toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

prevalent
in a sentence

show 152 more with this conextual meaning
  • Kansas abolished capital punishment in 1907; in 1935, due to a sudden prevalence in the Midwest of rampaging professional criminals (Alvin "Old Creepy" Karpis, Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Clyde Barrow and his homicidal sweetheart, Bonnie Parker), the state legislators voted to restore it.†   (source)
  • For Liberian parents in America, the prevalence of gangs in Clarkston—and their potential allure to young Liberian men—created a bitter paradox.†   (source)
  • Commonly uttered by the host of a meal, it is a holdover from days when poisoning of guests was prevalent among the clans.†   (source)
  • "I think it'll hold things off long enough for the people to forget some of the unhappiness that's been so prevalent lately and for us to come up with a way to address issues if they pop up again."†   (source)
  • Scientists who have studied faces, for example, report that there are huge differences among people in the location of facial muscles, in their form, and also — surprisingly — even in their prevalence.†   (source)
  • For himself, the young man was a prevalent type among his people.†   (source)
  • HIV prevalence was inexplicably high among new arrivals to Sonagachi--27.†   (source)
  • Adam's squadron was focused on eradicating the IED and suicide bombing networks prevalent across the country, a mission of "dire importance," according to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.†   (source)
  • It was her idea most definitely that we must go first to central Europe, where the vampire seemed most prevalent.†   (source)
  • "Strangely, it's a prevalent female fantasy, too.†   (source)
  • The first tended to be the most prevalent explanation in situations where someone stood to profit somehow.†   (source)
  • They aren't quite the prevalent audience for my book.†   (source)
  • With Loyalists more prevalent in New Jersey than in any other of the thirteen states, and American deserters continuing to go over to the enemy, Washington's plight was well known to the British command.†   (source)
  • With the murder rate soaring, rape almost as common as romance, and robbery so prevalent that half the populace seemed to be stealing from the other half, the cops would not waste time harassing him for drinking an alcoholic beverage on a public beach.†   (source)
  • "Is Herb Lore to be your specialty?" he asked, noting the prevalence of green stones threaded among an assortment of iron keys and silver runes.†   (source)
  • Kim is a prevalent Korean surname, and the name John is still popular among immigrant parents because they think it's very American, although of course it was more popular twenty-five or thirty years ago, after the wars.†   (source)
  • It fits with a prevalent theory.†   (source)
  • I found less evidence of the "rich man's war / poor man's fight" attitude in soldiers' letters than I expected, given the prevalence of this theme in recent scholarship.†   (source)
  • It was a sentiment prevalent in the community.†   (source)
  • Or site "I've noticed the prevalence of shes," the admiral said. heading back to the door.†   (source)
  • Every now and again, like this evening, Echo Courts became impossible, either because of the stillness of the pool and the blank windows that faced on it, or a prevalence of teenage voyeurs, who'd all had copies of Miles's passkey made so they could check in at whim on any bizarre sexual action.†   (source)
  • The prevalence of alcoholism, marital failure, neurosis, and psychosis among guards is notorious.†   (source)
  • Progress in science is governed by the laws of repulsion, every step forward is made by refutation of prevalent errors and false theories.†   (source)
  • If this be true, how are political errors, once prevalent, ever to be corrected?†   (source)
  • Mattie Will ran the June bug up and down her arm and remembered once when she was little and her mother and father had both been taken with the prevalent sickness, and it was Mrs. MacLain from Morganawho before that was known only by sight to her-who had come out to the farm and nursed and cooked for them, since there was nobody.†   (source)
  • It shows that at last a reasonable and steady view of the matter is becoming prevalent among us.   (source)
  • Political discontent is prevalent in the state.
  • The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it.   (source)
    prevalent = commonly encountered
  • —Philip Freneau, Pestilence: Written During the Prevalence of a Yellow Fever, 1793.†   (source)
  • 'It was the prevalent theory at the time,' interrupted the ambassador.†   (source)
  • The theme of punishment for treason became more prevalent as the war dragged on.†   (source)
  • THE PEOPLE [OF NEW YORK]-WHY THE PEOPLE ARE MAGNIFICENT; IN THEIR CARRIAGES, WHICH ARE NUMEROUS, IN THEIR HOUSE FURNITURE, WHICH IS FINE, IN THEIR PRIDE AND CONCEIT, WHICH ARE INIMITABLE, IN THEIR PROFANENESS, WHICH IS INTOLERABLE, IN THE WANT OF PRINCIPLE, WHICH IS PREVALENT, AND IN THEIR TORYISM, WHICH IS INSUFFERABLE.†   (source)
  • China was changing, not fast enough for the West, and certainly it was still a paranoid giant, but withal, thought David Webb, the distended stomachs of children, so prevalent in the China of years ago, were disappearing.†   (source)
  • New Yorkers, however, were another matter, as he reported to his adored Lucy : The people—why the people are magnificent : in their carriages, which are numerous, in their house furniture, which is fine, in their pride and conceit, which are inimitable, in their profaneness, which is intolerable, in the want of principle, which is prevalent, in their Toryism, which is insufferable.†   (source)
  • It's possible that HIV prevalence among them rose, although it's impossible to be sure because there is no way to test girls in clandestine brothels.†   (source)
  • While HIV prevalence is low in India, prostitutes are at particular risk because of their large number of customers.†   (source)
  • And that prevalence increased after the low point of early 1863 as a good many antiemancipation soldiers changed their minds.†   (source)
  • Indeed, at the time the Sonagachi Project began in Kolkata, HIV prevalence among sex workers in Mumbai was already 51 percent and in Kolkata 1 percent, according to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health.†   (source)
  • I think it is not our privations or our wanderings or our unsettled lives, but the prevalent spirit of high-flown rhetoric, which has spread everywhere-phrases such as 'the dawn of the future,' 'the building of a new world,' 'the torch-bearers of mankind.'†   (source)
  • That situation has altered, if I'm not mistaken, particularly in the larger cities, and the presence of people like yourself in a town like Batavia--please understand I have no grudge in this, we're talking as one thinking man to another, nothing more or less--the existence of people like yourself in small towns is an indication that the prevalent condition in the larger cities can spread.†   (source)
  • Half the looseness in thought—unfortunately, he fancied, more prevalent among American than among English youth—came from an indefinite exuberance of ill-defined speech.†   (source)
  • But there existed in the Western world an element that baffled and frightened the Communist party:the prevalence of self-achieved literacy.†   (source)
  • The curious superstition prevalent in the Lemesurier family was mentioned, in connection with the new heir, his father's brother, Ronald Lemesurier, whose only son had died on the Somme.†   (source)
  • He deprecated polygamy, but he saw no reason to inveigh against the prevalent fondness for the tangatse berry, to which were ascribed medicinal properties, but which was chiefly popular because its effects were those of a mild narcotic.†   (source)
  • But, paradoxically enough, once the whole town was in the grip of the disease, its very prevalence tended to make things easier, since the disorganization of the town's economic life threw a great number of persons out of work.†   (source)
  • He liked the prevalent mood in which feelings were sheathed in thoughts, and thoughts softened into felicity by their transference into language.†   (source)
  • One of the cafés had the brilliant idea of putting up a slogan: "The best protection against infection is a bottle of good wine," which confirmed an already prevalent opinion that alcohol is a safeguard against infectious disease.†   (source)
  • Chang answered rather slowly and in scarcely more than a whisper: "If I were to put it into a very few words, my dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation.†   (source)
  • It is a great deal too prevalent nowadays.†   (source)
  • His protest against the egotism prevalent here was only one of them.†   (source)
  • It shows that at last a reasonable and steady view of the matter is becoming prevalent among us.†   (source)
  • But colds were never so prevalent as they have been this autumn.†   (source)
  • Lady Mulberry Hawk—that was the prevalent idea.†   (source)
  • "I'll no' swear to the exact words, but the idea was prevalent in my mind, ye'll understand.†   (source)
  • "I see that you participate in a prevalent error," said Madame Danglars.†   (source)
  • Not only did the distance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically unavailable for dwellers at this end; but the far more serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent opinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the housetop than with the other landlord in a wide house.†   (source)
  • Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea among our people that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labour.†   (source)
  • Here and there we passed Cszeks and slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent.†   (source)
  • A poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little red devils, who had come in again that year, were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards.†   (source)
  • It's a spirit that ought to be more prevalent among us civilians, in our customs and conduct—I'd like that better, it would suit me.†   (source)
  • His parents went to eight-o'clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house.†   (source)
  • The prevalent silence seemed to contain a faint sound, explicable as a breathing, or a sobbing, which came from the other end of the building.†   (source)
  • Here was a population, low-class and mostly foreign, hanging always on the verge of starvation, and dependent for its opportunities of life upon the whim of men every bit as brutal and unscrupulous as the old-time slave drivers; under such circumstances immorality was exactly as inevitable, and as prevalent, as it was under the system of chattel slavery.†   (source)
  • He thought no longer, "Can I get on with people?" but "Are they stronger than I?" breathing the prevalent miasma.†   (source)
  • No, but he was wholly without irrational fear of it, a fear more prevalent in highly civilized communities than those so-called barbarous ones which in all respects stand nearer to unadulterate Nature.†   (source)
  • By afternoon Amory realized that now the newest arrivals were taking him for an upper classman, and he tried conscientiously to look both pleasantly blase and casually critical, which was as near as he could analyze the prevalent facial expression.†   (source)
  • Chauvelin took another pinch of snuff: he seemed very much addicted to that pernicious habit, so prevalent in those days; perhaps, too, he found the taking of snuff a convenient veil for disguising the quick, shrewd glances with which he strove to read the very souls of those with whom he came in contact.†   (source)
  • The necessity of accepting this view of their past relation, and of meeting it in the key of pleasantry prevalent among her new friends, was deeply humiliating to Lily.†   (source)
  • The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and slaves in the West at the period of this story—that is to say, thirty or forty years ago.†   (source)
  • The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world, and, at any rate, could live without manual labour.†   (source)
  • "Friendship" was one; "Memories of Other Days"; "Religion in History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of Culture"; "Forms of Political Government Compared and Contrasted"; "Melancholy"; "Filial Love"; "Heart Longings," etc., etc. A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy; another was a wasteful and opulent gush of "fine language"; another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and a…†   (source)
  • The notion that prostitution is created by the wickedness of Mrs Warren is as silly as the notion—prevalent, nevertheless, to some extent in Temperance circles—that drunkenness is created by the wickedness of the publican.†   (source)
  • For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle.†   (source)
  • Besides Mr. Bounderby's gold spoon which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very popular there.†   (source)
  • Still, his motions, being natural, were graceful, and, being calm and regulated, they gave him an air and dignity that associated well with the idea, which was so prevalent, of his services and peculiar merits.†   (source)
  • This work contains, in the first part, a journey of discovery in the west of Carolina; the account of which, given in the form of a journal, is in general confused and superficial; but it contains a very striking description of the mortality caused among the savages of that time both by the smallpox and the immoderate use of brandy; with a curious picture of the corruption of manners prevalent amongst them, which was increased by the presence of Europeans.†   (source)
  • Distinct from either there appeared a stranger—a young man of remarkably pleasant aspect—who carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the smart floral pattern prevalent in such articles at that time.†   (source)
  • After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field of Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time abroad, but there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for varying expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent youth.†   (source)
  • The only circumstance which gave me any new hope, was my aunt's stopping on the stairs to inquire about a smell of fire that was prevalent there; and janet's replying that she had been making tinder down in the kitchen, of my old shirt.†   (source)
  • It was inhabited by poor people, who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the desert pitch their tents among the fallen stones of the Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard, that it had a character.†   (source)
  • The prevalent opinion, among such of those emigrants who were over-running the country, as had time, in the multitude of their employments, to think of any foreign concerns, was the simple and direct conclusion that the absent bride was no more nor less than a felo de se.†   (source)
  • It was the prevalent opinion, however, that they had been influenced by veneration for the ancient treaty, that had once made them dependent on the Six Nations for military protection, and now rendered them reluctant to encounter their former masters.†   (source)
  • Patience,—patience; with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world.†   (source)
  • I need not say how rejoiced I shall be to hear there has been any mistake, but the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling.†   (source)
  • It was prevalent everywhere.†   (source)
  • It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families.†   (source)
  • The Ark was discovered stranded on the eastern shore, where it had long before been driven with the prevalent northwest winds.†   (source)
  • But the general principles of the Government are more stable, and the opinions most prevalent in society are generally more durable than in many other countries.†   (source)
  • Authorities were somewhat divided, as to the outward form of the spirit, owing to a custom quite prevalent among negroes,—and, for aught we know, among whites, too,—of invariably shutting the eyes, and covering up heads under blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might come in use for a shelter, on these occasions.†   (source)
  • The associate of the Messala was slighter in form, and his garments were of fine white linen and of the prevalent style in Jerusalem; a cloth covered his head, held by a yellow cord, and arranged so as to fall away from the forehead down low over the back of the neck.†   (source)
  • If that was not reason, Mrs. Dollop wished to know what was; but there was a prevalent feeling in her audience that her opinion was a bulwark, and that if it were overthrown there would be no limits to the cutting-up of bodies, as had been well seen in Burke and Hare with their pitch-plaisters—such a hanging business as that was not wanted in Middlemarch!†   (source)
  • Putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the fire; and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper.†   (source)
  • But later on I learnt with astonishment from medical specialists that there is no pretense about it, that it is a terrible illness to which women are subject, specially prevalent among us in Russia, and that it is due to the hard lot of the peasant women.†   (source)
  • He could defend many institutions better than any philosopher, because, in describing them as they concerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence, and speculation had not suggested to him any other.†   (source)
  • By these means Elnathan had acquired a certain degree of knowledge in fevers and agues, and could talk with judgment concerning intermittents, remittents, tertians, quotidians, etc. In certain cutaneous disorders very prevalent in new settlements, he was considered to be infallible; and there was no woman on the Patent but would as soon think of becoming a mother without a husband as without the assistance of Dr. Todd.†   (source)
  • At feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and among constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the prevalent subject.†   (source)
  • With a brief sketch, therefore, of the circumstances amid which the foundation of the house was laid, and a rapid glimpse at its quaint exterior, as it grew black in the prevalent east wind,—pointing, too, here and there, at some spot of more verdant mossiness on its roof and walls,—we shall commence the real action of our tale at an epoch not very remote from the present day.†   (source)
  • The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow.†   (source)
  • About the year 1727, just at the time that earthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived near this place a meagre, miserly fellow, of the name of Tom Walker.†   (source)
  • But there was another opinion, far less logical, prevalent amongst the rich people before the days of freedom, which did not die out at once after that epoch had begun.†   (source)
  • I shall do whatever they do at Paris, madame, if I have the good fortune to find some one who will initiate me into the prevalent ideas of amusement.†   (source)
  • …him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.†   (source)
  • …and insects, which, so far as he had heard, had never before attracted human observation; and he noticed remarkable coincidences between these zoological phenomena and the great events of that time,—as, for example, that before the burning of York Minster there had been mysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the rose-trees, together with an unusual prevalence of slugs, which he had been puzzled to know the meaning of, until it flashed upon him with this melancholy conflagration.†   (source)
  • The oldest inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful processions which little Oliver headed, in a hat-band reaching down to his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the mothers in the town.†   (source)
  • The elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps, above all, the peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them here.†   (source)
  • It was the prevalent conviction, and of all other explanations Levin had unconsciously, not knowing when or how, chosen it, as anyway the clearest, and made it his own.†   (source)
  • In a government constituted like that of the United States, he says, "it is impossible for the chief magistrate, however firm he may be, to oppose for any length of time the torrent of popular opinion; and the prevalent opinion of that day seemed to incline to war.†   (source)
  • The moon, too, which had long been climbing overhead, and unobtrusively melting its disk into the azure,—like an ambitious demagogue, who hides his aspiring purpose by assuming the prevalent hue of popular sentiment,—now began to shine out, broad and oval, in its middle pathway.†   (source)
  • Miss Squeers and the miller's daughter, being fast friends, had covenanted together some two years before, according to a custom prevalent among young ladies, that whoever was first engaged to be married, should straightway confide the mighty secret to the bosom of the other, before communicating it to any living soul, and bespeak her as bridesmaid without loss of time; in fulfilment of which pledge the miller's daughter, when her engagement was formed, came out express, at eleven…†   (source)
  • Lydgate, when abroad, had already been interested in this question: he was strongly convinced against the prevalent practice of allowing alcohol and persistently administering large doses of opium; and he had repeatedly acted on this conviction with a favorable result.†   (source)
  • Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various domiciles—a piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door.†   (source)
  • It is remarkable as showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the British possessions in India, also in a considerable part of China, and among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet furnished us by travellers, yield similar results.†   (source)
  • They said, with shrewdness at least, that the real object of the removal of the legates was not a more healthful locality, but the assurance afforded them by the huge barracks, named, according to the prevalent style, citadel, situated just over the way on the eastern ridge of the mount.†   (source)
  • I found as prevalent a fashion in the form of the penitence, as I had left outside in the forms of the coats and waistcoats in the windows of the tailors' shops.†   (source)
  • Dr. Kenn, at first enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of resistance.†   (source)
  • But Volumnia the fair, being subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that disorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at length to repair to the library for change of scene.†   (source)
  • On the whole, however, the better feeling was most prevalent, for neither the wild condition in which they lived, the clannish prejudices of tribes, nor their hard fortunes as Indian women, could entirely conquer the inextinguishable leaning of their sex to the affections.†   (source)
  • In the second place, he opposed the prevalent feeling, because with many capacities of being otherwise, he was an ill-conditioned man.†   (source)
  • "They are blended," said he, "I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous, I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over the good.†   (source)
  • In fact, the story has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of that popular saying, so prevalent throughout New England, of "The devil and Tom Walker."†   (source)
  • On inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly—a dejected disposition to give up, and wither away.†   (source)
  • A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the kings palace to the criminal's gaol.†   (source)
  • In all directions the grade sloped gently from the centre, where there was a reservoir, or deep marble basin, broken at intervals by little gates which, when raised, emptied the water into sluices bordering the walks—a cunning device for the rescue of the place from the aridity too prevalent elsewhere in the region.†   (source)
  • Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more have told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever.†   (source)
  • The idea that mines of gold and silver are the sources of national wealth was at that time singularly prevalent in Europe; a fatal delusion, which has done more to impoverish the nations which adopted it, and has cost more lives in America, than the united influence of war and bad laws.†   (source)
  • …and fierce wintry storms—a dark, cold, gloomy heath, lonely by day, and scarcely to be thought of by honest folks at night—a place which solitary wayfarers shun, and where desperate robbers congregate;—this, or something like this, should be the prevalent notion of Snow Hill, in those remote and rustic parts, through which the Saracen's Head, like some grim apparition, rushes each day and night with mysterious and ghost-like punctuality; holding its swift and headlong course in all…†   (source)
  • Something of this dramatic effect mingles with most of the graver usages of the American aborigines, and no doubt, like the prevalence of a similar feeling among people more sophisticated and refined, may be referred to a principle of nature.†   (source)
  • Born in the neighborhood of Arles, she had shared in the beauty for which its women are proverbial; but that beauty had gradually withered beneath the devastating influence of the slow fever so prevalent among dwellers by the ponds of Aiguemortes and the marshes of Camargue.†   (source)
  • The question proceeded from the younger of the friends, and was couched in Greek, at the time, singularly enough, the language everywhere prevalent in the politer circles of Judea; having passed from the palace into the camp and college; thence, nobody knew exactly when or how, into the Temple itself, and, for that matter, into precincts of the Temple far beyond the gates and cloisters—precincts of a sanctity intolerable for a Gentile.†   (source)
  • The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the suggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop.†   (source)
  • He dressed in the picturesque costume worn upon grand occasions by the inhabitants of the south of France, bearing equal resemblance to the style adopted both by the Catalans and Andalusians; while La Carconte displayed the charming fashion prevalent among the women of Arles, a mode of attire borrowed equally from Greece and Arabia.†   (source)
  • The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a disadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked, to their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others, with several stories between them, interchanged sarcastic references to the prevalent excitement.†   (source)
  • He conversed with the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with which young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means of lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church.†   (source)
  • — Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience, and which neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins.†   (source)
  • I daresay it is largely a fear of the weapon in it—and there are many others of like effect in the arsenal—which accounts for the far greater prevalence of idioms from below in the formal speech of America than in the formal speech of England.†   (source)
  • Both spend themselves upon opposing what, at bottom, are probably natural and inevitable movements—for example, the gradual decay of all the vowels to one of neutral color, represented by the /e/ of /danger/, the /u/ of /suggest/, the second /o/ of /common/ and the /a/ of /prevalent/.†   (source)
  • One of these errors, chiefly prevalent in New England, is that the so-called Boston pronunciation, with its broad /a/'s (making /last/, /path/ and /aunt/ almost assonant with /bar/) comes down unbrokenly from the day of the first settlements, and that it is in consequence superior in authority to the pronunciation of the [Pg059] rest of the country, with its flat /a/'s (making the same words assonant with /ban/).†   (source)
  • The prevalence of speed contests [Pg203] of various sorts, always to the intense interest of the proletariat, has brought such words as /speeder/, /speeding/, /speed-mania/, /speed-maniac/ and /speed-limit/ into daily use, and /speeded/ harmonizes with them better than the stronger /sped/.†   (source)
  • [1] Unhealthy regions, noted for the prevalence of malarial fevers in summer.†   (source)
  • Such prevalence had money in this family; and though the mistress would have turned away her maid for a corrupt hussy, if she had known as much as the reader, yet she was no more proof against corruption herself than poor Susan had been.†   (source)
  • I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter.†   (source)
  • Eve, easily my faith admit, that all The good which we enjoy from Heaven descends; But, that from us aught should ascend to Heaven So prevalent as to concern the mind Of God high-blest, or to incline his will, Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer Or one short sigh of human breath, upborne Even to the seat of God.†   (source)
  • This peculiar felicity of situation has, in a great degree, contributed to preserve the liberty which that country to this day enjoys, in spite of the prevalent venality and corruption.†   (source)
  • …moved, Now Night her course began, and, over Heaven Inducing darkness, grateful truce imposed, And silence on the odious din of war: Under her cloudy covert both retired, Victor and vanquished: On the foughten field Michael and his Angels prevalent Encamping, placed in guard their watches round, Cherubick waving fires: On the other part, Satan with his rebellious disappeared, Far in the dark dislodged; and, void of rest, His potentates to council called by night; And in the midst thus…†   (source)
  • But, independent of these inducements to war, which are more prevalent in absolute monarchies, but which well deserve our attention, there are others which affect nations as often as kings; and some of them will on examination be found to grow out of our relative situation and circumstances.†   (source)
  • The price of improved land in most parts of the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that want of private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to depreciate property of every kind.†   (source)
  • But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment.†   (source)
  • Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments.†   (source)
  • There are, in my opinion, substantial reasons against such a provision: the most discerning cannot foresee how far the prevalency of a local spirit may be found to disqualify the local tribunals for the jurisdiction of national causes; whilst every man may discover, that courts constituted like those of some of the States would be improper channels of the judicial authority of the Union.†   (source)
  • To the People of the State of New York: THE tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or communities, in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind, of which we have any account, in exact proportion to its prevalence in those systems.†   (source)
  • The division of them between the two branches of the legislature, assigning to one the right of accusing, to the other the right of judging, avoids the inconvenience of making the same persons both accusers and judges; and guards against the danger of persecution, from the prevalency of a factious spirit in either of those branches.†   (source)
  • We have seen, however, that it has not had thus far an extensive prevalency; that even in this country, where it made its first appearance, Pennsylvania and North Carolina are the only two States by which it has been in any degree patronized; and that all the others have refused to give it the least countenance; wisely judging that confidence must be placed somewhere; that the necessity of doing it, is implied in the very act of delegating power; and that it is better to hazard the…†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)