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Prodigiously   /proʊdˈɪdʒɪsli/   Listen
Prodigiously

adverb
1.
To a prodigious degree.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Prodigiously" Quotes from Famous Books



... was not disturbed. But the truth was known; and her reputation, which was not good before, became altogether bad. I became an object of interest. The very same people who had seen me twenty times staggering painfully under a load of wet clothes, which was terrible, began to pity me prodigiously because I had had an ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... you that she had never yet loved anybody, having vainly looked in the world for the man of whom she dreamed. She painted to you the phoenix in such colors, that you had to say to yourself, 'What does she mean? That phoenix! Why, she means me!' That has tickled you prodigiously. She has thrown herself at your feet; you have raised her up; she has fainted; she has sobbed like a distressed dove in your arms; you ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... salary to his family. Voltaire said of him: "He was a very good man, a great enemy of the devil and of an eternal hell.... I am persuaded that if there ever existed a devil, and he had read Bekker's World Bewitched, he would never have forgiven the author for having so prodigiously insulted him." In the library at Utrecht there are ten quarto volumes containing reviews of this book, in which Bekker's personal appearance, said to have been very unprepossessing, receives a goodly portion of the censure. His body was ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... Republic of the United States would be strong enough to defy any power on earth in a just cause. The State of Ohio was not yet born when the wisest of men and purest of patriots uttered that prophecy; and God the Almighty has made the prophecy true, by annexing, in a prodigiously short period, more stars to the proud constellation of your Republic, and increasing the lustre of every star more powerfully, than Washington could have anticipated in the brightest moments of ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... there, in a few Years it will be more valued, since the Number of Inhabitants encreases so prodigiously; and the Tracts being divided every Age among several Children (not unlike Gavel Kind in Kent and Urchinfield) into smaller Plantations; they at Length must be reduced to a Necessity of making the most of, and valuing ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones

... Mirabeau was prodigiously occupied at Berlin. He often did not retire to rest till one in the morning, but regularly rose at five, even in the midst of severe winter. Without anything on but a simple quilted dressing-gown, without stockings or waistcoat, he worked away without even ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... affected to be quite overcome with Marion's generosity, and swore he would be back in two days, or at farthest in three. As he stepped along by me, he thrust his tongue into his cheek, and looked prodigiously arch, as if he ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... as I was going home, I encountered at the mail-box a young woman who shot at me a queer, twisted smile. I stood still, as though stunned, looking after her, and when halfway across the slushy street she turned and smiled again. Prodigiously excited, I followed her, fearful that I might be seen by someone who knew me, nor was it until she reached an unfamiliar street that I ventured to overtake her. She ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... suffer a new scene to be painted for the play, he refused to furnish even a new dress, and was careful to spread his forebodings as widely as he could.' The play met with the greatest success. 'There was a new play by Dr. Goldsmith last night, which succeeded prodigiously,' wrote Horace Valpole (Letters, v. 452). The laugh was turned against the doubting manager. Ten days after the play had been brought out, Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'C——[Colman] is so distressed with abuse about his play, that he has solicited Goldsmith to take him off the rack ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... hand, which was growing moist—and I suppose mine was too—and I didn't like to drop it, for fear of hurting her feelings. I gave it a great squeeze. It was very difficult for me. Personally, I enjoyed the frank, untrammelled and prodigiously accomplished scion of a vulgar race. As a mere bachelor, isolated human, meeting him, I should have taken him joyously, if not to my heart, at any rate to my microscope and studied him and savoured him and got out of him all that there was of grotesqueness. But to every ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... recommend you to consider whether the Home or Coast Fisheries might not be brought more under the fostering and stimulating influence of your bounty by some extension of its provisions. The main branch of our manufacturing industry (Ship-Building) has increased prodigiously, and is now carried on to an extent beyond that of any former period: but it is submitted to your consideration whether it is not accompanied by some disadvantageous circumstances which detract vastly from the great value it might be made to produce, ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher

... writes in his secret correspondence, "betokens depth and finesse. He speaks with eloquence and precision: he is prodigiously well-informed, industrious, and clear-sighted: he has a vast correspondence, which he owes to his merit alone: he is even economical of his amours. His mistress, Madame de Hartfeld, is the most sensible woman of his court. A real Alcibiades, he loves ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... "How prodigiously handsome Colonel Lennox looked to-day," said she, addressing Mary; "and how perfectly unconscious, at least indifferent, he seems about it. It is quite refreshing to see a handsome man that is neither a ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... and Co. always close with 'I remain your very humble servant'"), wrote melodies in Il Barbiere di Siviglia which sound as fresh to us today as they did when they were first composed. And when this prodigiously gifted musician-cook turned his back to the public to write Guillaume Tell he penned a work which critics have consistently told us is a masterpiece, but which is as seldom performed today as any ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... living plaything in this abandoned land. At midday a blot of black lay at the root of every sage brush. At evening each filigreed ridge, each solitary cone rising detached in the sealike circle of its loneliness, showed a slant of amethyst at its base, growing longer and finer, tapering prodigiously, and turning purple ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... of others; for jealousy is a good point of character in every one but the husband, and there it is only ridiculous. The husband in this case is another admirable specimen of the results of wedlock for life—he is a chattering, shallow pretender—a political economist, prodigiously dull and infinitely conceited—an exaggerated type of the Hume-Bowring statesman—and, as is naturally to be expected, our sympathies are awakened for the wretched wife, and we rejoice to see that her beauty and talents, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... handsomer on that account. A few reddish hairs, streaked with gray, were brushed back behind his protruding ears, and were puffed up by the high collar of his coat. His perfectly bald skull, shining like a bone, overhung a prodigiously long nose, spongy and bulbous at the end, so that with the blue discs of his glasses he looked somewhat like an ibis,—a resemblance increased by his head sunk between his shoulders. This appearance was of course entirely suitable and most providential ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... passed off the stage of existence before the end of the Cretaceous. The bones were hollow, as are those of birds. The sternum, or breastbone, was given a keel for the attachment of the wing muscles. The fifth finger, prodigiously lengthened, was turned backward to support a membrane which was attached to the body and extended to the base of the tail. The other fingers were free, and armed with sharp and delicate claws, as shown ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... group near the door that we readily take in, in our first sweeping glance round the room. Mrs. Mountainhead, a lady prodigiously inclined to embonpoint, looking exceedingly warm and uncomfortable, is the central figure. Her two daughters and their attendant cavaliers are also there. But it is plain to see that Mrs. Mountainhead does not enjoy the ball. She stands in holy ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... examined all the other jars, one after another; and when he came to that which had the oil in it, found it prodigiously sunk, and stood for some time motionless, sometimes looking at the jars, and sometimes at Morgiana, without saying a word, so great was his surprise. At last, when he had recovered himself, he said, "And what is become of ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... October we caught four fish; a shark, a dolphin, a jelly-fish, and an old-wife. The shark and dolphin are well known, and need not be described in this place. The Jelly-fish was about fourteen inches long and two inches deep, having sharp teeth, a sparkling eye, and long extended mouth. It has a prodigiously high fin on its back, of a slimy substance, except that its rays, which are thirty-two in number, are firm and stiff. It has also one small fin under the throat, of the same slimy substance with the large one on its back. The greater ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... acting, and house crammed, and the Lord-Lieutenant several times there, laughing his heart out. I wish you had sent me a copy, as I desired to oblige an honest bookseller. It would have done Motte no harm, for no English copy has been sold, but the Dublin one has run prodigiously. ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville

... continued Mr. Underwood, 'I thought myself a prodigiously fine fellow—with my arms full of prizes at Harrow, and my Trinity scholarship—and could just, in the plenitude of my presumption, extend a little conceited patronage to that unlucky dunce, Tom Underwood, the lag of every form, and thankful for a high stool at old Kedge's. And now my children view ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the new class, it increased prodigiously during the years following the war of 1870, thanks to the millions which the empire could invest in its industries and which allowed it to endow its commerce and its merchant marine, to complete the network of its ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... vexations. "What will become of me," said he, "if the English, who are cruising hereabout, should learn that I have landed in Corsica? I shall be forced to stay here. That I could never endure. I have a torrent of relations pouring upon me." His great reputation had certainly prodigiously augmented the number of his family. He was over whelmed with visits, congratulations, and requests. The whole town was in a commotion. Every one of its inhabitants wished to claim him as their cousin; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... that the great commercial country of the world was Great Britain—that so extensive and ramified were her trade transactions, that she might be considered the centre of universal commerce. The great manufacturing towns in the north of England increased prodigiously in wealth and influence, and the chief provincial ports became hives of industry, while their waters were crowded with forests of ships. The Liverpool Year-book for 1856 * disclosed an extraordinary state of power and prosperity in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the parley prolonged, my mind being quite made up as to the enemy's intentions, and to the course it was most fitting for me to pursue under the circumstances. It had not escaped me that their saucy numbers had been prodigiously swelled by a horde of half-savage troops from Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, which evidently made it hazardous for their northern countrymen to show their accustomed respect for a flag of truce from a foe; but my most important discovery was their ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... Loyalists' lands, or claims for land, for a long time seemed to be almost inexhaustible; for the loyal refugees appear to have been prolific beyond all precedent, and most of those who held office at the capital of the province, or who could command a small capital, became speculators and throve prodigiously. Many persons, during the early days of the colony, were thus enriched, without risk or labour, from the inexhaustible "quivers" ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... then so unequally divided, that some were two hundred times larger than others. Since that time, the increase of trade, the frequency of Parliaments, the desire of living in the metropolis, together with that genius for building, which began after the fire, and hath ever since continued, have prodigiously enlarged this town on all sides, where it was capable of increase; and those tracts of land built into streets, have generally continued of the same parish they belonged to, while they lay in fields; so that the care of above thirty thousand ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... a horse for our invalid, and I have borrowed one for myself. These animals are rather pretty at Rio, but far from strong; they are fed on maize and capim, or Guinea grass, which was introduced of late years into Brazil, and thrives prodigiously: it is cultivated by planting the joints; the stem and leaves are as large as those of barley; it grows sometimes to the height of six or seven feet, and the flower is a large loose pannicle. The quantity necessary for each horse per day costs about eightpence, and his maize as much more. The common ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... coat, and pocketed hands proclaimed him a sailor, there were one or two contradictory points about him. A huge beard and moustache savoured more of the diggings than the deep, and a brown wide-awake with a prodigiously broad ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... vanished town; its fragments of columns and sculptured capitals are strewn about in the fields of lucerne. How inexplicable it seems that this land of ancient splendours, which never ceased indeed to be nutritive and prodigiously fertile, should have returned, for some hundreds of years now, to the humble pastoral life ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... you to invite me, you mean, Sir Mulberry,' replied Mrs Nickleby, tossing her head, and looking prodigiously sly. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... than was his habit, secretly attracted by the smile of that fresh face. The mother was for him something more. Her sufferings, her youthful heroism had touched him. She became somebody in his eyes. He discovered many merits in her. He perceived she was remarkably well-informed for a woman, and prodigiously so for a French woman. She understood half a word—knew a great deal—and guessed at the remainder. She had, in short, that blending of grace and solidity which gives to the conversation of a woman of cultivated mind an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the same time the taste of common water only. That quantity of water which had been frozen by the mixture of snow and salt, was almost as much like snow as ice, such a quantity of air-bubbles were contained in it, by which it was prodigiously ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... PORTUGAL.—The Orange known under the name of "Portugal Orange" comes originally from China. Not more than two centuries ago, the Portuguese brought thence the first scion, which has multiplied so prodigiously that we now see entire forests of ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... elegance generally; but it must be borne in mind that Victurnien immediately contracted some twenty thousand francs' worth of debts besides, and his tradespeople at first were not at all anxious to be paid, for our young gentleman's fortune had been prodigiously increased, partly by rumor, partly by Josephin, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... chateau contains nothing of any value besides the Rubenses and the tapestries. Jewelry? There is very little and what there is of it is not worth much. In that case, what could it be?—On the other hand, was it conceivable that people so prodigiously clever as Lupin should not have succeeded in adding 'the rest,' which they themselves had evidently suggested? A difficult undertaking, very likely; exceptional, surprising, I dare say; but possible and therefore certain, since Lupin ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... the plea of color. God had shaded him a little too much. "How is this, my wife is in this car," spake Miles. All eyes gazed around to see who his wife was. By this time the car had been stopped, and the wrath of the conductor was kindled prodigiously. He did not, however, lay violent hands upon Miles. A late decision in court had taught the police that they had no right to interfere, except in cases where the peace was actually being broken; so in order to get rid of this troublesome customer, the car was run off the track, the shivering ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... for death; fought manfully, skilfully, terribly, too, and received the point of the sword or the palm of the victor, their expression unchanged, the face unmoved. Among them, some provided with a net and prodigiously agile, pursued their adversaries hither and thither, trying to entangle them first and kill them later. Others, protected by oblong shields and armed with short, sharp swords, fought hand-to-hand. There were still others, mailed horsemen, who fought ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... difficult to reach, to observe, to describe, and which are not any less facts for these reasons, and which man is not less obliged to study and to know; and if he fails to recognize them or forgets them, his thought will be prodigiously abashed, and all his ideas carry the stamp ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... George. His bosom swells with ambition. His genius breaks out prodigiously. He talks about the Good, the Beautiful, the Ideal, &c., in and out of all season, and is virtuous and eloquent almost beyond belief—in fact like Devereux, or P. Clifford, or ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... in the sixteenth century that French assassinations were of the most striking order. The marriage of Catharine de' Medici with that French prince who became Henry II. is supposed to have been attended with the effect of debauching French morals, as the Italians had a prodigiously bad reputation as assassins, and particularly as poisoners. Catharine was totally unscrupulous, having about as much of moral sense as goes to the making of a tigress; but it needed not that she should marry into the House of Valois to render assassination a Gallic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... the mooted question whether etiquette may not soon be a subject for an obituary rather than a guide-book, one thing is certain: we have advanced prodigiously ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... mirror. Good Heavens, what a face and what an outfit! With my haggard eyes and my sallow complexion, with my hair cut short, and my nose with the bumps shining; with my long mouse-gray coat, my pants stained russet, my great hedless shoes, my colossal cotton cap, I am prodigiously ugly. I could not keep from laughing. I turn my head toward the side of my bed neighbor, a tall boy of Jewish type, who is sketching my portrait in a notebook. We become friends at once; I tell him ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans

... like a dwarf, and yet thickset, like one of the Cabiri, distorted, and with a miserable aspect. White hair covers his prodigiously large head, and he shivers under a sorry tunic, while he grasps in his hand a roll of papyrus. The light of the moon, across which a cloud is passing, falls ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... is a prodigiously pretty girl; and I was just saying to myself, 'Upon my word, M. Ravinet's taste is ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundred pounds—fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for the forty-odd wolves of the pack. But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed prodigiously, and soon a few scattered bones were all that remained of the splendid live brute that had faced the pack a few ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... distinction, and that the oath of obedience of a bishop to him implied political as well as ecclesiastical subjection. In countries having a dual government this increased the power of the spiritual element prodigiously. ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... was an explosion of laughter. "Pardon me, Miss Baron," said Ackley, "but you can't know how droll your idea of injustice to the Yankees seems to us. That you have such an idea, however, is a credit to you and to them also, for they must have been behaving themselves prodigiously." ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... him prodigiously to feel Stafford lay a firm hand on his arm and say: "Can you, perhaps, dine with me to-night at the Travellers' Club? It makes life worth while to talk to men like you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... constantly at the Museum. He read prodigiously; he brought home a great quantity of notes; every night Cecily and he talked over his acquisitions, and excited themselves. But the weather grew oppressively hot, and it was plain that they could not carry out the project of remaining in town all through ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... princely office, Bismarck thought to found a diplomatic dynasty of his own, wherein the servant becomes the master; he made his son, young Count Herbert, Minister of Foreign Affairs, a rise in life prodigiously fast for one who used to fill the function of holding his father's dispatch bag in the Parliament, when the old man made speeches, supported by incessant ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... greatly desired to know. I found her very interesting, apart from her fine talent, on account of her mind and her general culture.... She has talked much with me during the two evenings I have passed at her house. Her manner is gentle; she is prodigiously learned, but has no enthusiasm, which, considering my ignorance, has not electrified me.... I have seen several of her works; her sketches please me more than her pictures, because they are ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... a sudden, half in jest, half in earnest, he made certain proposals to her. She was no longer young, having been on the stage for half a century. Delage, with his twenty-five years, looked upon her as prodigiously old. Yet, as he whispered into her ear, he felt excited, infatuated, he became sincere, he really desired her, out of perverse curiosity, because he wanted to do something extraordinary, and was certain ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France

... read some time ago a novel which has not made much noise, but which is prodigiously clever,—'City and Suburb.' The story hangs in parts, but it is full of weighty sentences. We have no poet since Tennyson except Robert Lytton, who, you know, calls himself Owen Meredith. Poetry in England is assuming a new character, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... Lexington this afternoon. The country is much more like England than anything we have yet seen, being chiefly pasture land. The grass is that known here, and very celebrated as the "blue grass" of Kentucky; though why or wherefore it is so called we cannot discover. It is of prodigiously strong growth, sometimes attaining two feet in height; but it is generally kept low, either by cropping or cutting, and is cut sometimes five times a year. The stock raised upon it is said to be very fine, and ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... oubliettes, felt that her great coup was struck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it with her arms a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... man, rather under the middle size, and with a countenance bronzed by a thousand conflicts with the north-east wind. His frame was prodigiously muscular, strong, and thick-set; so that it seemed as if a man of much greater height would have been an inadequate match in any close personal conflict. He was hard-favoured, and, which was worse, his face bore nothing of the insouciance, the careless frolicsome jollity and vacant ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... observation confirmed by Humboldt. "It appears," he says, "that the transparency of the air is prodigiously increased when a certain quantity of water is uniformly diffused through it." Again, he says that the mountaineers of the Alps "predict a change of weather when, the air being calm, the Alps covered with perpetual snow seem on a sudden ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs

... lie bitten off a hunk greater than he could chew? So the inner ring of local politicians. An election audience, however, brings its own enthusiasms, and it must be a very dull dog indeed who damps their ardour. They cheered prodigiously when Paul sat down, and a crowd of zealots waiting outside the building cheered him again as he drove off. But Paul knew that he had been a failure. He had delivered another man's speech. To-morrow and the day after and ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... I taught them a good practical lesson by pinning two of them together by their petticoats, which liberty, on my part, I need not tell the reader, increased the mirth of this merry meeting of Touarghee ladies prodigiously. I certainly felt glad that we could travel in a country and laugh and chat with, and look at the women without exciting the intolerable jealousy of the men. I think there is not a more dastardly ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... sackful instead of a bagful," observed Pride, "it would not have been too much for Dick Desley; and as for the hammer—don't you know that he has a prodigiously fine ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker

... discovered that my companion was by no means satisfied with existing circumstances. The officiousness of the pair of mayors prodigiously displeased ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... victory, his character rose prodigiously in the estimation of all his school fellows, and the name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the school. "After all, it's not his fault that his father's ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... parliament added one hundred and forty thousand pounds annually for acts of charity and bounty, together with the article of secret-service money; and allowed one hundred thousand pounds for the maintenance of the prince of Wales; that the article of secret-service money had prodigiously increased in the late reign; by an account which happened to be laid before the parliament, it appeared that vast sums of money had been given for purposes which nobody understood, and to persons whom nobody knew. In the beginning of the following ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... and August; and that, on the contrary, it is seen at very extraordinary distances in the months of January and February, when the sky is slightly clouded, and immediately after a heavy rain, or a few hours before it falls. It appears that the transparency of the air is prodigiously increased, as we have already observed, when a certain quantity of water is uniformly diffused through the atmosphere. Independent of these observations, it is not astonishing, that the peak of Teyde should be seldomer visible at a very remote distance, than the summits of the Andes, to ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... prodigiously flattered and fluttered. When he thought of being beneath the same roof with Lady Ella, he flushed and trembled as he had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... characteristic of fungi in general that they are very rapid in growth, and rapid in decay. In a night a puffball will grow prodigiously, and in the same short period a mass of paste may be covered with mould. In a few hours a gelatinous mass of Reticularia will pass into a bladder of dust, or a Coprinus will be dripping into decay. Remembering this, mycophagists will take note that a fleshy fungus which ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... dilated in water and mingled with some other fit earthy substance, that may familiarize it a little with the corn into which I endeavoured to introduce it, I have made the barrenest ground far out-go the richest, in giving a prodigiously plentiful harvest. I have seen hemp-seed soaked in this liquor, that hath in due time made such plants arise, as, for the tallness and hardness of them, seemed rather to be coppice-wood of fourteen years' growth at least, than plain hemp. The fathers ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... not reply, but, with a groan, pushed the lad aside, sprang from the bed, and began to retch prodigiously into the wash basin, after which he announced himself better, lay down and took another drink. Meanwhile the man in the far corner tossed and groaned as ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... and our stove smokes prodigiously. I have been out in the rain endeavoring to turn the pipe, but have not mended the matter at all. The Major insists that it is better to freeze than to be smoked to death, so we shall extinguish the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... prodigiously learned in theories. But as to practices, as to experimentals, must be, as you know from her tender years, a mere novice. Till she knew me, I dare say, she did not believe, whatever she had read, that there were such fellows in the world, as she will see in you four. I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... changed. Since a few men met around a table six or seven weeks before and sent a few dispatches a revolution had come. Old customs, old ideas and old barriers were going fast, and might be going faster. War, the leveler, was prodigiously ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... with the national light on them as they rise, into observation and judgment. If nobody can do this, it is a pity I think to do so much less—both in France and England—to snatch up a French book from over the Channel as ever and anon they do in the Athenaeum, and say something prodigiously absurd of it, till people cry out 'oh oh' as in the ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... all his life," Thackeray says, "and recognise but a bow and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's best nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then—nothing. French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse-jockeys, ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... prodigiously, and everybody near and far seems quite "angelic," as Julian would say. . . . Last Sunday Mrs. Emerson and her three children came to make a call. The Study is the pet room, the temple of the Muses and the Delphic ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... waitresses behind him, all dying of poison and despair. The life of man, as these furiously envious ones see it, is the life of a leading actor in a boulevard revue. He is a polygamous, multigamous, myriadigamous; an insatiable and unconscionable debauche, a monster of promiscuity; prodigiously unfaithful to his wife, and even to his friends' wives; fathomlessly libidinous ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... to take the place by assault, the king of Siam caused a great mount to be raised, which overlooked the city, and was planted with a great number of cannon, by which the defenders were prodigiously annoyed. Upon this, 5000 men sallied from the city, and destroyed the mount, killing 16,000 of the enemy, and carrying off 80 pieces of cannon. In this affair the king of Siam was wounded; and being greatly enraged against a body of 2000 Portuguese, who were in his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... in the leg; he carried a great scar over his brow; he was as full of yarns as a piece of ancient ship's biscuit of weevils; he swore with more oaths than a Dutchman; sneered prodigiously at steam; and held the meanest opinion of the then existing race of seamen, who, he said, never could have won the old battles which had been the making of this kingdom, whether under Howe's or gallant Jervis's, ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... herself some strange reflections upon her lover. The poet cut a poor figure notwithstanding his singular beauty. The sleeves of his jacket were too short; with his ill-cut country gloves and a waistcoat too scanty for him, he looked prodigiously ridiculous, compared with the young men in the balcony—"positively pitiable," thought Mme. de Bargeton. Chatelet, interested in her without presumption, taking care of her in a manner that revealed a ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... far advanced, and never, during its progress, had we been incommoded by any very hot weather. Our house was generally crowded with visitors: for, as it was the workmanship of King George and his people, they were prodigiously proud of it, and each seemed to think he had an undoubted right to sit in it as much as he liked. This, at times, we felt as a great annoyance; but we were obliged to be very cautious not to say or do anything that should give offence to them, as all were exceedingly irritable, and we felt ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... a convention of his cabinet for the discussion of questions politic and for the transaction of certain routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious; the business and the wine prodigiously dry. A sudden, prankish humour of Don Sabas, impelling him to the deed, spiced the grave affairs of state with a whiff of ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... country, who rode a pacing mare and carried medicines in a saddle-bag across her back;—and he of the hard name, who had lately come as graduate of the University, who visited the sick in a gasoline runabout of uncertain age which steered with a lever and heaved prodigiously, who wrote prescriptions to be filled at the drug-store. If Doctor Meal were not among his bees, or grafting pear buds, he might be found in a tilted chair on the sidewalk, beneath the giant locust ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... just sending out About five hundred cards for a snug little Rout— (By the by, you've seen "Rokeby"?—this moment got mine— The "Mail-Coach Edition"—prodigiously fine!) But I can't conceive how in this very cold weather I'm ever to bring my five hundred together; As, unless the thermometer's near boiling heat, One can never get half ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... Colonel Proctor, whom this word seemed to excite prodigiously. "At full speed, don't you see, ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... sleep," she murmured, pushing back her rumpled curls and yawning prodigiously. "I wonder why it is I always have to wake up first," and then, her eyes happening to fall on Evelyn at this precise moment, she cried, "Oh, I saw you wink, Evelyn; you can't fool me! You're playing possum," and, springing quickly out of bed, she gave that young lady a vigorous shake, which ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... King Loc for Honey-Bee had increased prodigiously in a few minutes, and as he had already made up his mind to marry her as soon as she was of age, and hoped through her to reconcile men and dwarfs, he feared that later on George might become his rival and wreck his plans. It was ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... ADELA. Prodigiously. I find, after all, that courage is something like a cold bath; take the first plunge, and all is over. Lord, Lenox, how delightful it would have been, had I been armed and fought gallantly in that affair; my name would ...
— She Would Be a Soldier - The Plains of Chippewa • Mordecai Manuel Noah

... Highland regiment among his own army at Quebec. Other themes filled the letters to his mother. Perhaps he was thinking of Miss Lawson when he wrote: 'I have a certain turn of mind that favours matrimony prodigiously. I love children. Two or three manly sons are a present to the world, and the father that offers them sees with satisfaction that he is to live in his successors.' He was thinking more gravely of a ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood

... is true—that is, it is true that the story was told, the pretences were gone through, and the birth was actually believed by a good many people. Some of them were prodigiously enthusiastic about it, and called the invisible brat the New Motive Power, the Physical Savior, Heaven's Last Best Gift to Man, the New Creation, the Great Spiritual Revelation of the Age, the Philosopher's Stone, the Act of all Acts, and so on, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... everything,—which became her eyebrows. Her face was mobile and discontented, her eyes quick and black. There was a sort of smouldering fire about her, young Ottenburg thought. She entertained him prodigiously. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... confess to nothing, but swore prodigiously at the tipsy young people who had disturbed him in the fulfilment of his duty. One of the secretaries of the Finance Minister repeated the whole verse to him. The soldiers standing about laughed aloud, but ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... of goal, Sergeant Fugler had broken down. Everyone knew that Fugler drank prodigiously; but so had his father and grandfather, and each of them had reached eighty. The fellow had always carried his liquor well enough, too. Captain Pond looked upon it almost as ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... upon Nan dramatically, with arm outstretched, pointing accusingly. "Look me in the eye, Nan! Did you and daddy frame that up between you? Be careful now! Dad wrote prodigiously all last winter—let me think it was a brief; and you and he used to get your heads together a good deal, private like, and I feigned not to notice because I thought you were ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... houses of the Continent until November; then returned to London to find his book the literary topic of the day. His secretary handed him the reviews; and for once in a way he read the finalities of the nameless. He found himself hailed as a genius, and compared in astonished phrases to the prodigiously clever talent which the world for twenty years had isolated under the name of Ralph Orth. This pleased him, for every writer is human enough to wish to be hailed as a genius, and immediately. Many are, and many wait; it depends upon the fashion of the moment, and the needs ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... forward to meet us alone in that gay trellice, the same books on his table, his picture, his bust, his image everywhere, himself nowhere upon this earth. Mrs. Watt has, in that poor little shattered frame, a prodigiously strong mind; indeed she could not have been so loved by such a man for such a length of time if she had not superior qualities. She was more kind than I can express, receiving Fanny and Harriet as if they had been of ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... minutes had elapsed. Uncertainly the stranger struggled to his feet. He moved towards the door, halted and came slowly back. He looked very spent, and slim, and wasted in the gathering shadows. As Tabs gazed down at him, he noticed that his face was prodigiously solemn. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... that is to say, of exceedingly sensitive men doing each other all possible harm, inexperienced in political business, Utopians, impatient, intractable, and overexcited. Calculations had been made on these prodigiously false data; consequently, although the calculations were very exact, the results obtained were found absurd. Relying on these data, the machine had been planned, and all its parts been adjusted, assembled, and balanced. That ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... underground conductors, and was transformed into light by the incandescent lamps that had thus far been installed. This date and event may properly be regarded as historical, for they mark the practical beginning of a new art, which in the intervening years has grown prodigiously, and is still ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... race. But as you show in many parts of your book a strong sense of the good and bad influences of education, legislation, and social circumstances, the only inference I draw is that you do not, perhaps, go so far as I do myself in believing these last causes to be of prodigiously greater efficacy than either race or climate, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn



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