All 9 Uses of
contrived
in
Middlemarch
- Dorothea accused herself of some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose.†
Chpt 1
- Now, why on earth should Mrs. Cadwallader have been at all busy about Miss Brooke's marriage; and why, when one match that she liked to think she had a hand in was frustrated, should she have straightway contrived the preliminaries of another?†
Chpt 1
- All Will's hope and contrivance were now concentrated on seeing Dorothea when she was alone.†
Chpt 2 *
- "No, no; but it's a fine thing to come to a man when he's seen into the nature of business: to have the chance of getting a bit of the country into good fettle, as they say, and putting men into the right way with their farming, and getting a bit of good contriving and solid building done—that those who are living and those who come after will be the better for.†
Chpt 4
- The fact was that Will had been made the more susceptible by observing that Mr. Brooke, instead of wishing him, as before, to come to the Grange oftener than was quite agreeable to himself, seemed now to contrive that he should go there as little as possible.†
Chpt 5
- Such contrivances are of no use," said the easy Rector.†
Chpt 6
- This I have in my hand is an ingenious contrivance—a sort of practical rebus, I may call it: here, you see, it looks like an elegant heart-shaped box, portable—for the pocket; there, again, it becomes like a splendid double flower—an ornament for the table; and now"—Mr. Trumbull allowed the flower to fall alarmingly into strings of heart-shaped leaves—"a book of riddles!†
Chpt 6
- He was altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance which had cost him some secret humiliation beforehand.†
Chpt 6
- He had not confessed to himself yet that he had done anything in the way of contrivance to this end; he had accepted what seemed to have been offered.†
Chpt 7
Definition:
-
(contrived) unnatural seeming (due to careful planning)
or more rarely:
arranged (that something should happen)