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Contracting   /kˈɑntræktɪŋ/   Listen
Contracting

noun
1.
Becoming infected.  Synonym: catching.  "The contracting of a serious illness can be financially catastrophic"






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"Contracting" Quotes from Famous Books



... MARRIAGE.—The first time that the husband and wife cohabit together after the ceremony has been performed is called the consummation of marriage. Many grave errors have been committed by people in this, when one or both of the contracting parties were not physically or sexually in a condition to carry out the marriage relation. A marriage, however, is complete without this in the eyes of the law, as it is a maxim taken from the Roman civil ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... for a few moments with a heavily contracting brow. At last he stretched out his hand and sighed, "I'd give all there is in this store if my heart was like that girl's, but here I am at this hour engaged in a transaction which is the devil's own bargain, and with a firm that can't help itself because it is in ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe

... be supplied by differentiation within Caucasian limits haunts us as it has done from the very birth of the colonies. Like the Wild Huntsman, we have had the sable spectre close beside us through the whole run. But, more fortunate than he, we see it begin to fade. At least its outlines are contracting. The ratio of colored inhabitants to the aggregate, in 1790 19.26 per cent., or one-fifth, fell in 1860 to 14.12, or one-seventh, and in 1870 to 12.65, or an eighth. The next census will beyond doubt point more strongly in the same direction. If, whilst dwindling in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... thou?" said the King, contracting his brows, and speaking in a tone of angry surprise. "Thou countenance ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... said Martin. "No carriage and pair for this chap yet awhile; overalls and slouch hat for the next five years for him. Then he begins contracting on ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor

... large rivers employ themselves chiefly in fishing. The fish are taken in wicker baskets, or with small cotton nets; and are preserved by being first dried in the sun, and afterwards rubbed with shea butter, to prevent them from contracting fresh moisture. Others of the natives employ themselves in hunting. Their weapons are bows and arrows; but the arrows in common use are not poisoned.[18] They are very dexterous marksmen, and will hit a lizard on a tree, or any other small object, at an amazing ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park

... fine features contracting with pain and disgust, "I do not willingly mention his name. He has done me so great a wrong, that I only breathe his name with a curse. Must you know who it was that took my child, my Daphne,—though proof I have not against him, but only the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... Dexter, his brows still contracting heavily. "But if he still hopes to rival me in Jessie's love, he will find himself vastly in error. No, no, madam! If it is for him you are interested, you had better give it up. I passed him in ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... longer be an ecclesiastical rite, will hardly be a very civil ceremony. In course of time all the promises will be made either explicitly or implicitly conditional, the only question being what is the least possible obligation that can be incurred by both contracting parties ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various

... in the chain of events arrests attention is the treaties of alliance and of amity and commerce between the United States and France negotiated in 1778. By those treaties peculiar privileges were secured to the armed vessels of each of the contracting parties in the ports of the other, the freedom of trade was greatly enlarged, and mutual obligations were incurred by each to guarantee to the other their territorial possessions ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... kept.[275] But, upoun the returneyng of the saidis Ambassadouris from England, pacyficatioun was maid for that tyme; for, by the judgements of eyght personis for ather party, chosyn to judge, Whitther that any thing was done by the said Ambassadouris, in the contracting of that mariage, which to do thei had not sufficient power fra the Counsall and Parliament, it was found, That all thingis war done according to thare commissioun, and that so thei should stand: and so war the Seallis of England and Scotland interchanged. Maister James Fowles,[276] ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... haberdash the little Potters. I contented myself with drawing on the tailor for two suits of his best broadcloth, such as would appertain to a politician so distinguished. But in truth I must confess, without blushing, that my wife was not long in contracting debts a richer man would ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... full and regular action; [Footnote: The most effective mode of exercising the abdominal and respiratory muscles, in order to remedy constipation, is by a continuous alternate contraction of the muscles of the abdomen, and diaphragm. By contracting the muscles of the abdomen, the intestines axe pressed inward and upward, and then the muscles of the diaphragm above contract and press them downward and outward. Thus the blood is drawn to the torpid parts to stimulate to ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... in each other's society there could be no doubt. Her influence upon him refined his manners and elevated his tastes, while associating with him was quite as beneficial to her in gaining broader ideas and contracting the habit of thinking and reasoning after ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey

... friends kept profound silence for some time. Breakfast now was the last thing thought of. Barbican, with teeth grating, fingers clutching, and eye-brows closely contracting, gazed grimly through the window. The Captain, as a last resource, once more examined his calculations, earnestly hoping to find a figure wrong. Ardan could neither sit, stand nor lie still for a second, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... personalities so 'prodigious,' so 'monstrous,' overshadowing the world, 'shaming the Age' with their 'colossal' individualities, no matter what new light, what new gifts of healing for its ills, that age has been endowed with, levelling all to their will, contracting all to the limit of their stinted nature, making of all its glories but 'rubbish, offal to illuminate their vileness,'—the fact that the power which enables creatures like these, to convulse nations ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... disgrace of the Christian profession, and the vast injury of the Christians, should be delivered up in chains to the admiral of our fleet. That the kings or rajahs of Cochin and Cananore shall be included in this treaty as co-allies, mutually sharing all danger and advantages with the other contracting parties: So that if any one shall take arms against any of the parties to this treaty, he shall be declared an enemy to all the parties hereby confederated. If any of the parties to this league shall act contrary to its stipulations, the power of all the rest shall act ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... him. His own mother, the aged duchess, could not have looked upon him with more affection, and possibly not have pampered him with so many luxuries. There was only one thing wanting to make this home complete. In conventional Europe the contracting parties are not the signers of the marriage contract. In the United States the parties most interested take the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... anterior portion of the chest slightly to the left of the median line and that it extends from the third to the sixth rib. It extends almost to the breastbone, and a little more than half of the distance between the breastbone and the backbone. In contracting, it rotates slightly on its axis, so that the point of the heart, which lies below, is pressed against the left chest wall at a place immediately above the point of the elbow. The heart has in it ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... to the contracting parties, commencing "I require and charge ye both, as ye shall answer in the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any just cause or impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together," ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or agreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... entrance, found the captive seated, leaning his elbows on a table, and he took a seat opposite him and explained the pope's position: it was an embarrassing one. At the very time of contracting so important an alliance with the house of Aragon as that of Lucrezia and Alfonso, His Holiness could not avow to Ferdinand and Isabella that, for the sake of a few miserable ducats, he had signed a dispensation which would unite in the husband and wife together all the legitimate ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... contemporary governor or ruler of Assyria, but on a contract tablet preserved in the Pennsylvania Museum a name has been recovered which will probably be identified with that of the ruler of Assyria in Hammurabi's reign. In legal and commercial documents of the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon the contracting parties frequently swore by the names of two gods (usually Shamash and Marduk) and also that of the reigning king. Now it has been found by Dr. Banke that on this document in the Pennsylvania Museum the contracting parties swear by the name of Hammurabi and also by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... Entering at the extremity of one of these, we traversed it to the centre and then faced the nave. The throne was exactly before us, at the end of the pillared vista. Five steps led up to the dais. Its form was peculiar, contracting by a gradation of steps from the base upwards to mid-height, and again expanding to the top, on which was a cushioned ledge such as is seen in the box of a theatre. On the platform, which now was bare planks, the King and Queen on a great reception day ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... careful to rank mere mechanical talents below the exercise of the mental powers. Thus the ambition of young people will be directed to high objects, and all inferiour qualifications may be attained without contracting the understanding. Praise children for patience, for perseverance, for industry; encourage them to reason and to invent upon all subjects, and you may direct their attention afterwards as you think proper. But if you applaud children merely ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... those who were called upon to propagate it. This permanency of the relation exhibited itself, then, to Abraham and his posterity under the form of a covenant between God and that family, whereby the contracting parties, as it were, promised and undertook to maintain certain conditions, upon which depended the subsistence of that relation. The mutual conditions established were, in substance, nothing else than ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... the natural laws of the material world in which they live and the social world of which they are a part. The bearing of this growing knowledge on the conception of the spiritual life has been various,—seeming for a while to lie wholly apart from it; then at times menacing its existence or contracting its scope; again arming it with powerful weapons and enlarging its ideals. Of the latest chapters in the story of science, one has retold the origin of Christianity, divested it of miracle and revelation, and translated it into purely natural and human terms. ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... relation in life so important—none involving so much of happiness or misery, as that of husband and wife. Yet, how rarely is it, that the parties when contracting this relation, have large experience, clear insight into character, or truly know themselves! In each other, they may have the tenderest confidence, and for each other the warmest love; but, only a brief time can pass ere they will discover that the harmonious progression of two minds, ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... by changes in its constitution. It is of the utmost importance, said Aristotle, to provide in education for the use of the ennobling and the fortifying moods. These philosophers knew that music creates a spiritual world, in which the spirit cannot live and move without contracting habits of emotion. In this vagueness of significance but intensity of feeling lies the magic of music. A melody occurs to the composer, which he certainly connects with no act of the reason, which he is probably unconscious of connecting with any movement of his feeling, but ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... man of business complimented Alfred for his anxiety to pay his debts, at the same time pointing out to him the danger of contracting debts he could not meet; that an honest man never had peace of mind when in debt; that a man was never as brave or useful to himself or family as when free of the haunting fear of losing his ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... the impression that Piombo had a right to be so. His kindness, his gentleness were known only to his wife and daughter. In his functions, or in presence of strangers, he never laid aside the majesty that time had impressed upon his person; and the habit of frowning with his heavy eyebrows, contracting the wrinkles of his face, and giving to his eyes a Napoleonic fixity, made his manner ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac

... under the direction of a principal who is styled Superintendent, and who has the chief management of the business of the armory,—contracting for and purchasing all tools and materials necessary for manufacturing arms, engaging the workmen, determining their wages, and prescribing the necessary regulations for the local government of the establishment. To aid him in the important duties ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... or the English-speaking peoples, is by no means so unreservedly to their credit as such a summary statement of the German case might seem to imply. As bearing on the chances of a peace contingent upon the temper of the contracting nationalities, it is by no means a foregone conclusion that such a peace compact would hold indefinitely even if it depended solely on the pacific animus of these others that have left the dynastic State behind. These others, in fact, are also ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... These great North Midland people are mere flesh and blood, and none of them very brilliant. They know Walker, and they'll be largely guided by Walker's advice in the matter. If he saw his way to make more out of contracting for carrying out somebody else's design, no doubt he'd do it. But failing that, he'll palm his own off upon them, and Stillingfleet'll accept it. You see with how little wisdom the railways of the world are governed! People think, ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... contemplating new restrictions against the Jews, it was at the same time applying the former restrictions on so comprehensive a scale and with such extraordinary cruelty that the Jews in the Pale of Settlement were like a doomed prisoner in a cell with its opposite walls gradually approaching, contracting by slow degrees his breathing space, till they at last immure him in a ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... frequently blamed herself for such want of recollection. Mr Harrel, for a thousand reasons, she was certain had never named it; and had the communication come from his widow or from Mr Arnott, the motives would have been related as well as the debt, and she had been spared the reproach of contracting it for purposes of her own extravagance. The Jew, indeed, was, to her, under no obligation of secrecy, but he had an obligation far more ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... waves of motion run through the tail of the comet, and that it is capable of expanding and contracting on an immense scale, is conclusive proof that it is composed of small, adjustable particles. The writer from whom I have already quoted, speaking of the extraordinary ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... glimpses in her Majesty's journal, and Prince Albert's letters, of what was necessarily of the utmost moment to all concerned; nay, as the contracting parties were of such high estate, excited the lively sympathies of two great nations. The Prince writes in a half tender, half humorous fashion, of the young couple to Baron Stockmar, "The young man, 'really in love,' 'the little ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... curled. Also, she wagged it encouragingly when Finn's eyes met her own, which were of a pale greenish hue. Her hind feet were planted well apart; she stood almost as a show cob stands, her tail twitching slightly, and her nostrils contracting and expanding in eloquent inquiry. She had heard of Finn some time since, this belle of the back ranges, but it was only on that day, when Nature recommended her to find a mate, that she had thought of coming in quest of the great Wolfhound. Now she eyed ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... French king concluded a treaty with Spain and Sardinia, by which those powers agreed to declare war against the emperor. Manifestoes were published reciprocally by all the contracting powers. The duke of Berwick passed the Rhine in October, and undertook the seige of fort Kehl, which in a few days was surrendered on capitulation: then he repassed the river and returned to Versailles. The king of Sardinia having declared war against the emperor, joined a body of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... Basel, Colmar, Mulhouse, Schlestadt, and two dioceses, and it is referred to as the Basse-Union or the Lower Union, the purposes being to guarantee mutually the rights of the contracting parties, to meet for discussion on various questions, and, specifically, to help Mulhouse pay her debts. A few days later, March 19th, there was a fresh proposition to make an alliance between this Basse-Union and the Swiss confederation. ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... silk hat, but wore a blue suit and a hard black felt. The instinct of a soldier and hunting man to exhibit no sign whatever of emotion did not desert him this dark day of his life; but his grey-hazel eyes kept contracting, staring fiercely, contracting again; and, at moments, as if overpowered by some deep feeling, they darkened and seemed to draw back in his head. His face was narrow and weathered and thin-cheeked, with a clean-cut ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... masses or in scattered veins, may be moving very slowly down hill, from the lake to the sea, by the process of expansion by day and contraction by night, and may be likened to a caterpillar, or rather caterpillars innumerable, progressing by expanding and contracting their rings, having strength enough to crawl down hill, but not strength enough ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... the king hail conceded to the father-commissary for that so distant harvest in the Philipinas Islands gathered to him in a few days. He also took six more religious at the cost of that holy province, in its name contracting many new obligations, in order not to fail in the cultivation of the vineyard of the Lord. Of those who had volunteered, those who appeared to be most intelligent and zealous were chosen; and the procurator tried to get ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... at the smiling face for a moment, his bushy eyebrows contracting ever so slightly. There was a shameless streak of dust across her cheek, but there was also a dimple there that appealed to the grim old man. His eyes twinkled as he replied, with ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... that they had not been brought up together. To understand this condition it is necessary to observe that a bride generally continued to live in her family dwelling where she received her husband's visits, and since there was nothing to prevent a husband from contracting many such alliances, it was possible for him to have several groups of children, the members of each group being altogether unknown to the members of all the rest. In a later, but not definitely ascertained era, it became customary for a husband to take his wife to his own home, and thereafter the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... speaks of it, {69} as "une veritable armature." The gizzard is surrounded by powerful transverse muscles, which, according to Claparede, are about ten times as thick as the longitudinal ones; and Perrier saw them contracting energetically. Worms belonging to one genus, Digaster, have two distinct but quite similar gizzards; and in another genus, Moniligaster, the second gizzard consists of four pouches, one succeeding the other, so that it may almost be said ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin

... that kind which is said to prove the rule; for the stipulation was one which could not lead to abuses, and which would be conducive, as he believed, in the highest decree to the true interests of both the contracting parties. He was convinced that so long as the system of entrusting the conduct of foreign affairs to a Provincial Government endured, there could be no security for the maintenance of pacific relations. On the one ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... atmosphere, compressed into a setting of hills and woods. Its length was about three leagues, while its breadth was irregular, expanding to half a league, or even more, opposite to the point, and contracting to less than half that distance, more to the southward. Of course, its margin was irregular, being indented by bays, and broken by many projecting, low points. At its northern, or nearest end, it was bounded by ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... over indulged in, caused so much evil. Malaria loaded the air, and the most efficacious drugs now at command were then undiscovered or could not be had. Intoxicants were the only popular specific. Men drank to prevent contracting ague, drank again, between rigors, to cure it, and yet again ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... two Contracting Parties mutually agree that the term of lease of Port Arthur and Dalny and the term of lease of the South Manchurian Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway shall be extended to ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... about it, as though uncertain what fantastic shape they should take to best display their brilliancy. This tremulous hesitation of varying color did not last long; the whole jewel-like mass swept together, expanding and contracting with extraordinary swiftness for a few seconds—then, suddenly and clearly defined in the sky, a Kingly Crown blazed forth—a Crown of perfect shape, its five points distinctly and separately outlined and flashing as with a ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... by your laws no man can make a contract for a horse or piece of land until he is twenty-one years of age, and by which contract he is not bound if any deception has been practiced, or if the party contracting has not fulfilled his part of the agreement—so long as the parties in all mere civil contracts retain their identity and all the power and independence they had before contracting, with the full right to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... "Contracting trouble—tunnel blasting, to be exact. But if you have a few minutes to spare perhaps you will listen to my story. You will then be better able ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

... moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was, to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again grow solid. Then they would shoot up through it; and lo! there was the moon, far off, clear and steady and cold, and very lovely, at the bottom of a deeper and bluer lake than theirs, as the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... "Both contracting parties guarantee to each other the integrity of their respective territories, as constituted before the present war, keeping the boundaries possessed at that time by each captaincy general or viceroyalty of those who now have resumed the exercise ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... only qualify for membership in this galaxy! The thought made her feel like a worm aspiring to be a star. Tempest, whom she had liked least, now filled her with admiration. She saw the tragedy of his life plain and sad upon his features. She could not look at him without her heart's contracting in an ache. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... verdure, bloom, and fruitfulness. As these works came out, I was rejoiced to see that he was unspoiled by the controversies in which he had allowed, himself to become engaged; that they had not given to these better expressions of his genius, any tinge of misanthropy, or appearance of contracting and closing sympathies any trace of an interest in his fellow-beings less large and free than in his ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... femmes de chambre so much authority in our apartments. The Queen-mother, the widow of Louis XIII., not contented with loving Cardinal Mazarin, went the absurd length of marrying him. He was not a priest, and therefore was not prevented by his orders from contracting matrimony. He soon, however, got very tired of the poor Queen, and treated her dreadfully ill, which is the ordinary result in such marriages. But it is the vice of the times to contract clandestine marriages. The Queen-mother of England, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... is raining a driven shower of celestial seed. On the chapters thus fiercely written the eye of the modern student rests, cool and critical, wearily scanning paragraphs, digressive as Juliet's nurse, and protesting, with contracting eyebrow, that this easy writing is ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... 'Senatus-consulte' to be issued for levying the National Guards, who were divided into three corps. He also arranged his diplomatic affairs by concluding, in February 1812, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Prussia, by virtue of which the two contracting powers mutually guaranteed the integrity of their own possessions, and the European possessions of the Ottoman Porte, because that power was then at war with Russia. A similar treaty was concluded about the beginning of March with Austria, and ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... the names of the contracting parties? You see, I solemnize a good many marriage ceremonies. For some reason, a good many persons come to me. My church is rather—popular, you see. I hate to have 'fashionable' applied to holy things. I ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... Others remain bachelors all their lives, and the judges in vain offer them wives. "Why should we take them?" they say. "You have thrashed us once, and it is not possible to endure it again." The legitimate way of contracting marriage is to let the parents make the match. When the old folks have settled the matter between themselves, they ask the judges to arrest the boy and girl in question, whereupon the young people are put into prison ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... saddest tone, 'If I fail in this, I do not know that I can ever pay you.' As I looked up at him I thought then, and think now, that I never saw a sadder face. I said to him, 'You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a double bed up-stairs which you are very welcome to share with me.' 'Where is your room?' said he. 'Up-stairs,' said ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... board on which, supported by trestles of iron, the huge bed of Maddalena and her husband was laid. At present this bed was rolled up, and in consequence towered to a considerable height. The parrot looked at Hermione coldly, with round, observant eyes whose pupils kept contracting and expanding with a monotonous regularity. She felt as if it had a soul that was frigidly ironic. Its pertinacious glance chilled and repelled her, and she fancied it was reflected in the faces of the ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... holders of bank notes that came into their hands in the fair way of trade, and who are not stockholders in the funds; and as such persons have had no hand in increasing the demand upon the bank, as those have had who for their own private interest, like Boyd and others, are contracting or pretending to contract for new loans, they will conceive they have a just right that their bank notes should be paid first. Boyd has been very sly in France, in changing his paper into cash. He will be just as sly in doing the same thing in London, for he has learned to calculate; and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... the native patois, and Roldan could gather little of his meaning beyond what his gestures conveyed. He shook his fist in the direction of the Mission, snapped his fingers in scorn, pointed toward the mountains, then made the motion of speeding an arrow from the bow, at the same time contracting his face hideously. ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... with the planetary periods, pointed out by Babinet in 1861.[1163] In order to make them fit in with the hypothesis of successive separation from a rotating and contracting body, certain arbitrary assumptions have to be made of fluctuations in the distribution of the matter forming that body at the various epochs of separation.[1164] Such expedients usually merit the distrust which they inspire. Primitive and permanent irregularities of density in the solar ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... assert, that men perceive the advantages of government; that they institute government with a view to those advantages; that this institution requires a promise of obedience; which imposes a moral obligation to a certain degree, but being conditional, ceases to be binding, whenever the other contracting party performs not his part of the engagement. I perceive, that a promise itself arises entirely from human conventions, and is invented with a view to a certain interest. I seek, therefore, some such interest more immediately connected with government, and which may be at once the original ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... the rite by which the covenant was established are profoundly illuminative. The significant division of the animals into two shows that they were regarded as representing the contracting parties, and the passing between them symbolised the taking up of the obligations of the covenant. This strange rite, which was widely spread, derives importance from the use of it probably made in Hebrews ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... little church of Market Snodsbury, Bertram had plainly got to put in some shrewdish work. I had gathered, during my conversation with Aunt Dahlia, that there had been a certain amount of frank speech between the two contracting parties, but I had not realized till now that matters had ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... traveled the whole way to Boston packed closely in a trunk, being regaled with fresh air regularly every night. When he reached his destination he was deposited under a glass case, where he sat for some months in great tranquillity and composure, alternately dilating and contracting his white throat to the admiration of his visitors. At length, one morning, about the middle of winter, he gave up the ghost. His death was attributed to starvation, a very probable conclusion, since for six months he had taken no food whatever, though the sympathy of his juvenile admirers ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... Rhona, and went on. Her wages were rarely over five dollars a week, and for months, during slack season, she was out of work—came daily to the factory, and had to sit on a bench and wait, often fruitlessly. And then the sub-contracting system, whereunder the boss divided the work among lesser bosses who each ran a gang of toilers, speeding them up mercilessly, "sweating" them! And so the young girls, sixteen to twenty-five years old, were sapped of health and joy and ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... generally, did so in this work also; for when they had had assigned to them by lot so much as fell to their share, they proceeded to dig, making the opening of the excavation at the top twice as wide as the channel itself was to be; and as the work went forward, they kept contracting the width; so that, when they came to the bottom, their work was made of equal width with that of the others. Now there is a meadow there, in which there was made for them a market and a place for buying and selling; and great quantities of corn came for them regularly from Asia, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... Restook, and Tobique rivers, which will be noticed hereafter. It then continues its course without interruption, receiving every few miles some considerable streams, till it reaches the Maductic Falls. Its course is nearly south, and its width about a quarter of a mile, occasionally widening and contracting from the Grand Falls to Woodstock, where it widens to near a mile and forms several fine Islands. It afterwards diminishes, and strips of intervale ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... nearly twenty-six. My father, for reasons of State, married at twenty-one: I, for similar reasons, have been kept unmarried, no sufficiently eligible partner could be found for me. And I solved the time of waiting by contracting a non-legal conjugal relationship with a woman for whom I had a very real affection, who was considerably my senior in years, and who knew quite well that the arrangement could only be temporary. My Lord Archbishop, I ask you—could you in ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... became brighter. After a little while he fancied that he could distinguish two or three stars shining very faintly in the patch of sky above the sashes; and again thinking of remoteness, immensity, infinity, he experienced a curious physical sensation of contracting bulk, as though all his body had grown and was steadily growing smaller. Very strong this sensation, and, unless one wrestled with it firmly, translating itself in the mental sphere as a vaguely distressful notion that one was nothing but ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... France, and when this was disproved that they were being built for the Viceroy of Egypt. This also proved to be untrue. Finally it was declared that the real owners were certain French merchants whose purpose in contracting for such clearly warlike vessels was left in mystery, but with the intimation that Egypt was to be the ultimate purchaser. Captain Bullock had indeed made such a contract of sale to French merchants but with the proviso of resale to him, after delivery. On his part, Russell was seeking proof ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... festival which should be the wonderment and admiration of the county. The breakfast room was decorated with lavish splendour, the richest apparel bespoken for the bride, and all the wealthy and titled relatives of both contracting families were invited to the pageant. Nor were Philip and Julia idle. It was arranged between them that, at eleven o'clock on the night of the day preceding the intended wedding, the young man should present himself beneath ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... ability had more than a local reputation. In 1667, we find him contracting with the authorities of Groton, to erect "a good and sufficient corne mill or mills, and the same to finish so as may be fitting to grind the corne of the said Towne." ... For the fulfillment of this agreement he received five hundred and twenty acres of land, and mill and lands were exempted ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... be free, even then, in the tarnished condition which such freedom would have involved. However, there stood the words distinctly: Isaac Pierston, Ann Avice Caro, son and daughter of So-and-so, married on such a day, signed by the contracting parties, the officiating minister, and ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... broken boat and the dead body of the unfortunate young officer, stripped of all money and valuables, with a wound in the head, was found ashore on the Isle of Wight. The third son, Hugh, was entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1793, but contracting scarlet fever he died on 21st December of that year, and was buried in the church of St. Andrew the Great, being joined by his brother James a few weeks afterwards, when the mother was left indeed alone. She survived her husband for the long period of fifty-six years, living at Clapham with her ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... stretch over it smoothly a damp handkerchief or piece of very thin rubber cloth, rubbing the print down with my hands, seldom using the squeegee and then very lightly. By this method abrasion of the surface seldom results and air-bells are unknown. Owing to the strong contracting power of the paper in drying, the mounting paste must be used freely, especially at the edges of ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant

... till he stood stark, a noble form of a man. Then the priest sprinkled some herbs on the fire, and a thin smoke rose to the roof. The smell was that I had smelled on the Kirkcaple shore, sweet, sharp, and strange enough to chill the marrow. And round the fire went the priest in widening and contracting circles, just as on that Sabbath ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... the curved edge of the cartilage, I found delicate striated bunches of the muscle of the helix, and so perfectly intact that one would have said there was nothing to prevent their contracting. Under the skin and near the muscles, I found several little nervous filaments, each one composed of eight or ten tubes in which the medulla was as intact and homogeneous as in nerves removed from a living animal or ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... dream of losing his inheritance by disobedience, warns him that he will find favor in the eyes of his parents by contracting a suitable marriage. For a woman, this dream is a warning to be careful of her conduct, lest she meet ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... I intend in some cases to apply a degree of cold not capable of reducing the steam to water, but of contracting it considerably, so that the engines shall be worked by the alternate expansion ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... circular hyaline masses of jelly with eight longitudinal bands, composed of many comb-like plates, along which iridescent waves of light continually play. The graceful appearance of these exquisite creatures is increased by two long, fringed tentacles streaming behind, drifting at full length or contracting into numerous coils. The fringe on these streamers is a series of living hairs—an aquatic cobweb, each active with life, and doing its share in ensnaring minute atoms of food for its owner. When dozens of these ctenophores ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe

... to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... not distinct from the Covenant of Redemption, nor from the Covenant of Grace. It is dependent on that covenant as made with the Mediator, and consistent with it as established with men. In all the three cases, the God of grace is one of the contracting parties. In the Covenant of Redemption, the Redeemer himself, as the surety of the elect, was the other. In the Covenant of Grace, the people of God united to Christ, and drawing near to God through him, are the other party. And in the case of personal or social covenanting, ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... Shaft is on the line of the tunnels in the yards of the Erie Railroad on the New Jersey side, and the distance between the shafts is about 6,575 ft. The contracts for these shafts were let in June, 1903, to the United Engineering and Contracting Company, and they were completed and ready for use at the time of letting the main contract for the tunnels, thus saving ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles M. Jacobs

... the stratified crust, its large and slow movements through miles of elevation and depression, and its small and rapid movements which give rise to the innumerable perceived and unperceived earthquakes which are constantly occurring, are due to the shrinkage of the crust on its cooling and contracting nucleus. ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... limestone shewed itself on the plains, and at a short distance from the creek a vein of milky quartz cropped out near a pretty sheet of water. As we proceeded upwards sandstone traversed its bed in several places; in some degree contracting its channel. A short time before we halted we passed a very large and long sheet of water, on which there were a good many wild fowl, so very shy, that although the brush grew close to the banks of the creek, so as to favour our creeping upon ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... the Pig" and other notables. The porter tells how Phil worsted Mr. Snowden. What a "contract hotel" is. Teddy decides to take bean soup. "Why didn't the contracting agent sign us ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... prove it, Sir?" queried the Prince. "Bigamy is the act of contracting a second marriage while the first partner is alive. It is punished severely in commoners;—why ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... beaver-meadow, which extended two or three miles; sometimes contracting into a narrow gorge, between the wooded heights, then spreading out again into an ample field of verdure, and presenting everywhere the same unvarying level surface, surrounded with rising grounds, covered with the dense unbroken forest, as if ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... specific credit in the pages of the book to every source from which the authors have drawn aid. They wish here to acknowledge, therefore, the help secured from many engineers and contractors, from the volumes of Engineering News, Engineering Record and Engineering-Contracting, and from the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the proceedings and papers of various other civil engineering societies and organizations of concrete workers. The work done by these journals and societies in gathering ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... the business of the National Government to provide a medium, automatically contracting and expanding in volume, to meet the needs of trade. Our present system lacks the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft

... Grant—a man's fight as sure as you're born." Grant sprang to his feet and threw back his head, as he began pacing the narrow cell. As he threw out his arms, his claw clicked on the steel bars of the cell, and Morty Sands felt the sudden contracting of the cell walls about the men as ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... finds kind to him, but it may be a little envious, and most other men are, and of many others; and upon the whole do find that it is a troublesome thing for a man of any condition at Court to carry himself even, and without contracting enemys or envyers; and that much discretion and dissimulation is necessary to do it. My father staid a good while at the window and then sat down by himself while my Lord and I were thus an hour together or two after dinner discoursing, and by and by he took his leave, and told me he would ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... Chastitie divine Would shut the door that he might sit alone. Then wholly should my mind to him incline: And woxen strait, (since larger love was gone) That paultrie sprite of low contracting lust Would fit my soul as if 't were made ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... four, were sitting in their prison the next afternoon chafing more than ever. It seemed to every one of them that those walls, already so narrow, were still contracting. They did not even like to look out of the window. The contrast was too painful, and they did not wish ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler



Words linked to "Contracting" :   getting, acquiring, contract, catching



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