All 50 Uses of
direct
in
Middlemarch
- She dared not confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would be laying herself open to a demonstration that she was somehow or other at war with all goodness.†
Chpt 1
- But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring, not listening.†
Chpt 1 (definition 3)
- Even with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereas under a weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so many animated tax-pennies, a stronger lens reveals to you certain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom.†
Chpt 1
- But something she yearned for by which her life might be filled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer heightened yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there but knowledge?†
Chpt 1 (definition 1)
- He had his half-century before him instead of behind him, and he had come to Middlemarch bent on doing many things that were not directly fitted to make his fortune or even secure him a good income.†
Chpt 1 (definition 4)
- "You want to know something about him," she added, not choosing to indulge Rosamond's indirectness.†
Chpt 1 (definition 3)
- It was not in Mr. Bulstrode's nature to comply directly in consequence of uncomfortable suggestions.†
Chpt 2 (definition 4)
- …interest soon took the form of a professional enthusiasm: he had a youthful belief in his bread-winning work, not to be stifled by that initiation in makeshift called his 'prentice days; and he carried to his studies in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, the conviction that the medical profession as it might be was the finest in the world; presenting the most perfect interchange between science and art; offering the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and the social good.†
Chpt 2
- Considering that statistics had not yet embraced a calculation as to the number of ignorant or canting doctors which absolutely must exist in the teeth of all changes, it seemed to Lydgate that a change in the units was the most direct mode of changing the numbers.†
Chpt 2
- But results which depend on human conscience and intelligence work slowly, and now at the end of 1829, most medical practice was still strutting or shambling along the old paths, and there was still scientific work to be done which might have seemed to be a direct sequence of Bichat's.†
Chpt 2
- "Oh, I'm precious glad I'm not one of the Directors now.†
Chpt 2 (definition 1) *
- I shall vote for referring the matter to the Directors and the Medical Board together.†
Chpt 2 (definition 1)
- I was early bitten with an interest in structure, and it is what lies most directly in my profession.†
Chpt 2 (definition 4)
- When the General Board of the Infirmary had met, however, and Lydgate had notice that the question of the chaplaincy was thrown on a council of the directors and medical men, to meet on the following Friday, he had a vexed sense that he must make up his mind on this trivial Middlemarch business.†
Chpt 2 (definition 1)
- Lydgate was late in setting out, but Dr. Sprague, the two other surgeons, and several of the directors had arrived early; Mr. Bulstrode, treasurer and chairman, being among those who were still absent.†
Chpt 2 (definition 1)
- A layman who pried into the professional conduct of medical men, and was always obtruding his reforms,—though he was less directly embarrassing to the two physicians than to the surgeon-apothecaries who attended paupers by contract, was nevertheless offensive to the professional nostril as such; and Dr. Minchin shared fully in the new pique against Bulstrode, excited by his apparent determination to patronize Lydgate.†
Chpt 2 (definition 4)
- But in my judgment it behoves us, as Directors, to consider whether we will regard it as our whole business to carry out propositions emanating from a single quarter.†
Chpt 2 (definition 1)
- These were the Reverend Edward Thesiger, Rector of St. Peter's, Mr. Bulstrode, and our friend Mr. Brooke of Tipton, who had lately allowed himself to be put on the board of directors in his turn, but had never before attended, his attendance now being due to Mr. Bulstrode's exertions.†
Chpt 2 (definition 1)
- He was really uncertain whether Tyke were not the more suitable candidate, and yet his consciousness told him that if he had been quite free from indirect bias he should have voted for Mr. Farebrother.†
Chpt 2 (definition 3)
- I have been led farther than I had foreseen, and various subjects for annotation have presented themselves which, though I have no direct need of them, I could not pretermit.†
Chpt 2
- It was impossible now to doubt the directness of Dorothea's confession.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- She was not coldly clever and indirectly satirical, but adorably simple and full of feeling.†
Chpt 2 (definition 3)
- It would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly and ingenuously.†
Chpt 2 (definition 4)
- …selves: Dorothea had early begun to emerge from that stupidity, but yet it had been easier to her to imagine how she would devote herself to Mr. Casaubon, and become wise and strong in his strength and wisdom, than to conceive with that distinctness which is no longer reflection but feeling—an idea wrought back to the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects—that he had an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- Fred was subtle, and did not tell his friends that he was going to Houndsley bent on selling his horse: he wished to get indirectly at their genuine opinion of its value, not being aware that a genuine opinion was the last thing likely to be extracted from such eminent critics.†
Chpt 3 (definition 3)
- By the time he was hurrying on his clothes in the morning, he saw so clearly the importance of not losing this rare chance, that if Bambridge and Horrock had both dissuaded him, he would not have been deluded into a direct interpretation of their purpose: he would have been aware that those deep hands held something else than a young fellow's interest.†
Chpt 3
- In fact, it is probable that but for Mary's existence and Fred's love for her, his conscience would have been much less active both in previously urging the debt on his thought and impelling him not to spare himself after his usual fashion by deferring an unpleasant task, but to act as directly and simply as he could.†
Chpt 3 (definition 4)
- She was not in the habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clew to fact, why, they were not intended in that light—they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to please.†
Chpt 3
- The only course is to try by all means, direct and indirect, to moderate and vary his occupations.†
Chpt 3
- The only course is to try by all means, direct and indirect, to moderate and vary his occupations.
Chpt 3 (definition 2) *indirect = not straightforward (not obvious and simple)standard prefix: The prefix "in-" in indirect means not and reverses the meaning of direct. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- There was occasionally a little fierceness in his demeanor, but it was directed chiefly against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his patience tried.†
Chpt 3
- He was an open-minded man, but given to indirect modes of expressing himself: when he was disappointed in a market for his silk braids, he swore at the groom; when his brother-in-law Bulstrode had vexed him, he made cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now apparent that he regarded Fred's idleness with a sudden increase of severity, by his throwing an embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to the hall-floor.†
Chpt 4 (definition 3)
- The indirect though emphatic expression of opinion to which Mr. Vincy was prone suffered much restraint in this case: Lydgate was a proud man towards whom innuendoes were obviously unsafe, and throwing his hat on the floor was out of the question.†
Chpt 4 (definition 3)
- To ask her to be less simple and direct would be like breathing on the crystal that you want to see the light through.
Chpt 4 (definition 2)direct = straightforward (clear and uncomplicated)
- Should he apply directly to Mr. Brooke, and demand of that troublesome gentleman to revoke his proposal?
Chpt 4 (definition 3) *directly = straight (without delay or interruption)
- But we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.†
Chpt 4 (definition 4)
- We shall do a great deal together, Ladislaw and I." "Yes," said Dorothea, with characteristic directness, "Sir James has been telling me that he is in hope of seeing a great change made soon in your management of the estate—that you are thinking of having the farms valued, and repairs made, and the cottages improved, so that Tipton may look quite another place.†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- Even if I live I shall not be without uneasiness as to what he may attempt through indirect influence.†
Chpt 4 (definition 3)
- Mr. Casaubon did not say, "I wish to be alone," but he directed his steps in silence towards the house, and as they entered by the glass door on this eastern side, Dorothea withdrew her arm and lingered on the matting, that she might leave her husband quite free.†
Chpt 4
- …studies, particularly in Paris, had shown him the importance of, the other medical visitors having a consultative influence, but no power to contravene Lydgate's ultimate decisions; and the general management was to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated with Mr. Bulstrode, who were to have votes in the ratio of their contributions, the Board itself filling up any vacancy in its numbers, and no mob of small contributors being admitted to a share of government.†
Chpt 5 (definition 1)
- Suitable directors to assist me I have no doubt of securing.†
Chpt 5 (definition 1)
- She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus of a ghastly labor producing what would never see the light.†
Chpt 5 (definition 4)
- He had lit two candles, expecting that Dorothea would awake, but not liking to rouse her by more direct means.†
Chpt 5
- There were plenty of reasons why he should not go—public reasons why he should not quit his post at this crisis, leaving Mr. Brooke in the lurch when he needed "coaching" for the election, and when there was so much canvassing, direct and indirect, to be carried on.†
Chpt 5
- There were plenty of reasons why he should not go—public reasons why he should not quit his post at this crisis, leaving Mr. Brooke in the lurch when he needed "coaching" for the election, and when there was so much canvassing, direct and indirect, to be carried on.
Chpt 5 (definition 2)indirect = not straightforward (not obvious and simple)standard prefix: The prefix "in-" in indirect means not and reverses the meaning of direct. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- Pardon me, Mary—you know I used to catechise you under that name—but when the state of a woman's affections touches the happiness of another life—of more lives than one—I think it would be the nobler course for her to be perfectly direct and open."†
Chpt 5
- Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick, had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation at large, that just about the time when he came in possession of the deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother "read himself" into the quaint little church and preached his first…
Chpt 5 (definition 4) *directed = aimed or focused
- And again: it seemed no wrong to keep Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the direct falsehood of denying true statements.†
Chpt 5
- "Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of some indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private opinion as to the perfections of his first-born.†
Chpt 6 (definition 3)
- She looked at Will with a direct glance, full of delighted confidence.
Chpt 6 (definition 5) *direct = focused (where stated)
Definitions:
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(1) (direct as in: directed the movie) supervise, control, or to be in charge of
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(2) (direct as in: was direct in my instructions) straightforward (uncomplicated or simple -- perhaps also indicating openness and honesty, or little concern for others' feelings)
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(3) (direct as in: depart directly) without delay, or in the quickest manner, or without going somewhere else firsteditor's notes: You may see the term direct flight used in a technical manner that is not as quick as a non-stop flight. In technical usage, a direct flight from Los Angeles to New York could stop at a city on the way, but you would not get off the plane during the stop.
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(4) (direct as in: directed her question to) to indicate direction; or to cause movement or focus in a direction or towards an objectThe exact meaning of this sense of direct is subject to its context. For example:
- "intentionally directed fire at unarmed civilians" -- aimed a gun
- "directed the question to her" -- aimed a question
- "directed her north" -- pointed in a particular direction
- "directed attention to the 3rd paragraph" -- focused attention on a particular object
- "The sound of her voice directed him to the kitchen." -- guided or gave directions to someone to help them move to a particular place
- "She directed him to the airport." -- gave directions to send someone to a particular place
- "She directed the boat north." -- steered it
- "directed the letter to" -- send a letter to a particular person by putting a name and address on it
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(5) (direct as in: directly above; or buy direct from) straight (exactly where stated); or without involvement of anything in betweenThe exact meaning of this sense of direct is subject to its context. For example:
- "The road runs directly to Las Vegas." -- straight (without varying from a straight line)
- "It was a direct hit." -- exact
- "The plant is in direct sunlight." -- unobstructed (without anything in between)
- "She wants a direct meeting with him." -- personal (without other people in between)
- "She paid direct attention to what he was reading." -- close
- "a direct gaze" -- straight, steady, or focused--not a brief glance taken while generally looking at other things; not a sideways look
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(direct as in: directed the jury to...) give instructions or commands