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definitive
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  • I've asked my brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins, but I have not been able to definitively establish a timeline, and have therefore relied on my own memories.†   (source)
  • The figures above, compiled by Charles Stenger, PhD, in a comprehensive study of POW statistics for the Veterans Administration, appear to be definitive.†   (source)
  • He didn't know what else to say; it was so definitive.†   (source)
  • As a definitively infected civilian, I'm pretty shocked.†   (source)
  • She was pretty definitive.†   (source)
  • "Those were definitive times," said Crake.†   (source)
  • "My parents love you," she says matter-of-factly, definitively, just as she says everything else.†   (source)
  • Murder rates are higher there than in the * David Hackett Fischer's book Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways is the most definitive and convincing treatment of the idea that cultural legacies cast a long historical shadow.†   (source)
  • But since St. Clair has moved clearly, definitively out of the picture again, my thoughts have drifted back to Christmas break.†   (source)
  • For the definitive history of informed consent, see Ruth Faden and Tom Beauchamp's A History and Theory of Informed Consent.†   (source)
  • Or decide you want to build boats, or be a marine painter, or write the definitive book about the Lusitania.†   (source)
  • Over the years he'd consulted numerous doctors and undergone liver conditi batteries of medical tests but a definitive diagnosis was never forthcoming.†   (source)
  • ROSE (definitive): Bye, Albus.†   (source)
  • We were able to definitively determine that Pierce Brosnan was the skinniest James Bond, Sean Connery the hairiest, and Roger Moore the most tan.†   (source)
  • Under no circumstances, in other words, should you take my pronouncements on these works as definitive.†   (source)
  • In a way, I suppose, you had to be there, you had to hear it, but I could tell how desperately Sanders wanted me to believe him, his frustration at not quite getting the details right, not quite pinning down the final and definitive truth.†   (source)
  • The relationship between a nation's fast food consumption and its rate of obesity has not been definitively established through any long-term, epidemiological study.†   (source)
  • Without definitive solutions, it's easy to throw blame.†   (source)
  • The door closed behind them with a definitive click.†   (source)
  • When I was studying for my PhD, I took something called "the theory qualifier," which I can now definitively say was the second worst thing in my life after chemotherapy.†   (source)
  • He defined himself as a natural pacifist, a partisan of definitive reconciliation between Liberals and Conservatives for the good of the nation.†   (source)
  • By then, she was just a few weeks pregnant with the baby we now considered definitively as our fourth child.†   (source)
  • As a reminder, the list of paintings that are definitively being offered today can be found on pages thirty-four through ninety-six of the catalog.†   (source)
  • The definitive work on pain, at least as we know it now.†   (source)
  • Glumra nodded with a short, definitive jerk of her chin and said, "Then you and your companions must wait here until the messenger arrives, Shadeslayer.†   (source)
  • Definitive medical tests are indicated before a complete evaluation can be said to exist… Hickock does show signs of emotional abnormality.†   (source)
  • "Throw him off the train, is what," says Earl definitively.†   (source)
  • 'That's hardly definitive, is it?'†   (source)
  • The assassin, a man named Rachidi Minzele, was immediately shot and killed, taking with him the only definitive knowledge about the motives behind his deed, which spawned a confounding web of conspiracy theories.†   (source)
  • There are no cars on the road, and in the pause I hear it sharply, definitively: "Samantha Emily Kingston!"†   (source)
  • "We should," she announced, definitively, "make salads."†   (source)
  • Much more than any New Year, even the Millennium, it felt for me like something was coming to a definitive end.†   (source)
  • Should know something definitive later today.†   (source)
  • "Yes," he was able to tell Nathan definitively.†   (source)
  • Close assessment of her violet-blue eyes yields no definitive answers, though her pupils do look dilated.†   (source)
  • "Yes," he answers definitively.†   (source)
  • "She's an ugly woman," Zayd says definitively, though he can't remember what she looks like.†   (source)
  • Her departure was staggeringly definitive.†   (source)
  • For all her talk of writing definitive surveys, for all her investigative skills, she's no different from all the other hack journalists and stalker photographers, dying to be the first to deliver a big scoop, either on a birth: Is It Twins for Adam and Bryn?†   (source)
  • "Now we come to the definitive battle," the Director said into the loudspeaker.†   (source)
  • No definitive answer, anyway.†   (source)
  • But we should know definitively what's going to happen by lunchtime.†   (source)
  • On the opposite side of the city, the dark slash of the bridge's huge trough made a definitive stop to the straggling edge of houses.†   (source)
  • The Soviet Union had ceased to exist, and Zalachenko's usefulness was definitively a thing of the past.†   (source)
  • In the first week of September the peacemakers convened to sign the definitive treaty.†   (source)
  • Softly but definitively and there was no mistaking the compliment.†   (source)
  • It was, Shade thought ironically, one definitive clue as to the attraction.†   (source)
  • When completed, with a hundred million words in its database, Rosenthal says, "It will provide a definitive portrait of how the English language is used in the United States today."†   (source)
  • I can only definitively say that Scott McDaniels is in this car.†   (source)
  • It was the proudest moment in the history of the school, endlessly appreciated and extolled as the definitive existential moment in its past.†   (source)
  • The simple yet definitive description of the cold killers had confused Wulfgar.†   (source)
  • "There is no definitive proof that this was a Horvath attack," Louisa said.†   (source)
  • I hadn't then known that surliness among Jewish waiters was almost a definitive trait.†   (source)
  • All life in the city was suspended until the situation would be definitively clarified.†   (source)
  • With the thrump of three car doors, Kathy was suddenly and definitively alone.   (source)
    definitively = without doubt
  • We have definitively proven that the three-body problem has no solution.   (source)
    definitively = in a manner that is definite or beyond question
  • Sometimes seeing testimony in black and white makes it more definitive to the jurors.   (source)
    definitive = definite (beyond question)
  • "I shall work upon my posture," Nina said quite definitively, brushing the crumbs from her fingers.   (source)
    definitively = in a definite way
  • A bit strange, don't you think, considering that both the Bible and our standard Grail legend celebrate this moment as the definitive arrival of the Holy Grail.   (source)
    definitive = definite (beyond question)
  • They nodded silently, weighed down by the word definitively, as though guilt had been proven, just not absolutely.   (source)
    definitively = in a manner that is definite or beyond question
  • When we last left this pair in 1923, did not Anna Urbanova dismiss the Count with a definitive instruction to "draw the curtains"?   (source)
    definitive = final
  • For while house arrest is a definitive infringement upon one's liberty, presumably it is also intended to be something of a humiliation.   (source)
    definitive = certain
  • In tone it was delicate and unobtrusive; and yet, it had a definitive suggestion of dismissal—which was apt to put one in a philosophical frame of mind.   (source)
  • She shook her head then concluded definitively: "The only difference between everybody and nobody is all the shoes."   (source)
    definitively = with certainty
  • We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling.   (source)
    definitive = best and most respected
  • None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination.   (source)
    definitively = in a manner that ends all question
  • And a few cubicles away a mild, ineffectual, dreamy creature named Ampleforth, with very hairy ears and a surprising talent for juggling with rhymes and metres, was engaged in producing garbled versions — definitive texts, they were called — of poems which had become ideologically offensive, but which for one reason or another were to be retained in the anthologies.   (source)
    definitive = authoritative ("the best possible, real versions")
  • She heard a definitive click as it locked behind them.†   (source)
  • With the help of your x-ray vision, maybe you can definitively diagnose—†   (source)
  • And with that, all the pieces had finally come together in a way that he could definitively prove.†   (source)
  • She leaned up then, and kissed him, slowly and definitively, on the lips.†   (source)
  • At last she abandoned her efforts and closed her jaws with a definitive snap.†   (source)
  • "Yes, I can," said his father with a definitive nod.†   (source)
  • I asked as Jamie took another definitive step backward from Mr. Cross, lifting his hand.†   (source)
  • This strategy is logical and definitive.†   (source)
  • That's impossible," scoffed Miss Kraken with a definitive shake of her head.†   (source)
  • A glimpse out the peephole gives no definitive answers.†   (source)
  • I shake my head as definitively as I can and keep moving.†   (source)
  • I will say definitively that ghosts are not present.†   (source)
  • "I can't definitively answer that right now."†   (source)
  • Well, we can't say definitively, but it is likely," said Nix.†   (source)
  • "Nothing definitive yet," says Simon.†   (source)
  • Rather than definitive theological identities like God, Allah, Buddha, or Jesus, the Masons use more general terms like Supreme Being or Great Architect of the Universe.†   (source)
  • For additional reading on the history of cell culture, see Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies, by Hannah Landecker, the definitive history; also see The Immortalists: Charles Lindberg, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever, by David M. Friedman.†   (source)
  • The detectives couldn't rule out Watanabe as the dead man, but they couldn't confirm definitively that it was he.†   (source)
  • But when the letter revealed his true identity, his sinister past, his inconceivable powers of deception, he felt that something definitive and irrevocable had occurred in his life.†   (source)
  • Then Florentino Ariza felt an urgent need to put a definitive end to that loveless relationship, and he looked for the opportunity to be the one to take the initiative: as he would always do.†   (source)
  • And with each new decision in the suit, headlines flip-flopped: COURT RULES CELLS ARE THE PATIENT'S PROPERTY … COURT BACKS DOCTORS' RIGHT TO USE PATIENT TISSUES Nearly seven years after Moore originally filed suit, the Supreme Court of California ruled against him in what became the definitive statement on this issue: When tissues are removed from your body, with or without your consent, any claim you might have had to owning them vanishes.†   (source)
  • Something definitive had happened to her while he slept: the sediment that had accumulated at the bottom of her life over the course of so many years had been stirred up by the torment of her jealousy and had floated to the surface, and it had aged her all at once.†   (source)
  • She distributed her gifts of pleasure as far as her body could reach, and although her indecent conduct was public knowledge, no one could have made a definitive case against her, because her eminent accomplices gave her the same protection they gave themselves, knowing that they had more to lose in a scandal than she did.†   (source)
  • His reply was definitive.†   (source)
  • Howard and Smith much preferred that the horses meet in a definitive one-on-one match, in which no other horses could cause interference or otherwise affect the outcome.†   (source)
  • Welsh was right; they had a file full of evidence that pointed to Phil Switzer, but only the blood was definitive.†   (source)
  • He left promising to return with the definitive word on whether the market was going to crash in the next week or so.†   (source)
  • The Beatles died for me at that very moment, long before they ripened into the definitive voice of my generation.†   (source)
  • "But now that your second major-label album is out and your harder sound is, I think we can all agree, established, I'm wanting to write a definitive survey.†   (source)
  • Another called for the stewards to demand that Howard file a definitive guarantee that the horse would start.†   (source)
  • He looked out the window and saw the barefoot children in the sunny garden and he had the impression that only at that instant had they begun to exist, conceived by Ursula's spell, Something occurred inside of him then, something mysterious and definitive that uprooted him from his own time and carried him adrift through an unexplored region of his memory.†   (source)
  • He wrote a carefully worded and noncommittal comment on her chart: Radiological examination gives a basis for definitive conclusions, but the condition of the patient has deteriorated steadily during the day.†   (source)
  • Qendrim Bushi's soccer idol was none other than his grandfather, once a famous goalkeeper at the highest level of play in Kosovo, and later, a well-known referee and the author of a definitive Albanian-language soccer rule book.†   (source)
  • Series, the subject of the midterm and an area virtually never taught in any depth before college, are different, representing a systematic way of getting a numerical value by successive approximations, getting as close as you need to get but not necessarily arriving at a definitive answer.†   (source)
  • It was not until late the following summer that the final, or definitive, Treaty of Paris was signed, and in the intervening time Adams fell once again into a black mood.†   (source)
  • Nothing had been agreed to that ran contrary to French interests, and, of course, no peace could take place until the French and British concluded their talks and the definitive treaty was signed by all parties.†   (source)
  • To make the cycle complete he planned to join the Job Corps and the Marines, wash out during both preliminary trainings, retire to the wilderness, and write a definitive confession on life in the American Corps.†   (source)
  • Two rows of articles, and the triumphantly definitive "Fixed" below.†   (source)
  • That is definitive.†   (source)
  • He had come to a halt at a generality, but had done so most definitively.†   (source)
  • In New England townships were completely and definitively constituted as early as 1650.†   (source)
  • Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations.†   (source)
  • The definitive, meditate upon that word.†   (source)
  • Then something appears to him, and he begins to distinguish the definitive.†   (source)
  • What was his own inward definitive response to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality?†   (source)
  • The living perceive the infinite; the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the dead.†   (source)
  • Each thing bears its true form, or at least, its definitive form.†   (source)
  • At sixteen Eunice was interested in no statistics save those regarding the ages and salaries of motion-picture stars, but—as Babbitt definitively put it—"she was her father's daughter."†   (source)
  • …there are those who have glimpsed and in enthusiasm possessed themselves of some segment and portion of the Logos there are those who thus flicked but not penetrated and radioactivated by the Dynamis go always to and fro assertative that they possess and are possessed of the Logos and the Metaphysikos but this word I bring you this concept I enlarge that those that are not utter are not even inceptive and that holiness is in its definitive essence always always always whole-iness and—†   (source)
  • Bright daylight reigned in the west—glassy, cool, definitive light; but if he turned his head, he found himself gazing into utterly magical moonlit night draped in a web of mist.†   (source)
  • He had said nothing; but his head had looked so incontrovertibly imposing, the play of features and gestures had been so definitive, compelling. and expressive that all of them, including eavesdropping Hans Castorp, believed that they had heard something very important or, to the extent that they were aware of the lack of anything communicated and of any thought completed, they simply did not miss it.†   (source)
  • The materialist, as the son of a philosophy of pure robust health, can never be argued out of his belief that the mind is a phosphorescent product of matter; whereas the idealist, who proceeds from the principle of creative hysteria, will tend to answer, indeed will very soon definitively answer the question of primacy in exactly opposite terms.†   (source)
  • …pedagogic problem child roughly informed about events down below; but he had not been given much of a hearing by his pupil, who while "playing king" had let his mind turn the shadows of such things into one dream or another, but had never paid any attention to the things themselves, primarily out of an arrogant preference for seeing shadows as things, and things as mere shadows—for which one should not scold him too harshly, since that relationship has never been definitively decided.†   (source)
  • And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year.†   (source)
  • It is the mode of expression of humanity which is totally renewed; it is human thought stripping off one form and donning another; it is the complete and definitive change of skin of that symbolical serpent which since the days of Adam has represented intelligence.†   (source)
  • 'With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that I foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will not yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I have had the honour to submit to you.†   (source)
  • I had now earned the right to pen the definitive book on the sea, and sooner or later I wanted that book to see the light of day.†   (source)
  • At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk.†   (source)
  • Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.†   (source)
  • It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced earlier than the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years.†   (source)
  • Wellington, driven into a corner at the forest of Soignes and destroyed—that was the definitive conquest of England by France; it was Crecy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged.†   (source)
  • He now almost reproached himself for not having put those formidable questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable and definitive decision might have sprung.†   (source)
  • To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference to a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic.†   (source)
  • …of progress transparent beneath the revolt, the chambers and streets, the competitions to be brought into equilibrium around him, his faith in the Revolution, perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the vague acceptance of a superior definitive right, his desire to remain of his race, his domestic spirit, his sincere respect for the people, his own honesty, preoccupied Louis Philippe almost painfully, and there were moments when strong and courageous as he was, he was…†   (source)
  • …about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots; still, his mind, in the society of the Friends of the A B C, had ended by undergoing a certain polarization from Combeferre's ideas; for some time past, he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of dogma, and had allowed himself to incline to the broadening influence of progress, and he had come to accept, as a definitive and magnificent evolution, the transformation of the great French Republic, into the immense human republic.†   (source)
  • A whole new world was dawning on his soul: kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, violences committed by pity on austerity, respect for persons, no more definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear in the eye of the law, no one knows what justice according to God, running in inverse sense to justice according to men.†   (source)
  • In fact, the two perspectives are finally inseparable: serving as a repository of the past in an unlettered culture, the singer of epic aspired to be traditional, to retell the oldest stories without obvious novelty or idiosyncrasy; yet these same traditions were so profuse and so many-sided in their meanings that only the strongest poetic vision could have wrought from them the definitive shaping that is The Iliad.†   (source)
  • Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction, preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official and definitive result of which he had read in the Evening Telegraph, late pink edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge.†   (source)
  • The judge answer'd, "Of this, in his absence, I may not give definitive sentence.†   (source)
  • Therefore,—to speak, and to avoid the first, And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,— Definitively thus I answer you.†   (source)
  • This tribunal, under an oath of impartiality, pronounces definitive sentence, which all the cantons are bound to enforce.†   (source)
  • Never crave him; we are definitive.†   (source)
  • To which I know not what they can answer, unlesse they will say, they walke Definitive, not Circumscriptive, or Spiritually, not Temporally: for such egregious distinctions are equally applicable to any difficulty whatsoever.†   (source)
  • * *he had definitively Placebo came, and eke his friendes soon, made his choice* And *alderfirst he bade them all a boon,* *first of all he asked That none of them no arguments would make a favour of them* Against the purpose that he had y-take: Which purpose was pleasant to God, said he, And very ground of his prosperity.†   (source)
  • But because they hold them Incorporeall, without all dimension of Quantity, and all men know that Place is Dimension, and not to be filled, but by that which is Corporeall; they are driven to uphold their credit with a distinction, that they are not indeed any where Circumscriptive, but Definitive: Which Terms being meer Words, and in this occasion insignificant, passe onely in Latine, that the vanity of them may bee concealed.†   (source)
  • And for the Infallibility of St. Peters sentence definitive in matter of Faith, there is no more to be attributed to it out of this Text, than that Peter should continue in the beleef of this point, namely, that Christ should come again, and possesse the Kingdome at the day of Judgement; which was not given by the Text to all his Successors; for wee see they claim it in the World that now is.†   (source)
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