connecting them somewhat with the wild stories I had heard in the garden, I still had a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... addicted to slang and immoderately fond of noisy games. Burton tried to call him back to his mind. It was impossible to connect him in any way with the child whom, through a crack in the door, he could see standing upon a chair the better to scrutinize closely the few engravings which hung upon the wall. Without a doubt, a new responsibility in life had arrived. To meet it, Burton had a little less than two pounds, and the weekly money to send to Ellen within a few days. He took Alfred ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the fact that money has to be supplied to support them by the same men, or their agents, who vote it away in appropriations. Hence when there are extravagant and wasteful appropriations there must be a corresponding increase of taxes, and the people, becoming awakened, will necessarily scrutinize the character of measures which thus increase their burdens. By the watchful eye of self-interest the agents of the people in the State governments are repressed and kept within the limits of a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... soon drew near; and both were now seen to hop from rock to rock, and then upon the top of the tent, and one of them actually settled upon the edge of the pot, as it hung over the fire, and quietly looking into it, appeared to scrutinize its contents! ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... me, my cherished one! The tone of my letters wounds you! You can not comprehend how this matter of my personal appearance haunts me. I scrutinize it; I compare it with that of others. There is something of levity in that which hurts you? You ask how can I think a man attaches himself to these things, while the merits of mind and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the pillow, the lonely woman bent over to scrutinize the distorted, burning face, and softly took into her cool palms one hot and swollen hand, which in other days she had admiringly stroked, and tenderly pressed against her cheek and lips. How totally unlike that countenance, which, handsome as Apollyon, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... Pauline began to scrutinize half suspiciously this remarkable menial, but he kept stolidly at work at the potatoes, and his dark skin, his scraggly beard, his bagging trousers upturned over bare feet, his general dilapidation ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard

... missed. From time to time rumors were put in circulation as to the activities of the Executive Committee, which had been in continuous session since its appointment. An Examining Committee had been appointed to scrutinize the applicants. The number of the Executive Committee had been raised to twenty-six; a Chief of Police had been chosen, and he in turn appointed messengers and policemen, who set out in search of individuals wanted as door-keepers, guards, and so forth. Only registered members ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... the huge kitchen of the inn, and the German, having been presented with the passport signed by the general in command—where each traveler's name was accompanied by a personal description and a statement as to his or her profession—he proceeded to scrutinize the party for a long time, comparing the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... private room, and Mr. Dodge deposed the maid in order to bring in the dishes himself and scrutinize his enigmatical guest. In serving the meal the landlord invented countless pretexts to remain in the room. After a while Lynde began to feel it uncomfortable to have those sharp green eyes continually boring into the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... watched in silence the dark flood pouring from its natural archway in the face of the cliff. To their right the sandy shore seemed to spread away smoothly into the darkness, but before they could scrutinize their surroundings more closely a strange, sharp sound echoed through the vaulted roof of the vast cavern, ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon

... It was the last day of the races and he reached the course just as the betting was at its height and everybody's attention was concentrated on the event of the moment. At such time the crowd has no eyes for men, everyone is occupied with the horses. Mr. Gerzson therefore had plenty of time to scrutinize all who were present, but look as he would he could not ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... a thought of preventing the scheme I spoke of to-night?" The Egyptian leaned far across the table, the better to scrutinize the unanswering woman's face. Her eye met his with a steady intelligence ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... few tears shed when we steamed out of Frankfort two days ago on our way to home and freedom. It was wonderful to feel that we might talk above a whisper in the railway-carriage; amazing that we had not to scrutinize carefully every corner to be sure no spies lurked there, and most delightful of all to know that we had got beyond the reach of the Demon of the Burg-Strasse. Egotistically enough we went over in retrospect our anxieties, ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson

... undefinable and indescribable in his mind, it was not without some trepidation that he had separated himself from the horses and groped his way toward the object that had so much terrified his pony. He paused within a few feet of the object, and waited for the next flash of lightning to scrutinize the thing more closely before putting his hand upon it. But no flash came, and he grew tired of standing. He stooped down, so as to bring the upper portion of it in a line with the sky beyond, but still he could not make it out. He ventured still nearer, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... Let us scrutinize this matter, however, a little more minutely, and we shall be compelled to acknowledge, though the conclusion may make against ourselves, that the objection vanishes when we fairly and accurately investigate the circumstances of the case. With this view, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... that afternoon, he made his slow progress along the Karntnerstrasse, halting now and then to scrutinize the crowd. He even peered through the doors of shops here and there, hoping while he feared that the girl might be seeking employment within, as she had before in the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... spoke, to scrutinize the house and its approaches. Haggart Hall was a large and commonplace mansion, standing in the midst of spreading "grounds" and dull plantations, beyond which could be sometimes seen the tall chimneys of neighboring ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... evening in a cove of the river, sheltered by great mournful cypresses, and Henry and Shif'less Sol went out again to scrutinize the Spanish camp. They returned before midnight with unusual news. Alvarez with his whole force had turned from the Mississippi and had gone up a bayou about four miles. There he had landed some of his small cannon ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the good of the commonwealth? If he had been alone and escaped without further trouble, he would have thought of the matter afterward as of a crime recorded in the morning paper, with which he had no concern, except perhaps to scrutinize more sharply ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... more than a surmise, it is true, but it was a beginning) that in his relations to Rose he'd never disciplined himself at all. The network of his instincts, passions, desires, that had involved her, had been allowed to grow unchecked, unscrutinized. He didn't begin to scrutinize them now. He was in no mind for the task. How could he undertake it until the fearful hope that he was actually on the way to her now should have been answered one way ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... Who would scrutinize the dying flickers of last summer's flirtation? All that mattered was only too well seen ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... away his cigar and turned to scrutinize her. "I don't see—hanged if I do. What business is it of any of ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... must be seen and felt; and we would ask in what way does it exert itself? Does the bank use its money in the elections? If so, its accounts must show it; and as there are men of all parties who own, or may own, shares in the stock, let those who suspect this abuse scrutinize those accounts for the purpose of detecting it. But those who manage the banks, know very well, and so do those who accuse them, that nine-tenths, or rather ninety-nine hundredths of the stockholders, would not have ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... thunder. Then he made a pause, a very long one. Josiah Crawford turned around in great surprise; and Aunt Olive planted the chair in which she had been sitting at a different angle, so that she could scrutinize the reader. ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... brown with last year's heather, feeling upon my face a wind from the white-flecked Channel. So intense was my delight in the beautiful world about me that I forgot even myself; I enjoyed without retrospect or forecast; I, the egoist in grain, forgot to scrutinize my own emotions, or to trouble my happiness by comparison with others' happier fortune. It was a healthful time; it gave me a new lease of life, and taught me—in so far as I was teachable—how to make ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... undertone of our life, coming up out of the mines and factories, and out of every home where the struggle had its intimate and familiar seat. With the great Government went many deep secret things which we too long delayed to look into and scrutinize with candid, fearless eyes. The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... easily baffled, and he determined to scrutinize every shelf, of this particular section in turn. With the aid of one of those step-ladders folding into a chair which you sometimes see in libraries, he examined the topmost shelves but without result. ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... the sniper had been carefully removing straw and tobacco leaves from an irregular hole in the brick wall. Here he set up the telescope and settled himself to scrutinize that part of the German line which lay directly opposite. After a few minutes' observation he began to clear away another and smaller opening, to the right of and below that where the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... or buckle back, or strike as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs caught at their clothing, and tore Bob's hands. Jack Pollock seemed familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the stuff, for he suffered little damage. Indeed, he even found leisure, as Bob soon discovered, to scrutinize his companion with a covert curiosity. In the eyes of the countryside, Bob had been "fired," and had been forced to take a job rangering. When the entangling strand had been laid along the ground by the newly planted cedar posts, it became necessary to ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... yet, on the cliffs," said the skipper, who had continued to scrutinize the northern headland. "No watch above; no sign of any one or any camp below. Must all be around on the far side. We'll clear the point, and run in through the first break in ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... as incoherent fetichisms, so barren, it has been said, in grand or beautiful creations. The task bristles with difficulties. Carelessness, prepossessions, and ignorance have disfigured them with false colors and foreign additions without number. The first maxim, therefore, must be to sift and scrutinize authorities, and to reject whatever betrays the plastic hand of the European. For the religions developed by the red race, not those mixed creeds learned from foreign invaders, are to be the subjects of our study. Then will remain the formidable undertaking ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... look at your ancestors? They are all from the Orzos. If you scrutinize their faces you will recognize in them your father, yourself, and your grandfather; and if you ever read their documents, which were left to us—there they are in the box—then you will know that they are just the same material as we are. Their way of thinking was the same as ours and so were ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... impelled towards it. Let us not yet scrutinize too closely the main impelling forces. Few human actions originate solely in what we try to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... increase and aggravate the disease. Whenever then I busy myself with such considerations as these, I try also to curtail my curiosity. For to scrutinize and pry into everything too minutely, and to overhaul every business of a servant, or action of a friend, or pastime of a son, or whisper of a wife, produces frequent, indeed daily, fits of anger, caused entirely by peevishness and harshness of character. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... betrayed some warning of himself. He was the more convinced as the stranger, after continuing a few paces ahead of the coach, allowed it to pass him at a curve of the road, and slackened his pace to permit Key to do the same. Instinctively conscious that the stranger's object was to scrutinize or identify him, he determined to take the initiative, and fixed his eyes upon him as they approached. But the stranger, who wore a loose brown linen duster over clothes that appeared to be superior in fashion ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... she was slowly untying her turban. No sooner, however, was the curiosity of the travellers gratified, than a demand of two hundred kowries was insisted on by her companion, that, it was alleged, being the price paid in the interior by the male sex to scrutinize a lady's hair. They were obliged to conform to the usual custom, at which the women expressed themselves highly delighted. The hair, which had excited the admiration of the travellers, was made up in the shape of a hussar's helmet, and very ingeniously traced on the top. Irregular figures ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... chateau, received a certain patronage from noble lords and ladies. This trade had given the proprietor such an opinion of his hostelry that common folk were not wont to be overwhelmed with welcome. In the present instance the man showed a disposition to scrutinize too closely the modest attire of the new-comers and the plain housings of their chargers, when the curt voice of the jester recalled him sharply from this ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Mr. Pulcifer assured him to that effect. But Raish was still uncertain just how to proceed. He continued to puff and scrutinize. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... Kamchatka if necessary,—to pose the Justice, cross-examine Mrs. Bargrave, confront the sober and understanding kinswoman, and dig Mrs. Veal up from her grave, rather than not get to the bottom of the story. But in our time we doubt and scrutinize; our ancestors ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... which society has too often had in store for the reformer; the fate which Sokrates and Savonarola, Vanini and Bruno, have suffered for being wiser than their own generation. Messianic adventurers had already given much trouble to the Roman authorities, who were not likely to scrutinize critically the peculiar claims of Jesus. And when the chief priests accused him before Pilate of professing to be "King of the Jews," this claim could in Roman apprehension bear but one interpretation. ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... papers rapidly, pausing here and there to scrutinize more closely a signature which appeared to interest him. At length he pushed them aside with a dissatisfied frown, as if he had been looking for something which ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... and out of that rationally determined depth, neither increased for ostentation of effect, nor diminished for ostentation of skill, to do the utmost that will be easily visible to an observer, supposing him to give an average human amount of attention, but not to peer into, or critically scrutinize the work. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... eyes intently upon the waves, and upon the sailors battling against them. Ere long they see the body rise again to the surface. Floated on a powerful wave, they can for the few moments breathlessly scrutinize it. The color of the dress is observed. A face of agony upturned displays a peculiar contour of forehead; the hair, the beard; and now he struggles—an arm is thrown up, and a remarkable ring catches the Colonel's eye. "Great heavens! The whole description tallies!" ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... duke, his enemy Apocaucus, at the head of a superior power by sea and land. Driven from the coast, in his march, or rather flight, into the mountains of Servia, Cantacuzene assembled his troops to scrutinize those who were worthy and willing to accompany his broken fortunes. A base majority bowed and retired; and his trusty band was diminished to two thousand, and at last to five hundred, volunteers. The cral, [28] or despot of the Servians received ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... general reliability of the newspapers and magazines that he reads; he must expect bias in historians, and must measure the extent of it as well as he can by studying their biographies and by observing their care in regard to data and logic; he must scrutinize very critically the ideas of the world's greatest essayists and dramatists. If a philosopher, like Rousseau, offers brilliant truths on one page, and equally brilliant perversions of truth on the next page, the student ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... Ditmar's aplomb, his faculty of getting what he wanted, had amused and distracted her. She was growing calmer, able to scrutinize, at first covertly and then more boldly the people at the other tables, only to discover that she and Ditmar were not the objects of the universal curiosity she had feared. Once in a while, indeed, she encountered and then avoided the glance of some man, felt the admiration ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that day after day might pass before any forward movement was commenced, and that it might be weeks before Springfield or even Lebanon could be reached. It was my wish, moreover, to see what I could of the people, rather than to scrutinize the ways of the army. We dined at the tent of General Ashboth, and afterward rode his horses through the camp back to Rolla, I was greatly taken with this Hungarian gentleman. He was a tall, thin, gaunt man of fifty, a pure-blooded Magyar a I was told, who had come ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... and drag all else after. It has been my lot to look at life from the cab-windows, from the point of view of the man with the grimy hand and the soiled jacket. While Sir Edwin has been contemplating with dreamy interest the faraway purple hills, I have been compelled to scrutinize less giant objects closer at hand; hence it is not strange that my opinion of the world should differ somewhat from that entertained by the speculative author of "The Light of Asia." In brief Sir Edwin knows all about the beauty, wealth ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... acknowledged, and they never will acknowledge, that it can be just for some people to live always in idleness, and for other people to fast and toil incessantly; but at first they are amazed and insulted by this; then they scrutinize it more attentively, and, seeing that these arrangements are recognized as legitimate, they endeavor to free themselves from toil, and to take part in the idleness. Some succeed in this, and they become just such carousers themselves; others gradually prepare themselves for this state; others ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi

... to his matter; he has striking force of diction, and many of his sentences roll on the ear like the sound of the distant sea, while the thoughts they convey impress us so vividly that we are slow to scrutinize them. His great merit lies in the two departments of morals and criticism, but everywhere he is inconsistent and unequal. His Dictionary occupied him for eight years, but it is of little value now to the student of language, being poor and incorrect in etymology and unsatisfactory though acute ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... no one feels the necessity of apology either for ruthless aggression or for useless blood-letting; the scene is reported as it was presented to the eye of the spectator, not to his moralizing faculty. He is expected to see and to sing, not to scrutinize and meditate. In those rare cases in which a moral inference is drawn, it is always so obvious and elementary that it gives the impression of having been fastened on at the end of the song, in deference to ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards

... they had been north to breed was undoubted, by the number of young "calves" in every shoal. The affection between mother and young was very evident; for occasionally some stately white whale would loiter on her course, as if to scrutinize the new and strange objects now floating in these unploughed waters, whilst the calf, all gambols, rubbed against the mother's side, or played about her. The proverbial shyness of these fish was ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... but he did the same with his bread, his meat, and everything he ate. He would hold a piece on his fork to the light, scrutinize it microscopically, and only after long deliberation decide to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... wheeled and hurried along the trail, with the loping, noiseless trot which could be maintained without distress from rise of morn till set of sun. He did not scrutinize the earth directly at his feet, but glanced several rods in front. He could readily detect the trail that far, and was thus enabled to keep keen watch of his surroundings, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... liquidation of values, theories and institutions we are bound therefore to scrutinize each operating agency of human society, to see wherein it has failed and how it can be bettered, and the problem before us now is the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... this book is to get you to think and to examine and pry into the past history of Catholicism, and when you have examined the pages of Catholic history and then scrutinize her present, you must know that her future promises no more than her past and present would indicate ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... which was so awe-inspiring, I shuddered in terror, and commenced to scrutinize the crone more narrowly. "Come now," said OEnothea, "obey my orders," and, carefully wiping her hands, she bent over the cot and kissed me, once, twice! On the middle of the altar OEnothea placed an old table, upon which she ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... to be uneasy, and cast frequent glances behind him. In a moment the vehicle was within a short distance of them, and he stopped short in the road to scrutinize the persons in it. ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic

... Mrs. Beauchamp: "I know my duty too well to scrutinize your conduct. Be assured, my dear father, your happiness is mine. I shall rejoice in it, and sincerely love the person who contributes to it. But tell me," continued she, turning to Charlotte, "who is this lovely girl? Is she your ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... If you will scrutinize the ground you will see the imprint of their hobnailed boots. They stood facing each other, just as you and I are doing at this moment. All at once they turned facing the trail and took a step ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower

... to the hundreds of young people in this house this morning, before you give your heart and hand in holy alliance, use all caution; inquire outside as to habits, explore the disposition, scrutinize the taste, question the ancestry, and find out the ambitions. Do not take the heroes and the heroines of cheap novels for a model. Do not put your lifetime happiness in the keeping of a man who has a reputation for being a little loose in morals or in the keeping of a woman who dresses ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... own experience. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" rang false to a member of the 26th Division. Quiet stories of idyllic youth in New England towns jarred upon the memories of a class-conscious youngster in modern New York. Youth began to scrutinize its own past, and then to write, with a passionate desire to tell the real truth, all of it, pleasant, unpleasant, or ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... did not leave off until he had overhauled the whole pile. There was nothing but ashes and embers. Whereupon he ran to the empty corrals, to the sheds, to the wood-pile, to the spring, and all around the space once so habitable. There was nothing to reward his fierce energy—nothing to scrutinize. Already grass was springing in the trails and upon spots that had ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... the proverbial ace of spades. Once I ventured to insinuate that perhaps it would be more nobly new to say "as black as the proverbial ace of proverbial spades," but the suggestion left her at peace with her custom. Well, when I got to her house last week, and had a chance to scrutinize the others, they did not look as if she had chosen ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... occurs to the patentee that a knowledge of the legal requirements of the transfer of patent rights would save him much time and trouble. Patentees should carefully scrutinize all papers offered by the parties in whose favor they are drawn, and, if possible, he should have his ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee

... the "Country" box on his right, and affected to scrutinize the addresses on the envelopes ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... think, think out, reflect, meditate on, deliberate, , CP: examine, penetrate, scrutinize, look closely into, : suppose: ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall

... 13th of May, 1607, were moored to the trees on the bank of the James River brought to the soil of America the germ of a Christian church. We may feel constrained to accept only at a large discount the pious official professions of King James I., and critically to scrutinize many of the statements of that brilliant and fascinating adventurer, Captain John Smith, whether concerning his friends or concerning his enemies or concerning himself. But the beauty and dignity of the Christian character shine unmistakable in the life of the chaplain to the expedition, the Rev. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... helping him retain his power. Any measure they desired passed by the legislature was first submitted to him, and he would prune it until he felt he could put it through without doing too great violence to public sentiment. The citizens at large do not scrutinize measures closely; they are too busy in their own vineyards to bother greatly about things which only remotely or indirectly ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... fear I am unjust to the Railway Company, for there was light enough for me to see, and in some measure scrutinize, the face of my fellow-passenger. I could discern a strong chin, and good, useful jaws; with a firm-lipped mouth, and a nose more remarkable for quantity than disposition of mass, being rather low, and very thick. It was surmounted by two brilliant, kindly, black eyes. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... is here," reiterated one of the speakers: "we insist on tangible proof of everything, of being able to see and feel it—to get our dollar's worth, in short. We weigh and measure and scrutinize, and discard as fusty and outworn, conduct and guides to conduct that do not promise six per cent per annum in ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... time, as a postman crossed from the opposite side of the street, as if to enter their shop—then passing on immediately, however, to the next door. Not a person, in short, entered the premises, whom he did not scrutinize narrowly and anxiously, but in vain. No—buying and selling was the order of the day, as usual!—Eleven o'clock struck, and he sighed. "You don't seem well," said a pretty young woman, to whom, in a somewhat absent manner, he was exhibiting and describing the qualities of some cambric. "Oh—ye—es, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... but the ordinary affections of human life; the anxious concern for happiness, the dread of future misery, the terror of death, the thirst of revenge, the appetite for food and other necessaries. Agitated by hopes and fears of this nature, especially the latter, men scrutinize, with a trembling curiosity, the course of future causes, and examine the various and contrary events of human life. And in this disordered scene, with eyes still more disordered and astonished, they see the first obscure traces ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... of unwarranted claims. Where the unions do not have an out-of-work benefit, there is always the chance that unemployed members will claim the sick benefit and that the local unions, aware that the money for the payment of the claim comes from the national union, will not scrutinize with any care the ...
— Beneficiary Features of American Trade Unions • James B. Kennedy

... fancy clung to me. There was no figure huddled up on its rude couch, none stretched at the road-side, none toiling languidly along the dusty pike, none passing in car or in ambulance, that I did not scrutinize, as if it might be that for which I was making my pilgrimage to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... you, my ideal! The creation of my thoughts, of my morning and evening dreams! What, are you there? Why this morning? Why not yesterday? Take me, I am thine, et cetera!' Good, I said to myself, another one! Then I scrutinize her. Ah, my dear fellow, speaking physically, my incognita is the most adorable feminine person whom I ever met. She belongs to that feminine variety which the Romans call fulva, flava—the woman of fire. And in chief, what struck me the most, what I am still ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac

... poetic garb The truth he found; while on his artless harp He touched the gentlest feelings, which the blaze Of winter's hearth warms in the homely heart. And oh! recall the look of faith sincere, With which that eye would scrutinize the page That tells us of offended God appeased By awful sacrifice upon the cross Of Calvary—that bids us leave a world Immersed in darkness and in death, and seek A better country. Ah! how oft that eye Would turn on me, with pity's tenderest look, And, only half-upbraiding, bid me flee From the ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... he not foreseen this situation when, weighing the pro and con like an intelligent man who can scrutinize the future under all its phases, he had examined what must happen? But surprising as it was, the discovery was no less certain, and the sad and troublesome proof was that, however intelligent one may be, one ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... discovered there?" said the girl, rising and coming nearer, to stoop over the table and scrutinize ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... large appropriations to objects for which they never would have provided had it been necessary to raise the amount of revenue required to meet them by increased taxation or by loans. We are now compelled to pause in our career and to scrutinize our expenditures with the utmost vigilance; and in performing this duty I pledge my cooperation to the extent of my ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... a property lute. While they scrutinize it, a broad man with broad leathery clean-shaven face and small mouth, occupied by the butt end of a cigar, has come on to the stage from Stage Left, and stands waiting ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Critick distinguished above, an early ornament to letters, and now a worthy dignitary of the church, leaving vain comments, and idle disputes on the title of the work, sagaciously directed his researches to scrutinize the work itself; properly endeavouring to trace and investigate from the composition the end and design of the writer, and remembering the axiom of the Poet, to whom his friend ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... fumbled in an inside pocket for a package of matches carefully wrapped against possible damage by rain. Presently he struck one and held the light in the direction of The Kid's face while he and the girl and Dopey Charlie leaned forward to scrutinize the ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... excavating his winter quarters in a dead limb or tree-trunk. I am walking along a trail or wood-road when I see something like coarse new sawdust scattered on the ground. I know at once what carpenter has been at work in the trees overhead, and I proceed to scrutinize the trunks and branches. Presently I am sure to detect a new round hole about an inch and a half in diameter on the under side of a dead limb, or in a small tree-trunk. This is Downy's cabin, where he expects to spend the winter ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... be the spirit in which we must scrutinize documentary evidence, with what eyes must we look upon traditions—traditions wherein the record, instead of being permanently registered, is transmitted from mouth to mouth, from father to son, from the old ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham

... know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God,' These words, I take it, show abundantly that it is unlawful for men to scrutinize the will of majesty." (E. 228; St. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... turned his head to scrutinize, one by one, the statues in the corners. No doubt they were beautiful—for this was a department in which he was all humility—and one of them, the figure of a broad-browed, stately, though thick-waisted woman, bending slightly forward and with both ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... advantage. There was a sort of exaggeration and coxcombry in his talk; but his lion-heart, and keen sense of the ludicrous, alike in himself as in others, redeem them. I should not like to have my motives scrutinized as he would scrutinize them, for I prefer rather to disclose them myself than to be found out; but I was dissatisfied in parting from this remarkable man before having seen ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... to scrutinize the first, he would learn that nothing was amiss and would let the rest go ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... scenes, Ruth could remember nothing in his manner but a sort of invigorating, friendly bluntness, totally at variance with the peculiarities of the "lady's man" that Louis had insinuated he was accounted. She resolved to scrutinize him ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... in pies and muffins by the average observer than in its native thickets, unfortunately ripens in fly-time, when the squeamish boarder in the summer hotel does well to carefully scrutinize each mouthful. For the abundant fruit set on huckleberry bushes, as on so many others, we are indebted chiefly to the lesser bees, which, receiving the pollen jarred out from the terminal chinks in the anther-sacs on their undersides as they cling, transfer it to the protruding stigmas ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... eight big ones, each packed with Venetians who really do enjoy a play while it is in progress, and really do enjoy every minute of the interval while it is not. When the lights are up they eat and chatter and scrutinize the other boxes; when the lights are down they follow the drama breathlessly and hiss if any one dares to whisper a word ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... and I will neither declare it unto men nor tell it unto the gods. I have come, being the envoy of Ra, to stablish Maat upon the arm at the shining of Neith in the city of Mentchat and to adjudge the eye to him that shall scrutinize it. I have come as a power through the knowledge of the Souls of Khemennu (Hermopolis) who love to know what ye love. I know Maat, which hath germinated, and hath become strong, and hath been judged, and I have joy in passing judgment upon the things which are to be judged. Homage ...
— Egyptian Literature

... the eternal mind, and the same by which empiricism explains the composition of the human mind out of subordinate mental elements, is not one which we ought to let pass without scrutiny. I shall scrutinize it in ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... find a certain fulfillment of their nature when they embark upon a contest. What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index to his desires—desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... while driving home from the city, my car was held up in Piccadilly for a few seconds. Looking idly out at the passing crowd, I saw a Chinaman in European clothes. He was waiting to cross the road, so I was able to scrutinize him carefully, and, owing to a scar on the left side of his face, recognized him. His name is Wong Li Fu, a Manchu of the Manchus, a mandarin of almost imperial lineage. Some years ago he was a young attach at the Chinese Embassy here. Suddenly, while ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... Commencing now to scrutinize the two hypotheses respecting the genesis of these multitudinous bodies, I may first remark concerning that of Laplace, that he might possibly not have propounded it had he known that instead of four such bodies there are hundreds, if not thousands. The supposition that they resulted from the breaking ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... credit to one or other of these two firms." The blow had struck home, and Danglars was entirely vanquished; with a trembling hand he took the two letters from the count, who held them carelessly between finger and thumb, and proceeded to scrutinize the signatures, with a minuteness that the count might have regarded as insulting, had it not suited his present purpose to mislead the banker. "Oh, sir," said Danglars, after he had convinced himself of the authenticity ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere



Words linked to "Scrutinize" :   size up, scrutinise, canvas, inspect, scrutiny, see, scrutinizer, examine, analyse, audit, canvass



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