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Compression   /kəmprˈɛʃən/   Listen
Compression

noun
1.
An increase in the density of something.  Synonyms: compaction, concretion, densification.
2.
The process or result of becoming smaller or pressed together.  Synonyms: condensation, contraction.
3.
Encoding information while reducing the bandwidth or bits required.
4.
Applying pressure.  Synonym: compressing.



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"Compression" Quotes from Famous Books



... Only his sense of touch told him what was on the bottom. He wasn't afraid of grabbing a crab or an eel. All underwater creatures with any mobility at all get out of the way as fast as possible. He knew the compression wave caused by his movement would warn ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... With the compression of lip and significant shake of the head of a physician about to take in hand a hopeless case of illness, the justice made known to his two neighbors the text of the sheet of paper, on which Claude Odouart de Buxieres had written, in his coarse, ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... he answered, with great patience and politeness, "but with one instead of two. If the foot-brake had burned, as possibly it might, the compression of the gas in the cylinder could have been made to act as a brake. The steering-gear was in perfect order, which was the most important consideration in the circumstances, and I felt that I was undertaking a responsibility which the car and I together were well ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... skin was transparent and untinted, but the mouth was scarlet. The large long eyes of a changeful blue-gray, although limpid of surface, were heavy with the sadness of a sad spirit. Their natural fire was quenched just as the slight compression of her lips had lessened the sensuous fulness ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... suggestion for the effective compression and reduction of the Opera, and if my plan be accepted, DRURIOLANUS will earn the eternal gratitude of those who would like to hear all that is good in it, and to skip, as PALLADINO does, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various

... the motion of the blood through the arteries is impeded, whether it be by compression or infarction, or interception, there do the remote divisions of the arteries beat less forcibly, seeing that the pulse of the arteries is nothing more than the impulse or shock of the blood in ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... "See," thought he, "this boy has tasted his first scraggy morsel of life today, and already he talks like an old stager, and has, if I mistake not, been acting too. My respected chief," he apostrophized Sir Austin, "combustibles are only the more dangerous for compression. This boy will be ravenous for Earth when he is let loose, and very soon make his share of it look as foolish as yonder game-pie!"—a prophecy Adrian ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of steady desk work, every morning, of re-writing, compression, more compression, and the more or less mechanical work of technical revision, what a member of my family calls "cutting out the 'whiches'". The first thing to do each morning was to read a part of it over aloud, sentence by sentence, to try to catch clumsy, ungraceful phrases, overweights ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... apparatus isn't complicated. Between the diaphragm of the telephone receiver and that of the phonographic microphone is fitted an air chamber of adjustable size, open to the outer atmosphere by a small hole to prevent compression. I think," he added with a smile, "it will afford a pretty good means of collecting souvenirs of friends by preserving the sound of their voices through the telephone." For several ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... these amiable feelings, he should lose no time in decamping, for the game is wholly and irretrievably lost. Mr. Ryfe would have felt this, could he have seen the gestures of the woman he loved, while she tore his letter into shreds—could he have marked the carriage of her haughty head, the compression of her sweet, resolute lips, the fierce energy of her white, cruel hands. Maud paced the floor for some half-dozen turns, opened the window, arranged the bottles on her toilet-table, the flowers on her chimney-piece, even took ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... could see the bow of the ferryboat; the others could see nothing but the persons directly in front of them. When those in the front rank saw that the landing was very near they began to move forward; those just behind followed suit and so on to the rear. The result was that I saw a wave of compression, of the same sort as a sound-wave in air, move through the throng. The individual motions were forward but the wave moved backward. No better example of a wave of this kind could be devised. Now the actions ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... unintentionally injured by compression, is Hume's famous argument against miracles, of which the author was sufficiently proud to boast openly that in it he had discovered what 'will be useful, as long as the world endures,' as 'an everlasting check to all ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... populated countries of our era. As the earth grew old and humanity multiplied, peoples themselves became the greatest barriers to any massive migrations, till in certain countries of Europe and Asia the historical movement has been reduced to a continual pressure, resulting in compression of population here, repression there. Hence, though political boundaries may shift, ethnic boundaries scarcely budge. The greatest wars of modern Europe have hardly left a trace upon the distribution of its peoples. Only ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... mistake, sir," said the mathematician, with a penitent expression; "we ought to have subjected that peculiar skin to the action of a rolling machine. Where could my eyes have been when I suggested compression!" ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... it requires thought and compression, I can tell you—but I copy them out for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... had listened with a critical compression of the lips to this school-boy recitation, and by reason of his imperfect hearing had missed the marked realism of Stephen's tone in the English words, now said hesitatingly: 'By the bye, Mr. Smith (I know you'll excuse my curiosity), though your translation was unexceptionably ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... daughter. You went early, and secured good seats. Not three seats, simply, according to the needs of your party; but nearly five seats, for extra comfort. You managed it on the expansive principle. Well, the house was crowded. Compression and condensation went on all around you; but your party held its expanded position. A white-haired old man stood at the head of your seat, and looked down at the spaces between yourself, your wife ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur

... least, Nell," returned Dyke, with a compression of the lips. "I would hunt these scoundrels down without one cent reward. Nicholson was my friend, and a good one. He helped me once, when to do so was of great inconvenience to himself. It is my duty to see that his cowardly assassins are ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... in. wide and 9 in. deep, was placed in one end of each section, for its full height below the bridge seat, into which the next section keyed, and, when the temperature at the time of concreting was below 50 deg. Fahr., a compression joint was formed by placing a strip of heavy deadening felt, 2 ft. wide, on the end of the completed section next to the face and covering the remainder of the end with two ply of the felt and pitch water-proofing; ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Site of the Terminal Station. Paper No. 1157 • George C. Clarke

... precisely placed where the curved fangs may be inserted and the door held firmly closed. Also, the trap-door of a number of species is so designed as to be absolutely rain-proof, being bevelled and as accurately fitting a corresponding bevel of the tube as the setting of a compression valve of ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... then placed the mass in the square of St. Peter's, to the honor of Peter, Falconet, Carburi, and of Catherine, who may always, from her actions, be classed among illustrious men. It is to be observed, that in this operation the moss and straw that was placed underneath the rock, became by compression so compact, that it almost equalled in hardness the ball of a musket. Similar mechanical operations of the ancients have been wonderfully ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner

... effusions of a Boy, from his thirteenth year, employed, not in the acquisition of literary information, but in the more active business of life, must not be expected to exhibit any considerable portion of the correctness of a Virgil, or the vigorous compression of a Horace. Men are not, I believe, frequently known to bestow much, labour on their amusements; and these poems were, most of them, written merely to beguile a leisure hour, or to fill up the languid intervals of studies ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... of Nature; the subdued tones to which pathos and sentiment are limited can not express a tempest of the soul. The range between the piteous "no more but so," in which Ophelia compresses the heartbreak whose compression was to make her mad, and that sublime appeal of Lear to the elements of nature, only to be matched, if matched at all, in the "Prometheus," is a wide one, and Shakespeare is as truly simple in the one as in the other. The simplicity of poetry is not that of prose, nor its clearness ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... mental powers sometimes failed him in the memory of the cards; but being as intensely loyal to his friends as to his country, he never spoke to that effect. He only, when the little, trim, black-haired woman made a brilliant stroke of finesse, with a quick flash of her bright eyes and wise compression of lips, smiled privately, as if to himself, with face bent ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... sleepers, and in many places the sleepers had moved end-ways. When the line crossed a small depression in the general level of the plain, the whole of the track was bowed, as if the ground were permanently compressed at such places. "Effects of compression," says Professor Milne, "were most marked on some of the embankments, which gradually raise the line to the level of the bridges. On some of these, the track was bent in and out until it resembled a serpent wriggling up a slope.... Close to the bridges the embankments had generally disappeared, ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

... so-called, is of iron, cast in one piece, and is surmounted with a rectangular tank, F, in which constantly circulates the cold water designed for cooling the sides of the cylinder; these latter always tending to become heated through the compression ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... love, not quite so slender in the waist, fuller in the uncorsetted bust, more sloping of shoulder as though the pillared neck had fleshed somewhat at the base; the face, too, had gathered form and force, in the freer curve of her will-full jaw, in the sterner compression of fuller lips that told their tale of latent passions strangely bordering on the cruel, in the sweeter blending of Celt and Saxon shown in straight nose, strong cheek-bones and well-marked brows. She trod still with the swinging spring of the bill-people, erect and careless. Only ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... cooling water. It must be borne in mind, however, that allowance must be made for the rise of temperature of the water passing through the condenser, and also for the difference in temperature necessary in order to permit the transfer of heat from one side of the cooling surface to the other. In a compression machine the work applied to the pump may be accounted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... the more overpowering when it had at once surmounted all restraints. Large tears flowed down the trembling features of his thin, and usually stern, or at least austere countenance; he eagerly returned the compression of Everard's hand, as if thankful for the sympathy which ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... some scratches upon her delicate skin, and a slight pain caused by the compression to which she had been subjected in that hideous hug, no harm had befallen her—at least no injury that promised to be ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... of Ormond is considered as a book of authority; but it is ill-written. The matter is diffused in too many words; there is no animation, no compression, no vigour. Two good volumes in duodecimo might be made out of the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... represent the direction and intensity of the retarding action of the air, then we will find by constructing a parallelogram of forces that the resultant or combined effect of these two currents acts in the direction indicated by the dotted arrow, T. In other words, we have a sort of compression, or force of air, acting on the face of the ball in the direction indicated by the arrow, T. This force, as we can readily see, tends, when combined with the original impetus given to the ball, to deflect or cause time ball to curve in the direction of the dotted line, ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... it be! They have welded close the coop Wherein our luckless Frenchmen are enjailed With such compression that their front has shrunk From five miles' farness to but half as far.— Men say Napoleon made resolve last night To marshal a retreat. If so, his way Is by ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... have been the internal sufferings of the countess, they did not conquer her stoicism. She resumed her seat, and her lips were again sealed; their close compression and ashy hue alone told that the torture of the mental rack upon which she was stretched ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... The compression of Mr. Polly's mind and soul in the educational institutions of his time, was terminated abruptly by his father between his fourteenth and fifteenth birthday. His father—who had long since forgotten the time when his son's little limbs seemed to have come ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... a difference in value? Simply arrangement and compactness. Can we so enormously enhance the value of a bushel of charcoal by arrangement and compression? Not very satisfactorily as yet. We can apply almost limitless pressure, but that does not make diamonds. Every particle must go to its place by some law and force we have not ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... world's heart with its memory; Men shall believe me not, as they are base, Fools shall cry "hypocrite," as they dare judge The naked fervour of my struggling soul. God judge between us!—I am arm'd in this, Could'st thou have reign'd, not crushing English hearts With fierce compression of thine iron sway, Cromwell had liv'd contented and unknown To teach his children loyalty and faith Sacred and simple, as the grass-grown mound, That should have press'd more lightly on his bones, Than ever greatness ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... excellence to that secret and persevering labor to which he had so nobly submitted, and by which he had given additional tone and power to his mind itself, I am perfectly convinced. His mind did, now, indeed, appear in itself the superior one; it had such a power of compression and expansion, of versatility and strength, that it seemed capable of anything and everything that he pleased. It was astonishing with what rapidity and effect he would shift the color, shape, and attitude of the same object as the emergencies of his argument required. With what ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... every cent of it to my mother," replied Tom, with a compression of his fine lips and a flash of ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... and the skies most splendidly blue, they divine some far-off danger, like the gulls; and like the gulls also, you see their light vessels fleeing landward. These men seem living barometers, exquisitely sensitive to all the invisible changes of atmospheric expansion and compression; they are not easily caught in those awful dead calms which suddenly paralyze the wings of a bark, and hold her helpless in their charmed circle, as in a nightmare, until the blackness overtakes her, and the long-sleeping sea leaps up ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... to be not his own thought but God's revelation of His purpose, pointed first to the final blow which was to finish Pharaoh's resistance. He had been vacillating between compliance and refusal, like an elastic ball which yields to compression and starts back to its swelling rotundity as soon as the pressure is taken off. But at last he will collapse altogether, like the same ball when a slit is cut in it, and it shrivels into a shapeless lump. Weak people's obstinate fits end like that. He will be as extreme in his eagerness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... gas and took a run at the hill. She went up like a thoroughbred and died at the top, just when the road had dipped into the descent. Bud sent her down hill on compression, but at the bottom she refused to find her voice again when he turned on the switch and pressed the accelerator. She simply rolled down to the first incline and stopped there like a ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... first ramming a hole in the ground by repeatedly dropping a conical "perforator" weighing some two tons. This perforator is raised and dropped by a machine resembling an ordinary pile driver. The conical weight gradually sinks the hole deeper and deeper by compacting the earth laterally; this lateral compression is depended upon so to consolidate the walls of the hole that they do not cave before the concrete can be placed. The concrete is deposited loose in the hole and rammed solid by dropping a pear-shaped weight onto it ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... an instant, there came into her own a look of eager search; no softly inquiring gaze, such as would be natural to most women on a casual meeting of this sort, but a full, energetic, self-reliant scrutiny. I don't think the compression about her lips was softened by her surprise at seeing me; but that keen level look from her eyes brought a wonderful change over her face, so that from being interesting it became attractive, and I was fired ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... Intending at first to prefix an introduction to the text of his lectures, the Professor has been led on by the gravity of the occasion, the extent of his subject, and the abundance of materials, to compose a book of 700 pages. Written with all the author's perspicuity of style, though without his usual compression; with the exhaustless information which never fails him, but with an economy of quotation suited to the general public for whom it is designed, it betrays the circumstances of its origin. Subjects are sometimes introduced out of their proper place and order; and there ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... is commonly brought against it. And I felt that this charge could not be reasonably brought against the types of the first two decades of printing: that Schoeffer at Mainz, Mentelin at Strasburg, and Gunther Zainer at Augsburg, avoided the spiky ends and undue compression which lay some of the later type open to the above charge. Only the earlier printers (naturally following therein the practice of their predecessors the scribes) were very liberal of contractions, and used an excess of 'tied' letters, which, by the way, are ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris

... of the close grip you give your second when he comes up to say, that the gentleman with the loaded detonator opposite won't fire, that he feels he's in the wrong. Any or all of these together, very effective and powerful though they be, are light in the balance when compared with the two-handed compression you receive from the gentleman that expects you to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... type which should be smaller, so as to reduce the number and size of pages required for a book without sacrifice of legibility. A clear, clean cut type, with sharp lines and simple forms, capable of compression without loss of distinction, was the ...
— The Uses of Italic - A Primer of Information Regarding the Origin and Uses of Italic Letters • Frederick W. Hamilton

... prejudice (21), he does not travel out of his way to indulge in legendary tales and romantic visions. Critically considered, his work is the best commentary on the "Saxon Chronicle" to the year 977; at which period one of the MSS. which he seems to have followed, terminates. Brevity and compression seem to have been his aim, because the compilation was intended to be sent abroad for the instruction of a female relative of high rank in Germany (22), at her request. But there are, nevertheless, some circumstances ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... library of digital books. In essence, CLASS is scanning and storing books as 600 dot-per-inch bit-mapped images, compressed using Group 4 CCITT (i.e., the French acronym for International Consultative Committee for Telegraph and Telephone) compression. They are stored as TIFF files on an optical filing system that is composed of a database used for searching and locating the books and an optical jukebox that stores 64 twelve-inch platters. A very-high-resolution printed copy of these books at 600 dots per inch is created, using a Xerox ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly

... between cuffs and caresses—between being shaken heartily by the hand and kicked rapidly down stairs. Who, however ignorant, could look upon the latter as a compliment? or what fair maiden, however simple, would require a master to teach her how to construe a gentle compression of her fingers at parting, or a tender pressure of her toe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... giving Fred a chance to prove one of his theories. Personally I believe you'd make a go of selling right off the bat, and a good salesman is wasted in the mechanical line. When you feel that you've saturated your system with valve clearances and compression formulas and gear ratios and all the rest of the shop dope, come and see me. I'll give you a try-out on the selling end. For the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... historical prejudices, and are wonderfully sensitive to the seductive influence of grandiose projects, especially when these excite the patriotic feelings. Then there was the simple force of reaction—the rebound which naturally followed the terrific compression of the preceding reign. Without disrespect, the Russians of that time may be compared to schoolboys who have just escaped from the rigorous discipline of a severe schoolmaster. In the first moments of freedom it was supposed that there would be no more discipline ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... hand, Shakespeare's alteration of Plutarchian material is along the lines of (1) idealization, as in the characters of Brutus and Cassius; (2) amplification, as in the use Antony makes of Caesar's rent and bloody mantle; and (3) simplification and compression of the action for dramatic effect, as in making Caesar's triumph take place at the time of "the feast of Lupercal," in the treatment of the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which in Plutarch lasts for two days, and in making the two battles of Philippi occur ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... intellectual looking girl—so people said. She had little color, and her black hair was "stringy"—which she hated! Now that she was no longer obliged to consider the expenditure of each dollar so carefully, the worried look about her big brown eyes, and the compression of her lips, had relaxed. For two years Ruth had been the head of the household and it had made her ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... the bellows are squeezed together the air molecules within are crowded closer together and the air is compressed. The greater the compression the greater, of course, is the pressure with which the enclosed air seeks to escape. That it can do only by lifting up, that is by blowing out, the two elastic strips which close ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills

... forming the embankment, the pressure of the bog turf tipped out of the waggons caused a copious stream of bog-water to flow from the end of it, in colour resembling Barclay's double stout; and when completed, the bank looked like a long ridge of tightly pressed tobacco-leaf. The compression of the turf may be imagined from the fact that 670,000 cubic yards of raw moss formed only 277,000 cubic yards of embankment at the completion of ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... Compression of the urethra by growths or tumors, strictures of the urethra, distended bladder, spasm of the neck of the bladder in nervous animals, paralysis of the bladder and injuries to the penis are common causes of ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity. The means by which their early marriage was effected can be the only doubt: what probable circumstance could work upon a temper like the general's? The circumstance which chiefly availed was the marriage ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... seventh catalogue (695 A.D.) records that 859 new works were admitted to the Canon. But this expansion was accompanied by a critical and sifting process, so that whereas the first collection contained 2213 works, the Ming edition contains only 1622. This compression means not that works of importance were rejected as heretical or apocryphal, for, as we have seen, the Tripitaka is most catholic, but that whereas the earlier collections admitted multitudinous extracts or partial ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... but worn thin to almost emaciation by mental and physical toil. Almost constant sickness and unremitting excitement of the last few months had left their imprint on face as well as figure. The features had sharpened and the lines had deepened and hardened; the thin lips had a firmer compression and the lower jaw—always firm and prominent—was closer pressed to its fellow. Mr. Davis had lost the sight of one eye many months previous, though that member scarcely showed its imperfection; but in the other burned a deep, steady glow, showing the presence with ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... a gesture of impatience, and, stepping back behind the old man, flung off the ragged shirt and trousers that he wore, and shook out the tangled mass of his hair free from the compression the slouch hat he had been wearing left on it. A lump of white clay lay on either side of the old man, and the younger, yielding to some impulse which was upon him, stooped and daubed himself over with it in streaks and splashes, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... and yielding; and then, if the person is often placed, for a length of time, in positions that throw the weight of the body unequally on certain portions of the spine, they yield to this frequent compression, and a distortion ensues. The positions taken by young persons, when learning to write or draw, or to play on the guitar, harp, or piano, and the position of the body when sleeping on one side, on high ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... craft to come to earth again, not without some little damage which precluded another flight that day, it was a very simple thing after all. If the craft was thrown from its balance in any way, the movement of this pendulum would cause two little valves to open. This would make the compression from the engine force a piston back and forth, which communicated with the warping levers and automatically accomplished what had up to that time, Bud went on to say, been done by the hand of the busy aviator. Thus a mechanical balancer had been arranged, so that the pilot need never bother ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler

... In compression of the brain from any cause, such as apoplexy, or a piece of fractured bone pressing on it, there is loss of sensation. If you tickle the feet of the injured person he does not feel it. You cannot arouse him so as to get an answer. The pulse is slow and laboured; the breathing deep, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... hard to find in Pope such compression of meaning as in the first, or such penetrative sarcasm as in the second of the passages I have underscored. Dryden's satire is still quoted for its comprehensiveness of application, Pope's rather for the elegance of its finish and the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... talked with face, hands, with his whole body. Now and again he would give little spurts in his seat. After one of these he must have become aware of Helena—who felt as if she were enveloped by a soft stove—struggling to escape his compression. He stopped short, lifted his hat, and smiling beseechingly, said in his ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence

... surgeon of the century was an Englishman, Richard Wiseman (1625-1686), who, like Harvey, enjoyed royal favor, being in the service of all the Stuart kings. He was the first surgeon to advocate primary amputation, in gunshot wounds, of the limbs, and also to introduce the treatment of aneurisms by compression; but he is generally rated as a conservative operator, who favored medication rather than ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... composed; nor was it possible, I believe, out of any other materials he could have been formed. From this disagreeable draught we shall be able, I trust, by a proper disposition of light and shade, and from the influence of compression of external things, to produce plump Jack, the life of humour, the spirit of pleasantry, ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... those of the Italian Buffalo. They differ, however, from the horns of the Italian Buffalo in three particulars: first, in not being above half so thick or bulky; second, in having a much larger curve; and third, in being considerably more compressed, which compression exists throughout their entire length: the colour of the upper surface of the horn is lightish, on the lower side nearly black. The head is narrow, and the muzzle fine; the ears are long and nearly naked; the eyes large and bright, with a peculiarly timid and suspicious expression. ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... doing for her in the future rose to the high standard which his present mood had set itself. She seemed to him so felicitous a product of nature and circumstance that his invention, musing on future combinations, was constantly catching its breath with the fear of stumbling into some brutal compression or mutilation of her beautiful personal harmony. This is what I mean by Newman's tenderness: Madame de Cintre pleased him so, exactly as she was, that his desire to interpose between her and the troubles of life had the quality of a young ...
— The American • Henry James

... growth in others that are not subjected to pressure. In a terminal peloriated flower of aconite, described by this naturalist, the flower was removed so far from the nearest bracts that all its parts had the chance of growing regularly. In ordinary cases M. Godron considers that the compression of the lateral bracts is the cause of the irregularity of the androecium ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... contraction, reduction, diminution; decrease of size &c 36; defalcation, decrement; lessening, shrinking &c v.; compaction; tabes^, collapse, emaciation, attenuation, tabefaction^, consumption, marasmus^, atrophy; systole, neck, hourglass. condensation, compression, compactness; compendium &c 596; squeezing &c v.; strangulation; corrugation; astringency; astringents, sclerotics; contractility, compressibility; coarctation^. inferiority in size. V. become small, become smaller; lessen, decrease ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... a humane philosopher! are accessory to this injustice, by describing the blacks in the style of a dealer in human flesh! You call what are no more than natural consequences of the compression of the spring of liberty—treachery, theft and depravation.[2] But can a natural consequence be criminal? Remove the cause or is it ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of Mr. Winkle, rolled off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper with more expedition than could have been expected ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... cares to call them so—in the use of epithet, in Greek constructions (which he uses rather more freely than any other Latin poet), and in allusive turns of phrase, are all carefully calculated and precisely measured. His unique power of compression is not that of the poet who suddenly flashes out in a golden phrase, but more akin to the art of the distiller who imprisons an essence, or the gem- engraver working by minute touches on a fragment of translucent stone. With very great resources of language at his disposal, he uses them with ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... compression of air liberates its latent heat, and produces fire. On this principle the pneumatic ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... The compression of the atmosphere during the gusts affected the air temperature so considerably that, coincident with their passage, the mercury column could often be seen rising and falling through several degrees. The uniform conditions experienced during steady ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... and diffusing such a cool, delicious atmosphere, in the midst of heat, dust, and confusion. In winter, even, these parks give inexpressible relief to the eye, and freedom to the mind, that shrinks from the compression of high brick walls, and longs for a more expanded view of the heavens than can be obtained through turreted roofs, that seem ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... of each particular crime gives to the volume, as a mere story book, the intellectual interest, the passion, and all the rich and various coloring of a philosophical romance. The translation is excellent, and a judicious compression of the original has added much to the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... given conscientiously; the bare arm showed the bone, and a triangle of flesh about four inches long hung over it like a cuff. We tried to put this back in its place by adjusting it carefully over the edge of the gaping wound and bandaging the arm. It is quite possible that the violent compression the member was subjected to caused mortification to set in, and that the ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert

... after they have merely heard what you have to say, but after My Moral Weight has been thrown into the scale.—Mrs. Finch! on leaving the bath, I shall have you only lightly clothed. I forbid, with a view to your head, all compression, whether of stays or strings, round the waist. I forbid garters—with the same object. You will abstain from tea and talking. You will lie, loose, on your back. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... bade him to consider on whom he was going to bestow it. Virtue held back his arm; but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him; his fingers lost their compression; nor did Virtue appear to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground than the watchful cur (a trick he had been taught) snapped it up; and, contrary to the most approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... ears, listened to the hum of the motor, the puffing of the exhaust, the grinding of the gear wheels, and the clicking of the trips, as valve after valve opened or closed to admit the mixture of air and gasoline, or closed to give the compression necessary for the ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton

... valve opens 68 degrees before the bottom centre and closes 4 degrees after the top dead centre of the piston. The magnetos are set to give the spark in the cylinder at 25 degrees before the end of the compression stroke—two high-tension magnetos are used: if desired, the second one can be adjusted to give a later spark for assisting the starting of the engine. The lubricating oil pump is of the valveless two-plunger type, so geared that it runs at seven revolutions to 100 revolutions ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... sources, then, the sea gets bituminous material, and this material, condensed and consolidated by compression and by heat, at the bottom of the sea, would form a black body of a most uniform structure, breaking with a polished surface, and burning with more or less smoke or flame in proportion as it be distilled less or more by subterranean heat. And ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... one person. 2. It is humorous. 3. It possesses unity of character. 4. It is not combined with songs, tricks or any other entertainment form. 5. It takes from ten to fifteen minutes to deliver. 6. It is marked by compression. 7. It is distinguished by vividness. 8. It follows a definite form ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... pair of bare bony arms and a long sinewy neck; his square jaw shaded by a bristly black beard, his bridgeless nose and low forehead, made his face look as if it had been crushed down for purposes of packing, and a narrow piece of red rag tied over his ears seemed to assist in the compression. Romola looked at him with ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... curious root this anh, and it still lives in several modern words. In Latin it appears as ango, anxi, anctum, to strangle, in angina, quinsy, in angor, suffocation. But angor meant not only quinsy or compression of the neck; it assumed a moral import, and signifies anguish or anxiety. The two adjectives angustus, narrow, and anxius, uneasy, both come from the same source. In Greek the root retained its natural and material meaning; in eggys, near, and echis, serpent, throttler. But in Sanskrit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... ornament of Melrose can, according to the entertaining work already quoted, be told only in a volume of prose; but, as compression is the spirit of true poetry, we quote ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... that is almost a mathematical point, and spreads around this point by concentric waves which go on enlarging. The work of manufacturing is the more effective, the greater the quantity of matter dealt with. It proceeds by concentration and compression. The organizing act, on the contrary, has something explosive about it: it needs at the beginning the smallest possible place, a minimum of matter, as if the organizing forces only entered space reluctantly. The spermatozoon, which sets in motion the evolutionary process of the embryonic ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... the reader a general idea of the features and inferential structure of the moon's surface. That she was once a molten mass is inferred from her globular form; but, according to G. F. Chambers, the most delicate measurements indicate no compression at the poles.[11] That her surface has cooled and become rigid is also a necessary inference; though Sir J. Herschel considered that the surface still retains a temperature possibly exceeding that of boiling water.[12] However this may be, it is pretty certain that ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... a practical chemist, and spent many hours trying to analyze the fuel. It was highly inflammable, yet could stand terrific compression without effect. When it was allowed to expand again, it reached the flash point immediately, creating enormous amounts of heavy gas. He believed it might be duplicated from crude ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne

... like literary women," Mrs. Witherspoon replied, with stress in the movement of her head and with prejudice in the compression of her lips. "They are too—too uppish, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... hearers. On their part, they would sit in deep attention, shielding their faces from the fire, and responding to enunciations directly contrary to their convictions with an occasional "yes-seh," or "ceddenly," or "of coze," or,—prettier affirmation still,—a solemn drooping of the eyelids, a slight compression of the lips, and a low, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... through which water under a heavy pressure is introduced into the box beneath the journal. The effect of the hydraulic pressure is to lift the axle, opening a passage for the escape of the compressed water, which at the same time, because of its release from compression, loses the power to sustain the weight. If, therefore, by the first impulse, the axle is thrown upward to any sensible distance, it will immediately fall back again, once more confining more or less completely the water. After one or two oscillations, therefore, the axle will settle ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... my old friend, Mr. Henty, in "With Clive in India." It has always seemed to me that a single book provides too narrow a canvas for the display of a life so full and varied as Clive's, and that a work of fiction is bound to suffer, structurally and in detail, from the compression of the events of a lifetime within so restricted a space. I have therefore chosen two outstanding events in the history of India—the capture of Gheria and the battle of Plassey—and have made them the pivot of a personal story of adventure. The whole action ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... and it is, perhaps, the close proximity which suggests the strong physical likeness between the two. Both are clean shaven; both have the long narrow profile that is called hatchet-faced; in both there is the compression of lips that reveals depths of strength and tenacity; both have the slightly ascetic air of the philosopher turned politician; both look singularly young, not only for their years, but for the dazzling eminence ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... I was sick, but from a very different cause. The poison was mingling with my blood. It was setting my veins on fire. I was tortured by a choking sensation of thirst, and already felt that spasmodic compression of the chest, and difficulty of breathing— the well-known symptoms experienced by ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... entire mucous membrane of the respiratory tract, producing a nasal discharge, a sore and inflamed throat, pains and a feeling of compression, with a cough in the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... his hands and snorting and sniffing in fine glee as the tea-chests were rattled up out of the junks alongside and lowered into the hold, where they underwent even a greater amount of squeezing and jamming together than our original cargo out, the process of compression being helped on by the aid of the jack-screws and the port watch under Mr Mackay—who now superintended the stowage of the cargo, in place of poor Mr Saunders. No one, apparently, save the faithful Tim Rooney, gave a thought to the latter, now resting ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... and then—"Oh!" It was impossible to prevent an unpleasant compression of the mouth at discovering Gregory so near his wife. "Am I in the way? I am looking for company, and I heard the door-bell—please excuse me!" she added, biting ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... inflicted. In some cases the torture lasted five or six consecutive hours; in others, it rarely exceeded an hour. Hippolyte de Marsillis, the learned and venerable jurisconsult of Bologna, who lived at the beginning of the fifteenth century, mentions fourteen ways of inflicting torture. The compression of the limbs by special instruments, or by ropes only; injection of water, vinegar, or oil, into the body of the accused; application of hot pitch, and starvation, were the processes most in use. Other means, which were more or less applied according ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... glittering place—everything she saw seemed to glitter—where they passed, between immense pictures of yellow-haired beauties stabbing villains in evening dress, into a velvet-curtained auditorium packed with spectators to the last limit of compression. After that, for a while, everything was merged in her brain in swimming circles of heat and blinding alternations of light and darkness. All the world has to show seemed to pass before her in a chaos of palms and minarets, charging cavalry regiments, roaring lions, comic policemen ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... of failure; this period, it is claimed, is now passed, and in the new installation it is possible to put into practice all the valuable lessons learned at St. Fargeau, to say nothing of the more favorable natural conditions under which the extension is being started and the improvements in the compression of the air made by Mr. Popp and Professor Riedler, and to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... daughter would arrive next morning early. They waited for a moment of consciousness to tell her; but the day went by, and in spite of oxygen and brandy it did not come. She was sinking fast; her only movements were a tiny compression now and then of the lips, a half-opening of the eyes, and once a smile when the parrot spoke. The rally came at eight o'clock. Mademoiselle was sitting by the couch when the voice came fairly strong: ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... man associated and leagued with man By regal warrant, or self-joined by bond For interest sake, or swarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and by compression marred Contracts defilement not to be endured. Hence chartered boroughs are such public plagues, And burghers, men immaculate perhaps In all their private functions, once combined, Become a loathsome body, only fit For dissolution, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... would first be adequately revealed. The youngest reader will know that the grandest forms in which the collective might of the human race has manifested itself, are the four monarchies. Four times have the distributive forces of nations gathered themselves, under the strong compression of the sword, into mighty aggregates—denominated Universal Empires, or Monarchies. These are noticed in the Holy Scriptures; and it is upon their warrant that men have supposed no fifth monarchy or universal empire possible in an earthly sense; but that, whenever ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... physical impossibility of roaming, and with the reciprocal compression of each exercised on the other, coincided the new instincts of civilization. They were no longer barbarous by a brutal and animal barbarism. The deep soil of their powerful natures had long been budding into nobler capacities, and had expanded into nobler perceptions. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... the air is not as fresh as it should be," replied the inventor. "Washington, release a little more of the supply from the compression tanks." ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood

... suffering. Kirkwood underwent a prolonged interval of semi-sentience, his mind dominated and oppressed by a deathly fear of drowning and a deadening sense of suffocation, with attendant tortures as of being broken on the wheel—limb rending from limb; of compression of his ribs that threatened momentarily to crush in his chest; of a world a-welter with dim swirling green half-lights alternating with flashes of blinding white; of thunderings in his ears like ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... mechanical movements hereafter to be described, by which strata have been bent, broken, and raised above the level of the sea. Rocks of more yielding materials must often have been forced against others previously consolidated, and may thus by compression have acquired a new structure. A recent discovery may help us to comprehend how fine sediment derived from the detritus of rocks may be solidified by mere pressure. The graphite or "black lead" of commerce having become very scarce, Mr. Brockedon contrived a method by which the dust of the ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... story which, with certain poetic license of embellishment that he sometimes allowed himself, set his hearers in a roar. He was as ready to hear a good story as to tell one, and his ringing laugh was a delight. The Bishop talked much and well. His use of the pause in speaking, with a momentary compression of the lips now and then between clauses, heightened the effect of crispness in his felicitously chosen phrases. He was a good listener if one had anything to say, but he was not averse to presiding in monologue over a number of people, and often did so, for his fund of talk was ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... much of his success in the field to the fact that he was not hampered by governments at home. Every modern commander, down certainly to the present moment, must have envied him. Kinglake's mordant pen depicts with felicity and compression the men of Downing Street, who without military experience or definite political aim, thwarted, criticised, over- ruled, tormented, their much-enduring General. We have Aberdeen, deficient in mental clearness and propelling force, by his horror of war ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... are both originally excited by irritations. 2. And associated together in the same manner. 3. Both act in nearly the same times. 4. Are alike strengthened or fatigued by exercise. 5. Are alike painful from inflammation. 6. Are alike benumbed by compression. 7. Are alike liable to paralysis. 8. To convulsion. 9. To the influence of old age.—VI. Objections answered. 1. Why we cannot invent new ideas. 2. If ideas resemble external objects. 3. Of the imagined sensation in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... slightly as he saw her conscious blush, turned pale instead of becoming red and embarrassed, and, save a slight compression of his lips, made no other movement. She sang the concluding verse of the ballad in a rather unsympathetic manner, and, after a light instrumental piece devoid of sentiment, rose from ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... the humerus, Gilbert tells us, is to be reduced (ad proprium locum reducator) at once by grasping the arm above and below the seat of fracture and exercising gentle and gradual extension and compression. Then four pieces of lint wet in egg-albumen are to be placed around the arm on all sides, a bandage, four fingers wide, also moistened in albumen is to be snugly applied, another dry bandage placed above this, and finally splints fastened in position by cords. ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson

... remarkable for the pose—that of the left-hand resembling an attitude assumed in boxing, whilst the dress—a kind of maillot or "tights"—is gripped round the waist by a firm ring (like a table-napkin ring), the compression of which is no doubt exaggerated. This fresco and many others of extraordinary interest, as well as much beautiful pottery and the whole of the plan of the city, its public buildings, granaries, library and sewers at several successive ages (the remains lying in layers ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... with the plaster, beginning at the upper part of the forehead, and spread it downwards over the eyes, which should be kept firmly closed, but not in such a manner as to produce any distortion by too violent compression—and continue the plaster as far as the lower border of the chin; cover that part of the chest and arms that is to be represented, and carry the plaster upwards, so as to join the cast of the face; then carefully remove each, and season for casting, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... took a small portion of it out, placed it in his mouth, and then gave it in a solid state to some of the company. This performance, according to his account, was also very easy; for he seized only a very small particle, which, by a tight compression between the forefinger and the thumb, became cool before it reached the mouth. At this time Mr. Smith made his appearance, and M. Chabert forthwith prepared himself for mightier undertakings. A cruse of oil was brought forward and poured into ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... instruments of destruction and when philosophy rises in a mass to drive on the wedge of war. A black powder has changed the military art, and in a great degree the manners of mankind. Why may not the same science which produced it, produce another powder which, inflamed under a certain compression, might impell the air, so as to shake down the strongest towers and ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... Compression. Air under ordinary atmospheric conditions exerts a pressure of 15 pounds to the square inch. If, now, large quantities of air are compressed into a small space, the pressure exerted becomes correspondingly greater. If too much air is blown into a toy balloon, ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... followed her into the drawing room to have a good look at her. She was one of those heroic women who have the constancy to squeeze their figures in beyond the Y shape, which is the commonest deformity, to that of the hourglass which bulges out more above and below the line of compression. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... language, and are probably most often used without any clear idea of their author, may be disinterred from them, as well as many striking images and pregnant thoughts, which have had less general currency. But the compression of them (which is often so great that they might be printed sentence by sentence like verses of the Bible) prevents the author from displaying his command of a consecutive, elaborated, and harmonised style. What command he had of that style may be found, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... compression and movement of the multitude toward some fancied center the King had been borne a good many hundred yards from his original point. Presently he found himself in a large open space, with its low-railed inclosure guarded by police. Here the crowd was denser than ever and its sway ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... greatly in the degree to which it is compressed, in size, shape, strength, and in the depth of the furrows, as may be seen in figure 42 (Nos. 4 to 8) of such kinds as I have been able to collect. With peach-stones also (Nos. 1 to 3) the degree of compression and elongation is seen to vary; so that the stone of the Chinese Honey-peach (No. 3) is much more elongated and compressed than that of the (No. 8) Smyrna almond. Mr. Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, to whom I am indebted for some of the specimens above figured, and who ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... valance and its fringe. I looked up and saw the four posts rising hideously bare. In the middle of the bed-top was a huge wooden screw that had evidently worked it down through a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinary presses are worked down on the substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus moved without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as it came down; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid a dead and awful silence I beheld before me—in the nineteenth ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... canon of decay, yet of life, for as he trudged along, the roar of great motors came to Fairchild's ears; and a moment later he stepped aside to allow the passage of ore-laden automobile trucks, loaded until the springs had flattened and until the engines howled with their compression as they sought to hold back their burdens on the steep grade. And it was as he stood there, watching the big vehicles travel down the mountain side, that Fairchild caught a glimpse of a human figure which suddenly darted behind a clump of scrub pine and skirted ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... wrong. It might be that this was, in reality, a case of some brain affection accompanied by compression, such as slow haemorrhage, abscess, tumour or simple congestion. These cases were very difficult at times. But the appearances in this one did not consistently agree with the symptoms accompanying any of these conditions. As to sleeping sickness, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman

... manna that fed the wandering forefathers—and breaking off small pieces gave one to each of the family, including Adelaide Rebekah, who stood on the chair with her whole length exhibited in her amber-colored garment, her little Jewish nose lengthened by compression of the lip in the effort to make a suitable appearance. Cohen then uttered another Hebrew blessing, and after that, the male heads were uncovered, all seated themselves, and the meal went on without any peculiarity that interested ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... light. Few will be inclined to dispute the verdict of Forbes:—"His scientific glory is different in kind from that of Young and Fresnel; but the discoverer of the law of polarization of biaxial crystals, of optical mineralogy, and of double refraction by compression, will always occupy a foremost rank in the intellectual history of the age." In addition to the various works of Brewster already noticed, the following may be mentioned:—Notes and Introduction to Carlyle's translation of Legendre's Elements of Geometry ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... in the eighteenth century consisted merely of three iron-sheathed cylinders, two of them set against the third, turned by wind, water or cattle. The canes, tied into small bundles for greater compression, were given a double squeezing while passing through the mill. The juice expressed found its way through a trough into the boiling house while the flattened stalks, called mill trash or megass in the British colonies and bagasse in Louisiana, were carried to sheds and left to dry for ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... natural that this second kind of wisdom, being detached and unsystematic, should embody itself in the short and pregnant form of proverb, sentence, maxim, and aphorism. The essence of aphorism is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying. It is the very opposite of dissertation and declamation; its distinction is not so much ingenuity, as good sense brought to a point; it ought to be neither enigmatical nor flat, neither ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... return. A sure sign, Mrs. Hungerford thought, that she was feeling better; and she watched in secret amusement the sudden stiffening of the angular figure and the compression of the thin lips as the "instructress" looked fixedly out of the carriage window and vouchsafed no ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... the various parts of a bridge have to bear—and the strength of the materials used. The theory of strains in bridge trusses is merely that of the Composition and Resolution of Forces. The various strains, to which the materials of a bridge are subjected—are compression, ...
— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower

... order to Saturn, the gloomy planet which the ancient astrologers regarded with so much dislike. Here, too, we find traces of Herschel's labours. Not only has he enlarged our knowledge of its equatorial compression, of its physical constitution, and of the rotation of its luminous belt or ring, but he added two to the number of its satellites. Five only of these were known at the close of the seventeenth century; of which Cussiric discovered four, and Huygens ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous

... doctrine in time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions and modes of action conformably to itself, education impresses this new creed upon the new generations without the mental processes that have led to it, and by degrees it acquires the very same power of compression, so long exercised by the creeds of which it had taken the place. Whether this noxious power will be exercised, depends on whether mankind have by that time become aware that it cannot be exercised without stunting and dwarfing human nature. It is then that the teachings of the Liberty ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... dimensions of the principal characters, the rate of movement in the action, the supernatural effect, the style, the versification, are all changed; and they are all changed in much the same manner. In many parts of Macbeth there is in the language a peculiar compression, pregnancy, energy, even violence; the harmonious grace and even flow, often conspicuous in Hamlet, have almost disappeared. The cruel characters, built on a scale at least as large as that of Othello, seem to attain at times an almost ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... spoke, he took the weapon from the hand of his friend and opened the pan. The last was filled with priming, caked like a bit of cinder, by time, moisture and compression. An application of the ramrod showed that both the pistols were charged, although Judith could testify that they had probably lain for years in the chest. It is not easy to portray the surprise of the Indian at this discovery, for he was in the practice of renewing his priming daily, and of looking ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... of adopting, in the newer and deeper mines, more economical appliances. It was true it would be impracticable, and probably unwise, to alter much of the existing machinery, but, by the adoption of the best known types of electrical plant, and air compression in our new and deep mines, the consumption of coal per horse power would be reduced, and the extra expense, due to natural causes, of producing minerals from greater depths would be substantially lessened. The consumption ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... the next day and part of the following working on the craft. He overhauled the ignition system, which was the jump-spark style, cleaned the magneto and adjusted the gasoline and compression taps so that they fitted better. Then he readjusted the rudder lines, tightening them on the steering wheel, and looked over the piping from the ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton

... through the purifiers the air is subjected to more or less pressure, and it is obvious that if these absorbers were coupled to the ventilating system under atmospheric pressure, and then air caused to pass through them, there would be compression in a portion of the purifier system. Thus there would be a contraction in the volume, and air thus compressed would subsequently be released into the open air when the absorbers were uncoupled. The method of testing the system outlined on page ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... attack upon the real offender, assuring her that it was for her soul's sake that he thus dealt with her. Helen had brought the interview to a sudden close by refusing to hear further argument, and bowing Mr. Grier from the room, with a certain steady look from under her level brows and a compression of the lips which, greatly to his surprise when he thought ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... and even kindly-disposed foreigners,[6157] on seeing this mechanism which everywhere substitutes for the initiative from below the compression and impetus from above, are very much surprised. "The law means that the young shall never for one moment be left to themselves; the children are under their masters' eyes all day" and all night. Every step outside of the regulations is a false one and always arrested ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... plunger d, worked in the cavity e, by an eccentric, allows the latter to fill with peat as it is withdrawn, and by its advance compresses it into a block. The blocks m, once formed, by their friction in the channel e, oppose enough resistance to the peat to effect its compression. In order to regulate this resistance according to the varying quality of the peat, the piece of metal g, which hangs on a pivot at o, is depressed or raised, by the screw i, so as to contract or enlarge the channel. At each stroke of the plunger a block is formed, ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson

... had not much variety of expression. A look of thoughtfulness was given by the compression of the mouth and the indentations of the brow (suggesting an habitual conflict with, and mastery over, passion), which did not seem so much to disdain a sympathy with trivialities as to be incapable of denoting them. Nor had his voice, so far as I could discover in our quiet talk, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... Monday, February 15.—A lively sitting, with an unexpected ending. Debate on Address resumed by SEXTON in excellent speech, an effect largely contributed to by comparative brevity. Only an hour long; remarkable compression. Would have been better still had it been reduced by the twenty minutes occupied in preliminary observations. At twenty-five minutes past four he rose to move Amendment condemnatory of Land Purchase Act of last year. Precisely at a quarter to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various

... neckerchief, gilt chains, and filagreed buttons, to that of the scrupulously inornate clergyman, than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion. Still all were distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy dimness of eye, and pallor and compression of lip. There were two other traits, moreover, by which I could always detect them;—a guarded lowness of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers.—Very ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... compression upon the part: this is one of the most effectual means of restraining haemorrhage. It is to be effected by taking a piece of lint folded three or four thicknesses, and the size of the finger-nail, to be steadily pressed upon the ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... and dismal. The small clearing, densely walled in by the forest where the trees sprang nearly two hundred feet in the air, seemed to be stifling under the compression, though the feeling was but the resulting languor of a tropic night without a breeze. Sundry strange and melancholy calls issued in varying cadences from the wilderness, and an occasional splash from the river denoted the passage of some ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown

... the life. Landor is the most purely classical of English writers. Not merely his themes {242} but his whole way of thinking was pagan and antique. He composed, indifferently, in English or Latin, preferring the latter, if any thing, in obedience to his instinct for compression and exclusiveness. Thus portions of his narrative poem, Gebir, 1798, were written originally in Latin, and he added a Latin version, Gebirius, to the English edition. In like manner his Hellenics, 1847, were mainly translations from his ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... other in three directions, then we should be able to use just as well another similar system that in respect to the first moves this or that way. We should also be able to remodel the system of co-ordinates in all kinds of ways, for example by extension or compression. That in all these cases for fixed bodies that do not participate in the movement or the remodelling of the system other co-ordinates will be read off again and again ...
— The Einstein Theory of Relativity • H.A. Lorentz

... enameled, slab, bowl and apron on four sides in one piece, nickel-plated waste, low-pattern compression faucets with china indexes, supply pipes with compression stops, and ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... am most thoroughly persuaded of the contrary. The writings of the illustrious sage of Koenigsberg, the founder of the Critical Philosophy, more than any other work, at once invigorated and disciplined my understanding. The originality, the depth, and the compression of the thoughts; the novelty and subtlety, yet solidity and importance of the distinctions; the adamantine chain of the logic; and I will venture to add—(paradox as it will appear to those who have taken their notion of Immanuel Kant from Reviewers and Frenchmen)—the clearness and evidence, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... pictures were lying side by side on a little table. Suddenly an obscure noise in the room caught his attention. It was more vibration than noise, for small sounds could scarcely be heard above the whistle of the sun-ship. A slight compression of the air against his neck gave him the eery feeling that someone was standing close behind him. He wheeled and looked over his shoulder. Half ashamed of his startled gesture, he again turned to his pictures. Then a sharp ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... accepted the apology, but his face did not again assume the cowed, broken expression it had worn at first. There was a compression about the mouth, a firm shutting together of the teeth, and a dark look in the bloodshot eyes, which warned Mrs. Van Buren not to repeat much of what she had said. It would not now be received as it was at first. Richard would do much to bring Ethie back—he would submit to any humiliation, and ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... arguing about the compression strength of the latest submarine tank to judge from the bored expressions of the three or four rec girls who had joined them. A biochemist, who seemed to have forgotten his plankton and seaweed for the time being and to have focussed his mind on the pretty young clerk ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... square or the market-place. I attempt to count them, but am stopped by a report louder than any of the preceding ones. Next instant I find myself pressed tightly against the seat. The whole of the machine is lifted about a hundred feet by the compression from a shell that has exploded a few yards beneath our undercarriage. I begin to wonder whether all our troubles have been swept away by a direct hit; but an examination of the machine shows no damage beyond a couple of rents in the fabric of the fuselage. That finishes my observation work for ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... friend of Phillida's who was pretty sure to be free from brain-fogs. He quickly took a resolution to see her. It was too late in the afternoon to walk uptown. On a fine Sunday like this the street cars would not have strap-room left, and the elevated trains would be in a state of extreme compression long before they reached Fourteenth street. He took the best-looking cab he could find in Union Square as the least of inconveniences; and just as the slant sun, descending upon the Jersey lowlands, had set all the windows on the uptown side of the cross streets in a ruddy glow, he alighted ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... and you will remark them for yourself against a new edition. There were two, or perhaps three, flabbinesses of style which (in your work) amazed me. Am I right in thinking you were a shade bored over the last chapters? or was it my own fault that made me think them susceptible of a more athletic compression? (The flabbinesses were not there, I think, but in the more admirable part, where they showed the bigger.) Take it all together, the book struck me as if you had been hurried at the last, but particularly hurried over the proofs, and could still spend ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson



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