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Well-defined   /wɛl-dɪfˈaɪnd/   Listen
Well-defined

adjective
1.
Having a clean and distinct outline as if precisely cut along the edges.  Synonym: chiseled.  "Well-defined features"
2.
Accurately stated or described.  Synonym: clear.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Well-defined" Quotes from Famous Books



... and measured nine inches by six and a half; the smaller were slightly convex, and some were not more than an inch long, with but one or two lines of writing. The cuneiform characters on most of them were singularly sharp and well-defined, but so minute in some instances as to be illegible without a magnifying glass." Most curiously, glass lenses have been found among the ruins; which may have been used for the purpose. Specimens have also been found of the very instruments which were ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... the Middle Ages had not those well-defined and visible landmarks to which we are accustomed. Nowadays one either is or is not of the Church; formerly, no such obvious divisions existed. Religious life spread through society, like an immense ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... the mate and Drew followed the trail, which was plainly enough marked from the side of the brig, the round soft foot-prints showing out in the light patches of sand, the fore paws well-defined and the hind partly brushed out, showing that the body of the deer had been dragged over them. Here and there, too, dry smears of blood were visible on the rough coral rock, where the animal had probably rested, and then dragged the carcase ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... not casual because he wishes to be casual, is not casual as the consequence of some temporary disturbance soon put right. No; the casual labourer is here because he is wanted here. He is here in answer to a perfectly well-defined demand. He is here as the result of economic causes which have been too long unregulated. He is not the natural product, he is an article manufactured, called into being, to suit the requirements, in the Prime Minister's telling ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... "Four well-defined and important monarchies arose out of the ruins.... The great horn was broken; and instead of it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven."—"History of Greece" (edition 1902), ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... willing to admit that he had a well-defined moral squint and a touch of mental strabismus; but he revealed his humanity by blaming his limitations on his parents, and charging up his faults and foibles ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... as separate congregations without a bishop could never have escaped disintegration, so the united congregations, with their presbyters and bishop, would have been powerless without some further organization, uniting the bishops, with well-defined regulations, under some recognized hierarchy of authority. Thus arose metropolitan sees, and the great patriarchates of the Catholic Church—Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople. This centralization was rendered necessary by the course of events; but it ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... tendency of modern times to exempt mail ships from visit and search and from capture and condemnation is not an assured restriction upon belligerent interests, it is a right which neutrals are entitled to demand within certain well-defined limits. It was understood when this immunity was granted by the United States in 1862 that "simulated mails verified by forged certificates and counterfeit seals" were ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... The idealist has a certain characteristic habit of mind or inclination of spirit. When confronted by experience, he reacts in a certain way. In his individual and social impulses, in the travail of his soul, or in his commerce with his neighbors and the world, he behaves in a more or less well-defined fashion. The romanticist, when confronted by the same objects and experiences, exhibits another type of behavior. Lorenzo, though he be Tom's brother, is a different fellow; he is—in the opinion ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... consider here anything except the Christian architecture of Europe, that younger sister of the great masonries of the Orient, it appears to the eyes as an immense formation divided into three well-defined zones, which are superposed, the one upon the other: the Romanesque zone*, the Gothic zone, the zone of the Renaissance, which we would gladly call the Greco-Roman zone. The Roman layer, which is the most ancient and deepest, is occupied by the round arch, which reappears, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... the same genus, and great between the species of distinct genera. How do these lesser differences become augmented into the greater difference? How do varieties, or as I have called them incipient species, become converted into true and well-defined species? How has each new species been adapted to the surrounding physical conditions, and to the other forms of life on which it in any way depends? We see on every side of us innumerable adaptations and contrivances, which ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... mounted, with the blind still on the horse," Lang said, telling the story afterward, "so that the horse stood still, although with a well-defined hump on his back, which, as we all knew very well, meant trouble to come. As soon as Mr. Roosevelt got himself fixed in the saddle, the men who were holding the horse pulled off the blind and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... Helen. My life is strong in its negation. The man who is agitated by hopes and fears, who is doomed to disappointments, is the one who has not recognized his limitations, who has not accepted well-defined conditions." ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... should do well, therefore, to recollect what is the true nature of Federalism. Federal government, whatever be its merits, is a mere arrangement for the distribution of political power. It is an arrangement which requires for its application certain well-defined conditions.[32] ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... entirely dried up, the colonists would have no means of quenching their thirst. But, fortunately the lava had spared the southern corner of the lake, containing all that remained of the drinking water of the island. Towards the northwest stood out the rugged and well-defined outlines of the sides of the volcano, like a gigantic claw hovering over the island. What a sad and fearful sight, and how painful to the colonists, who, from a fertile domain covered with forests, irrigated by watercourses, and enriched by the produce ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... have no regular mode of earning a living, but are not, at the moment at which the classification is made, dependent. These are the only ones to whom the term "proletarian" could with any propriety be applied. Next above these is another well-defined stratum,—the self-supporting, but unskilled and illiterate. Then all who fall between PQ and RS are characterized by mediocrity, and they constitute "the masses." In all new countries, and as it would seem at ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... as well as the rest of the world. Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, we should be beggared if we give it up, and, of course, we mean to hold on to it,—this is strong, clear, well-defined language; it has the respectability of truth to it; and, if we may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will bear us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, and snuffle, and quote Scripture, I incline to think he isn't much better ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... like the artist and perhaps the gentleman, belongs to no class. He is not embarrassed by the of the hobo, nor put out of countenance by the etiquette of the prince. But Mrs. Nichols belonged to the well-defined class, of late become vocal, which is known as the lower-middle. Her father, in fact, was a policeman. I am certain that he was an efficient one. I do not know what her hold was on the Captain, but ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... group, "Egypt and the Egyptians," the first letter of which will not, I imagine, be reprinted and framed by the P. and O. Brilliant word-pictures of things seen, thumbnail sketches of odd characters, clever records of remembered speech, intelligent comment from a well-defined point of view—these you will have expected, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various

... sooner set than up the river came the flatboat from Creek House. It pushed its way into the marsh, toward Jerry. Not until the actual loading started did he discover his bad luck. He had taken a fairly well-defined path into the marsh. The path was artificial, made by the Kelsos. They had carried rocks to make both the path and the stone jetty to which the flatboat had come. The deception had worked, because the path and jetty surfaces, ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... attained only by complete co-operation of all the units and with an accurate execution and a common and uniform action. But, just at the beginning of the attack, it became apparent that the enemy were making a counter-attack according to a well-defined plan, as in the case of a projected vigorous offensive. It was also found out that the enemy was perfectly aware of the extent, the day and the hour of our attack. The intended surprise, so important for the success of an offensive, ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... characteristic diversity of the Italian communities so noticeable as in their buildings. Each district, each town, has a well-defined peculiarity, reflecting the specific qualities of the inhabitants and the conditions under which they grew in culture. In some cases we may refer this local character to nationality and geographical position. Thus the name of the Lombards ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... above named, was framed in accordance with the suggestion thrown out in the fourth Report of the Dean Forest Commissioners, viz., that all subsisting mine-works should be released by compensation to the Crown, and the whole relet on a well-defined plan to such free miners as might make application for the same. The Act (1 and 2 Vict. cap. 43) provides that all male persons born and abiding within the hundred of St. Briavel's, being upwards of twenty-one years of age and having ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... the general philosophical spirit of the present age, as represented by writers otherwise so different as Littre and Sainte-Beuve, will best appreciate the power and originality of these speculations. Coming in the last century, amid the crudities of deism, they made a well-defined epoch. They inaugurated the historical method of criticism, and they robbed the spirit of intolerance of its only philosophical excuse for existing. Hitherto the orthodox had been intolerant toward the philosophers because they considered them heretics; and the philosophers had been intolerant ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... constructed in a light, graceful style, surrounded with long galleries and terraces common at this period of development in Oriental civilization. The gardening was symmetrical and accurate, the walks led in well-defined lines and were carefully conventional. The rooms of the houses, too, were well arranged and tastefully decorated, and members of the household distributed in its generous apartments, each individual finding his special place for ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... a muse. I could never make out what he would be at, telling me all this. But he had an object, well-defined, and presently it showed ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... No well-defined frontier can be laid down between the three chief departments of ballad minstrelsy. The pieces in which fairy-lore and ancient superstition have a prominent place—the ballads of Myth and Marvel—have all of them a strong ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... an intriguer, but, subsequent to her failure in love-making, she developed a literary tyrannicide. She condescended to patronise the head of the State by causing it to be conveyed to him that her hostility would cease under certain well-defined conditions. When he became the real Governor of France, Napoleon put a stop to religious persecution, and put the churches into use. He re-established religion, and by doing so brought under his influence one hundred million Catholics. This wise policy created strong opposition from ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... several well-defined mental diseases as well as mere drunkenness. In Delirium Tremens there is an acute delirium, with confusion, excitement and auditory and visual hallucinations of all kinds. The latter symptom is so prominent as to give the reason for the popular name of ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... he must pursue, how the stuff must be handled, and where it must go. Without it he will be "going it blind," or at best only feeling his way in the dark. A gradual reduction mill, to be successful, must have a well-defined system, and to have this system, the miller must have a definite plan to work by. But to go on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... ever-increasing velocity, through the ever-thinning stars, but it was not until the last star had been passed, until everything before them was entirely devoid of light, and until the Galaxy behind them began to take on a well-defined lenticular aspect, that Ravindau would consent to leave the controls and to seek his ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear complexion, his keen, bright eye, and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and alertness of his character,—that is to say, features bold, not large, well-defined, and regular,—you might walk long through town or country before you would see a handsomer specimen of humanity than our friend ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the young man's companion strode out of the lobby and entered the car. At least he had his hand on the open door and one foot on the running board. And there he halted and turned about at something his son said—Thompson assumed they were father and son. The likeness of feature was too well-defined to permit ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... something already existing, whose origin is only a subject for a subsequent historical verdict. But the further expansion of our army belongs to the future, and its course can be directed. It can follow well-defined lines, in order to become efficient, and it is politically most important that this object should be realized. Therefore I shall not look back critically on the past, but shall try to ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... window and portal, they were miracles of picturesqueness and cleanliness. From each the owner's slim domain, narrowing at every successive division among the abundant generations, runs back to hill or river in well-defined lines, and beside the cottage is a garden of pot-herbs, bordered with a flame of bright autumn flowers; somewhere in decent seclusion grunts the fattening pig, which is to enrich all those peas and onions for the winter's broth; there is a cheerfulness of poultry about the barns; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... at Dawson City the four attentively studied such maps as they could secure, and gathered all information from the many who were qualified and willing to give it. As a consequence, when they started up the Klondike, they had a well-defined idea of ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis

... Macedonians. It has a place in history mainly because of the lustre shed upon it by the transcendent ability of one of its kings, Mithridates the Great (120-63 B.C.), who for a long time made successful resistance to the Roman arms.] four well-defined and important monarchies arose out of the ruins. After the rearrangement of boundaries that followed the decisive battle of Ipsus (fought in Phrygia 301 B.C.), these principal states had the outlines shown by the accompanying ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... secondly, steps must be taken to bring the law of the land to the support of the Sunday Sabbath. These movements the prophecy calls for. And the line of argument leading to these conclusions is so direct and well-defined that there is no avoiding them. They are a clear and logical sequence from ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... so well-defined a program, and with a full play of memory, we cannot be quite sure of a fixed association of the motive. It is better to view the melodic episodes as subjective phases, arising from the tenor ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... next to actual genius, heavier than all other qualities, is such a truism that it is often forgotten. In the enormous mass of mediocre work which is turned out annually by artists of technical talent seldom is there encountered a strong, well-defined personality. Imitation has been called the bane of originality; suppress it as a factor, and nine-tenths of living painters, sculptors, etchers would have to shut up shop. The stencil is the support ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... Accordingly it was only the warriors who became voters. The restriction of political activity to men has also probably been emphasized by the fact that all the higher civilizations have passed through a well-defined patriarchal stage of society in which each household was represented by its oldest warrior. From present indications it would seem that under the conditions of modern industrial society the arrangements that have so long subsisted are likely to be ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... silver dollars, one by one, across the bar to the man with the near-white apron, and he was endeavoring to get the worth of them down his throat. To be sure, he was being assisted, now and then, by several acquaintances; but considering the fact that a man's stomach has certain well-defined limitations, he ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... found at any place on the cord. In fact, it frequently happens that the coughing node, and what for convenience may be styled the "vocal node," are simultaneously present, each to be distinguished by its well-defined location, although ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... Bethany streamed forth the crowds who had assembled there on the previous night, and who came testifying to the great event at the sepulchre of Lazarus. The road soon loses sight of Bethany. It is now a rough, but still broad and well-defined mountain track, winding over rock and loose stones,—a steep declivity below on the left; the sloping shoulder of Olivet above on the right. Along this road the multitudes threw down the branches which they cut as they went along, or spread out a rude matting formed of the palm branches they had ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff

... resumed, "in criminal jurisprudence, I find an even more simple and more subjective test which has been recently devised. Professor Stoerring of Bonn has found out that feelings of pleasure and pain produce well-defined changes in respiration. Similar effects are produced by lying, according to the famous Professor ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... ato; but the day Som-kad' was buried the field work of the entire pueblo stood still because of common respect for this man, so old and wise, so rich and influential, and probably 200 people were about the house all the day. By noon two well-defined groups of chanting old women had formed — one sitting in the house and the other in front of it. Wordless, melancholy chants were sung in response between the groups. The spaces surrounding the house became almost packed — so much so that a dog succeeded ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... Otariidae have the hind feet turned forward and can move on land somewhat like ordinary Mammals, the Phocidae cannot move their hind legs independently or turn them forward, and can only drag themselves about on land for short distances. In the former the testes are situated in a well-defined scrotum, in the latter these organs are abdominal. The Phocidae are probably descended from Mammals of the terrestrial type with a scrotum, which has disappeared in the course of evolution. Perhaps the most curious exception is that of the elephants, in which the testes are abdominal. ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... double, who preaches his afternoon sermons for him. This is the reason that the theology often varies so from that of the forenoon. But that double is almost as charming as the original. Some of the most well-defined men, who stand out most prominently on the background of history, are in this way stereoscopic men, who owe their distinct relief to the slight differences between the doubles. All this I know. My present suggestion is simply the ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... Fig. 55.—This species appears to have been introduced in 1838, when two plants of it were sent from the West Indian Island, St. Croix, to the Hamburg Botanic Gardens. The stem is oval, dark green, with fourteen well-defined ribs, as regular as if they had been carved with a knife. The spine-tufts are small; spines short, black-brown, about nine in each tuft, one of which is central, the others radiating; they are less than 1/2 in. long. The "cap" ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson

... pray for you," she said. And there our conversation ended. It had laid on my heart a grave burden of well-defined care, which went with me thenceforth. I could never ignore it nor doubt it was there. Not but I knew well enough each several point in our discussion, before it had come up in words between Miss Cardigan and me; but having so come up, and taken form, each was a tangible thing for ever after. ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... Australian rivers, it maintained a peculiar character throughout its course, with great uniformity, even after it received tributaries apparently larger than itself. All these lapsed into the same concatenated line of ponds; at one place, spreading amidst brigalow scrub, at another, forming one well-defined deep channel. For the formation of ponds, and the retention of water, in so dry a climate, we see here something between the ordinary character of rivers, and artificial works which man must construct, when population may spread into these regions. The fallen ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... Milton's blind eyes pictured nothing so fantastic as this architectural chaos of Manhattan, so hopeless of eventual order. And yet are there not lacking signs that the quaint pot-pourri of whimsicalities will one day coalesce into a well-defined, artistic composition, a twentieth century City Beautiful. God grant its attainment be not ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various

... water-roads. "Even the wildest inhabitant of the sea coast very soon obtains the idea of distance, which is altogether wanting to the inhabitant of the primeval forest. No sooner does he catch sight of the far-off island than his yearning after the distant assumes a well-defined character. Bits of wood floating past him suggest to his mind the best material to buoy himself up upon the water, and a fish the best form for his craft." (Klemm.) Hence the Mediterranean sea, especially the eastern portion, with the various ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... well-defined boundaries, in consequence of a ledge of rocks lying across the river immediately above the city of Keokuk, which, during the lower stages of water, wholly prevents the passage of the larger class of steamers plying ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... error falsified his doctrine of a future life, and almost without an exception drawn it more or less in the likeness of the Christian heaven, hell, and purgatory. Very faint traces of any such belief except where derived from the missionaries are visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... formation—"ascospores" (e). These are formed at definite temperatures and within well-defined periods; e. g., Saccharomyces cerevisiae, thirty hours at 25 deg. to 37 deg. C., or ten ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... by no means hopeless as to his demand. But the squire had received a shock from which he never recovered himself. It was as if some evil thing had taken all the sweetest and dearest props of love, and struck him across the heart with them. He had a real well-defined heart-ache, for the mental shock had had bodily sympathies which would have prostrated a man ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... have well-defined, though often singular, ideas as to what Almighty God does and does not allow; and among the pursuits which are irrevocably condemned by local oracles is dancing. The laxity of "foreigners" on this article of the Creed is proverbial. At the time there were two ministers in ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... evidently been contemptuously discarded by the Cricket and his confederates; but it took her longer to find the paper for which she was searching. And then she came upon it—a grease-smeared advertisement for some automobile appliances, a well-defined greasy finger-print at one edge—and thrust the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... originating cause and resulting effect between the two —between, I may say, this dynamo and the other always motor, or, in other words, that the one was always the creating force, the other always the utilizing force; no, no, for while it is true that within certain well-defined zones of activity the one was always dynamo and the other always motor, within certain other well-defined zones these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the plant. South-looking hills are nearly bare, and the lower tree-line higher here by a thousand feet. Canons running east and west will have one wall naked and one clothed. Around dry lakes and marshes the herbage preserves a set and orderly arrangement. Most species have well-defined areas of growth, the best index the voiceless land can give the traveler ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... engineer for this purpose, but owing to the want of a true ground-plan it was impossible to ascertain their exact curvature, which, as far as could be estimated, appeared equal to that of the surface of the sea. Considering how very rarely the sea has left narrow and well-defined marks of its action at any considerable height on the land, and more especially considering the remarkable observations by M. Bravais (518/5. "On the Lines of Ancient Level of the Sea in Finmark," by M. A. Bravais, translated from "Voyages de la Commission Scientifique du Nord, etc."; ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... long been considered a citizen with well-defined duties and a need of "making his way in the world," that the family claim is urged much less strenuously in his case, and as a matter of authority, it ceases gradually to be made at all. In the case of the grown-up daughter, however, who is under no necessity of earning a living, and who has no ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... which the community was responsible—had for the most part given way to opposition to it as introducing a system of voluntary contributions for the support of religion. And there was a very general and well-defined fear that such a support would prove inadequate. If so, deterioration of the state and of its people would follow. For individual worth and character, many among the dissenters were highly respected, and the great body of ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... the teeth come more nearly in apposition it may begin to disappear. All of the inferior tables are level. The nippers and dividers are oval in shape, and the cups have become decidedly narrow. The nippers show a well-defined dark streak just in front of the cups. This is the beginning ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... puma. . . . The description of the footprints clearly shows that the animal could not have been a puma. None of the cat tribe leave any trace of a claw in their footprints. . . The dogs, on the other hand, leave a very well-defined claw-mark. . . . Commodore Byron and his party had therefore suffered a false alarm. The creature which had disturbed them was, doubtless, one of the harmless domestic dogs of ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... amount to much. "Beach-combers" they were called in the good old days—adventurers, gamblers, shady characters of all sorts, and pretty well dwarfed ethically. But no matter what they did, they were usually supported by their various governments, and the result to-day is a well-defined fear of the foreigner, a desire to sidestep him, to stand from under. It seems rather cowardly, this cringing attitude on the part of the Chinese, but it is the result of a century of experience with the ethics of the West. Brave men, unarmed, ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte

... examining the ground, and soon he found the mark of many footprints in the moss and leaves. They led along a well-defined footpath running through the woods and ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... stand by and listen to rebukes, than for a bad boy to take them. Keep these things, therefore, as much as possible, out of sight. Never bring forward cases of discipline, except on mature deliberation, and for a distinct and well-defined purpose. ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... because Caesar was the stronger man of the two; but it is intelligible that at that time Pompey should have felt that he could not lord it over the Senate, as he wished to do, without aid from the democratic party. He had no well-defined views, but he wished to be the first man in Rome. He regarded himself as still greatly superior to Caesar, who as yet had been no more than Praetor, and at this time was being balked of his triumph because he could not at one and the same moment be in the city, as candidate for the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... the hypothesis of development the fixity of species is discredited. The lowest grade of a classification is made up not of well-defined types unchanging from age to age, but of temporary species, often connected by uncertain and indistinct varieties: some of which may, in turn, if the conditions of their existence alter, undergo such changes as to produce new species. Hence the notion that Kinds exist in organic nature ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for people who were; but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special visitations of Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her foot out-of-doors she hurried up to Green ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... light inside my cabin, but a single ray of moonlight streamed in through the port hole, throwing a silvery flickering circle upon the door. As I lay I kept my drowsy eyes upon this circle, and was conscious that it was gradually becoming less well-defined as my senses left me, when I was suddenly recalled to full wakefulness by the appearance of a small dark object in the very centre of the luminous disc. I lay quietly and breathlessly watching it. Gradually it grew larger and plainer, and then I perceived that it was a human hand which had been ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... most important is, the Collection of Materials. In this, it is obvious, the co-operation of individuals well qualified for the work may be secured in all parts of the country, provided some well-defined plan of operation is furnished for their guidance, by some recognised centre of union. A Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, who should well consider and determine upon some uniform plan of recording the inscriptions, &c., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various

... force which gather round every magnet may be made by strewing iron filings over a piece of glass, underneath which are several bar magnets, when it will be found that the iron filings will set themselves in well-defined lines or curves, which Faraday ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... back to the days soon after Mary's marriage. I think it was about a year after the wedding when I suddenly noticed a change in her. Her intellect seemed somehow weakened. Hitherto she had possessed a strong, well-defined character; this suddenly developed into a weak, almost childish balance of the brain. Instead of possessing a will of her own, she was no longer the mistress of her actions, but as easily led as an infant. Only to myself and ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... of the little collector lies in specialisation, and there, too, lies his surest satisfaction. To have a well-defined specialty immediately simplifies the quest. There are many places where one need never go. Moreover, where nature has provided fair intelligence, one must die very young in order not to die an expert. As I write I think of D——, one of the last surviving philosophers. Born with the instincts ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... not know them," he replied. "Beneath their rough exteriors, despite their calloused and criminal natures, there exists in each a well-defined strain of romantic emotionalism—you will find it among such as these throughout the world. It is romance which lures men to lead wild lives of outlawry and crime. ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... is another important mining term and designates the alluvium found reposing in a well-defined channel on the bed rock, being the well-worn path of an ancient river; and it is obvious that the material in these channels should be richer than the general mass ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... recognise, with a feeling that is half contempt and half compassion, the sight of the eager pretentiousness of youth, the intense shame of confessing ignorance on any point, the deep desire to appear to have a stake in the world, and a well-defined, respected position? I met the other day a young man, of no particular force or distinction, who was standing in a corner at a big social gathering, bursting with terror and importance combined. He was inspired, I would fain believe, by discerning a vague benevolence ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... of all, partly because the work of its author can be absolutely trusted. The result of its application is briefly as follows. Until quite a late date light and weak endings occur in Shakespeare's works in such small numbers as hardly to be worth consideration.[289] But in the well-defined group of last plays the numbers both of light and of weak endings increase greatly, and, on the whole, the increase apparently is progressive (I say apparently, because the order in which the last plays are generally ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... examination of the Bradley Patent Imperishable Army Sausage, we find that it is eminently suitable for certain well-defined purposes. If it should be introduced to warfare as a missile, we could calculate with precision that its projection from a gun into a besieged town would instantly induce the garrison to evacuate the place and quit; but the barbarity ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... drew up a memorandum declaring the conviction I had arrived at after careful deliberation, that the improvement of our communications was of far greater importance than the immediate construction of forts and entrenchments, and that, while I would not spare money in strengthening well-defined positions, the strategical value of which was unmistakable, I would not trouble about those places the primary importance of fortifying which was open to argument, and which might never be required ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... asking Who? and Why? and How? in the Lancaster affair when Squaw Charley discovered and showed to Captain Oliver the testimony that had in some way escaped the scout. Under a willow clump on the beach before Shanty Town, was a well-defined mark in the sand, V-shaped, long, and quite deep. It was the mark left by the prow of a boat that had been pulled out of the water and hidden at the river's edge. It was almost certain proof of the route taken, going and coming, by ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... the theatre on which Du Guesclin had first proposed to launch the vagabond army which he desired to get out of France. It does not appear, however, that at their departure from Burgundy at the end of November, 1365, this army and its chiefs had in this respect any well-considered resolution, or any well-defined aim in their movements. They made first for Avignon, and Pope Urban V., on hearing of their approach, was somewhat disquieted, and sent to them one of his cardinals to ask them what was their will. If ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... That is not at all the word, sir. It is rather a sense of awe that seizes us both at times, when we are together, as though we were in the presence of unseen influences; as though, rather, a world not our own were projecting itself into our well-defined lives. I have shown you that Alice and I belong to a very real, very matter-of-fact world. But there are times when we seem to be walking in a land of strange sounds and sights and of shadows that fan our cheeks ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... expanse of forest and field. By the full moon hanging low in the west he knew what he might not have known otherwise: that it was near the hour of dawn. A light mist lay along the earth, partly veiling the lower features of the landscape, but above it the taller trees showed in well-defined masses against a clear sky. Two or three farmhouses were visible through the haze, but in none of them, naturally, was a light. Nowhere, indeed, was any sign or suggestion of life except the barking of a distant dog, which, repeated with mechanical ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... himself at home in his own house in perpetuity, safe from any intrusion, protected by the code and by the courts, not alone against his enemies, but against the administration itself. Let him in this well-defined, circumscribed abode be free to turn round and range as he pleases, free to browse at will, and, if he chooses, to consume all his hay himself. It is not essential that his meadows should be very extensive: most men live with their nose to the ground; very few look beyond a very narrow circle; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... the very eve of the financial distress of 1857. The Democratic canvass had been made while there was yet no suspicion of impending panic and revulsion,—made indeed with constant boasts of the general prosperity and with constant ascription of that prosperity to the well-defined and long-continued policy of the Democratic party. From that time the Democratic party became embarrassed in Pennsylvania. With a tariff of their own making, with a President of their own choice, with both branches of Congress and every department ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... still further diminished in consequence of the increased fund for the payment of wages occasioned by the diminution of rates; and would ultimately, instead of forming a constantly increasing proportion of our whole population, become a small, well-defined part of it, capable of being provided for at an expense less than one-half of the present poor rates." And finally it was urged that "it is essential to every one of these improvements that the administration of the poor laws ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... true, categorically true, definitively true &c; true to the letter, true as gospel; unimpeachable; veracious &c. 543; unreconfuted[obs3], unconfuted[obs3]; unideal[obs3], unimagined; realistic. exact, accurate, definite, precise, well-defined, just, just so, so; strict, severe; close &c. (similar) 17; literal; rigid, rigorous; scrupulous &c. (conscientious) 939; religiously exact, punctual, mathematical, scientific; faithful, constant, unerring; curious, particular, nice, delicate, fine; clean-cut, clear-cut. verified, empirically true, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... that the story is skilfully and picturesquely written, portraying sharply individual characters in well-defined surroundings."—New York Commercial Advertiser. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... this contrast throughout mean, but that where—as in Asia Minor—false doctrine and schismatical teachers prevailed, there episcopacy was a safeguard; where these were absent—as in Rome—there the episcopate had not yet assumed the same sharp and well-defined monarchical character as in the Eastern churches: and what does this contrast tend to disprove but the opinion of Dr. Harnack?—'Apart from the Epistles of Ignatius we do not possess a single witness to the existence of ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... nakedly poor even than London. Yet, for all that, Manchester is a city with a common life, which London is not. The native Lancashire element, lost as it is beneath many supervening strata, is still there and powerful; and there are strong well-defined characteristic interests and occupations which bind the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... was a beautiful sheet of water nestling among the mountains of the Upper Adirondacks of New York State. At the lower end of the lake, where there was a well-defined trail running to several fashionable summer resorts some miles away, were located two beautiful bungalows, one of six rooms and the other of eight rooms. They were built on a plot of ground bordering on a small cove of the lake, and extending about a thousand feet ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer

... really only two well-defined roads on the Island of Manhattan. One stretched up through the island and led to the outlying farms and afterward became The Bowery; the second led along the water-side, and is to-day Pearl Street. Bowling Green, although it was not called Bowling Green then, was the open space in front ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet

... The Juaves present a well-defined physical type. They are of medium stature or tall. Their noses are the largest and most prominent in indian Mexico, and are boldly aquiline. The men are rarely idle; even as they walk, they carry with them their netting, or spindle with which they spin cord for making nets. It seems to ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... called State-tenants, estate-managers, or leaders of co-operative organizations will very much resemble a landowning class. Its traditional experience and the ties that bind it to the soil make it a closed and well-defined body, self-conscious and masterful through the importance of its calling, its indispensability and its individualism. It suffers no dictation as regards its manner of life. Here we shall see the conservative traditions of the country strongly mustered ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau

... chuckling and laughing among themselves to think how they had managed to keep Jim out of mischief, began to look at each other and wonder how in the world blue gravel ever got up there on the hill. And in a few days more there was a well-defined bed of blue gravel, too; and not one of the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various

... would be to confer upon Congress a vast and irresponsible authority, utterly at war with the well-known jealousy of Federal power which prevailed at the formation of the Constitution. The natural intendment would be that as the Constitution confined Congress to well-defined specific powers, the funds placed at their command, whether in land or money, should be appropriated to the performance of the duties corresponding with these powers. If not, a Government has been created with all its other powers carefully limited, but ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... aside, fancying he could see Delphine, but as he drew nearer to the spot he discovered nothing but a post driven into the sand. There was no fear that he should lose himself upon the bewildering level, for he knew his way as well as if the sand had been laid out in well-defined tracks. His dread was lest he should not find Delphine soon enough to escape from the tide, which ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... Titicaca, and which are the counterparts of the Gueber dokh mehs overhanging the Caspian Sea. Accordingly, we find, among these and other vestiges of antiquity that indissolubly connected those long-since extinct populations in the New with the races of the Old World, the well-defined symbol of the Maltese Cross. On the Mexican feroher before alluded to, and which is most elaborately carved in bass-relief on a massive piece of polygonous granite, constituting a portion of a cyclopean wall, the cross is enclosed within the ring, and accompanying it are four ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... rocks as proving the nature of the food of these creatures, and I heard them congratulating each other on having cleared up the point why the bones of this flying dragon are found in such great numbers in certain well-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-sand, since it was now seen that, like penguins, they ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... altogether by the blazes on the trees. But with all our eyes alert that was easy. The grade was down hill, so that we traveled fast, covering four miles an hour. Occasionally a log or thicket halted rapid progress. Toward the end of the afternoon sheep and cattle trails joined the now well-defined road, and we knew we were approaching a ranch. I walked, or rather limped the last mile, for the very good reason that I could not longer bear the trot of my horse. The forest grew more open, with smaller pines, and fewer thickets. At sunset I came out upon the brow of a deep ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... the foremost men of science that if the theory of genetic descent with the accumulation of small variations be the true account of the origin of species, a complete record of the ancestry of any existing species would reveal no distinction of species and genera. Between any two well-defined species, if one be derived from the other, there must be countless transition forms. But palaeontology fails to support the theory of evolution by minute variations. Darwinism has been shattered on the geologic rocks. "The complete absence of intermediate forms," ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... on each visit the growth of penitence; his little talks had penetrated their stony, vicious natures, until at last they broke down and humbly solicited pardon and release, which was granted under well-defined conditions. There was much talk in the village about the leniency extended to the fishers. Tom Hitchings, the cartman, declared that they should have been sent to the Colonies, the same as the other smugglers; and Ted ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... meant by the use of the term "Geographical Distribution." As I said, there is another aspect, and a much more important one, and that is, the relations of the various animals to one another. The horse is a very well-defined matter-of-fact sort of animal, and we are all pretty familiar with its structure. I dare say it may have struck you, that it resembles very much no other member of the animal kingdom, except perhaps the zebra or the ass. But ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... some of the short ranges of the Great Basin. Along the coast of California it keeps company with the redwood wherever it can find a favorable opening. On the western slope of the Sierra, with the yellow pine and incense cedar, it forms a pretty well-defined belt at a height of from three thousand to six thousand feet above the sea, and extends into the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. But, though widely distributed, it is only in these cool, moist northlands that it reaches ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir

... justice has been on a rough and rather narrow road. The popular revolt at the method of arriving at the truth is, in fact, at the narrowness of the way. The presentation of a case and the means of reaching the truth ought to be on a well-defined and orderly system. It would seem natural that the crooked and ill-paved streets of an old town should give place to the open, smooth, and broad ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... of the morning watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused myself with other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and other injuries sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp, well-defined apertures, made by the 24 lb. shot from the long guns, with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32 lb. carronades; but the men had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted blood ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... directly to the tree where the dead bear had lain, and examined the snow carefully. He soon found a well-defined trail that led farther back into the woods. This he followed easily, and it brought him to an old fallen hemlock, which was partly covered with snow. The tracks led into the deepest, thickest portion of the top and there ended at the mouth of a burrow that had been tunneled ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... part of her duty, which was not over well-defined in the house, to see that her young master's room was kept tidy and properly dusted; and in attending to this it was unavoidable that she should come upon indications of the way in which he spent his leisure hours. Never dreaming, indeed, that a servant might recognize at a glance ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald

... additionally difficult. Its effects are particularly notice able when one attempts to photograph the view unfolded below. Plate after plate may be exposed and nothing will be revealed. Yet at a slightly lower altitude the plates may be exposed and perfectly sharp and well-defined images will ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... years of preparation, and as the outcome of all my studies, that the great idea of my life, which had vaguely haunted me ever since the Zurich days, assumed at last a well-defined and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... and vice are not, perhaps, very accurate and well-defined; but few, I think, would call an action really virtuous which was performed simply and solely from the dread of a very great punishment or the expectation of a very great reward. The fear of the Lord is ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... practically autonomous states under a common Pax. Wars were usually wars between kingdoms, conflicts of this local experiment in social organization with that. Through all the historical period these two well-defined classes of gentle and simple acted and reacted upon each other, every individual in each class driven by that same will to live and do, that imperative of self-establishment and aggression that is the spirit of ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... a slender, almost thin, girl of medium height, with a pale face, thick black hair, and big brown eyes, always half closed. Her severe and well-defined features, especially her tightly shut lips, showed determination and strength of will. At home they knew her to be a girl with a will ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... me that they had some big fires aout toward the Ridge las' night. Burned the rakin' aout to Madeira Place. I missed that. D'you see it? I mighta seen it just as well's not from my back porch, tew!" shrilled another woman, in whose words a well-defined jealousy was patent, the jealousy of the person whose life is too small for her to afford ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? The attention is fixed upon a well-defined object, and all the effects it produces in the mind are easily regarded as powers or qualities of that object. But these effects are here powerful and profound. The soul is stirred to its depths. Its hidden ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... palace and the river are to be seen many vestiges of the mediaeval ramparts of the town, and here and there a well-defined base of a gateway or tower. Mediaevalism is rampant ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... at once went to the spot, and saw what I immediately admitted to be the clear, well-defined track of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... understand, and I cannot now, why the Professor consented. I should hardly dare yet confess to my fixed purpose to ascend Mount Mitchell. It was equally fixed in the Professor's mind not to do it. We had not discussed it much. But it is safe to say that if he had one well-defined purpose on this trip, it was not to climb Mitchell. "Not," ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... smoothly cut end of a stick of almost any kind of wood, he will note that each growth ring is made up of two more or less well-defined parts. That originally nearest the centre of the tree is more open textured and almost invariably lighter in color than that near the outer portion of the ring. The inner portion was formed early in the season, when growth was comparatively rapid and is known as early ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... precise adaptation of movements and in that of a greater latitude left to the living being to choose between them. These two tendencies may appear antagonistic, and indeed they are so; but a nervous chain, even in its most rudimentary form, successfully reconciles them. On the one hand, it marks a well-defined track between one point of the periphery and another, the one sensory, the other motor. It has therefore canalized an activity which was originally diffused in the protoplasmic mass. But, on the other hand, the elements that compose it are probably discontinuous; at any rate, even supposing ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... assassin, than upon a conviction of the righteousness of their cause, which no sophistry of their opponents could dissipate. The Huguenots, at the death of Charles the Ninth, stood before the world a well-defined body, that had outgrown the feebleness of infancy, and had proved itself entitled to consideration and respect. Thus much ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... lies and flatters his sitter in the only way which does not compromise anatomy. Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that of most brunettes, was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which brought out the brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and well-defined outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages rendered by Jean Goujon, the illustrious ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... of those powers which may comport with a faithful regard to the great principles of our Constitution. With respect to internal causes, those great principles point out with equal certainty the policy to be pursued. Resting on the people as our Governments do, State and National, with well-defined powers, it is of the highest importance that they severally keep within the limits prescribed to them. Fulfilling that sacred duty, it is of equal importance that the movement between them be harmonious, and in case of any disagreement, should any such occur, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson

... colored, that the lashes under the heavy beading were long and dark and sweeping. As for her other features, no paint could conceal their perfection. Her forehead was linelessly serene, her brows were straight and too well-defined to need the pencil. As for her eyes, too much had been written about them already; they had proven the despair of many men, or so rumor had it. He saw that they had depths and shadows and glints of color that he could not readily define. Her nose, pronounced perfect by experts on noses, seemed ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... an example in Canyon de Chelly. At a small cluster of rooms, built partly on a rocky ledge and partly on adjoining loose earth and rocky debris, a land slide had carried away half of a circular kiva, exposing a well-defined section of its floor and the debris within the room. Here the writer found a number of partly finished sandals of yucca fiber, with the long, unwoven fiber carefully wrapped about the finished portion ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff

... an accent that levels down as well as up. Hawthorne had to the full this democratic, familiar, derogatory temper. Pierce was to him a politician, just as Cilley had been, and for politicians as a class he had a well-defined contempt. He believed Pierce to be a man of honor, sagacity, and tact, a true man, not great in any way, but quite the equal of other men in the country and fit in ability, experience, and character to be President, if his fellow-citizens desired him to serve in that office. The biography Hawthorne ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... they wouldn't believe him to be a lord at all, "because he spoke Irish"; and the breaking up of the rundale system, under which they had lived in higgledy-piggledy laziness, exasperated them greatly. Of the first man who took a fenced and well-defined farm from Lord George, and went to work on it, the others observed that he would come to no good by it, because he would "have to keep a maid just to talk to his wife." Men could not be got for any ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... of many instances that show that the early reformers accorded to the Church, in matters not absolutely essential to the preservation of sound doctrine and Scriptural practice, the greatest liberty. With regard to the administration of the Sacraments and the public worship of God, they laid down well-defined regulations and outlines to which conformity was required; in matters that might be looked upon as simply edifying and profitable, liberty was allowed to ministers and congregations to determine according to their discretion, as Knox ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... aphorism of the great botanist, "species tot sunt diversae quot diversae formae ab initio sunt creatae"—"just so many species are to be reckoned as there were forms created in the beginning,"—was at least an attempt to use the term in a well-defined sense. Of course, this definition assumed the "fixity" of species; but with the wide prevalence of the views of Darwin and his followers the term "species" has fallen into disrepute, and is now regarded by many ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... roar of a lion; but we had by this time grown quite accustomed to such sounds as these, and were not in the least disturbed by them, even the dogs disdaining to take the slightest notice of them, except when the authors approached within certain fairly well-defined limits which Thunder and Juno seemed to have mutually agreed were too near; then indeed our guardians would respond with low warning growls which, if the offenders drew still nearer, rapidly merged into a deafening clamour of savage barks ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... places, the canon and small feeders were too precipitous for his horse, and turned him back. But there was no irritation about it. He enjoyed it all, for he was back at his old game of bucking nature. Late in the afternoon he broke through, and followed a well-defined trail down a dry canon. Here he got a fresh thrill. He had heard the baying of the hound some minutes before, and suddenly, across the bare face of the hill above him, he saw a large buck in flight. And not far behind ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... mosquitoes have as well-defined habits as other birds and are classified as follows: Domestic, Migratory, ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall

... and I have seen 'em gush all right," cried Bob, as they cantered on together along a well-defined bridle-path. ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson

... In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire[160] and Board of Education v. Barnette,[161] the opinions indicated that the power of Government is measured by the same principles in both situations. In the former Justice Murphy asserted: "There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting' words—those ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... of the future, the not far-distant future, the world is destined to see a nation not only morally but mentally great, a nation which will develop in conjunction those high moral qualities which will give it what I may term a pronounced, a well-defined character, and an intellectual greatness superior to that of ancient Greece and Rome, because restrained and illumined by the predominance and potency of moral characteristics which those great nations ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... looked up, her shrewd black eyes twinkling under their well-defined brows. "You have observed, then, that I am patient? But yes, my dear, God help the wife of an artist if she is not! He is terrible, my man, at times, but luckily I was born long-suffering. He has, too, ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... well-defined, and your ambition to play a great role on the modern European stage possessed you utterly until you met this young man—is it ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton



Words linked to "Well-defined" :   ill-defined, distinct



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