All 11 Uses of
precise
in
Far from the Madding Crowd
- The smaller of its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of the hour they belonged to.†
Chpt 1-3
- Long experience had so precisely taught the animal the difference between such exclamations as "Come in!" and "D—— ye, come in!" that he knew to a hair's breadth the rate of trotting back from the ewes' tails that each call involved, if a staggerer with the sheep crook was to be escaped.†
Chpt 4-6
- The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small whirlpool.†
Chpt 10-12
- That stillness, which struck casual observers more than anything else in his character and habit, and seemed so precisely like the rest of inanition, may have been the perfect balance of enormous antagonistic forces—positives and negatives in fine adjustment.†
Chpt 16-18
- Along each side wall was a range of striding buttresses, throwing deep shadows on the spaces between them, which were perforated by lancet openings, combining in their proportions the precise requirements both of beauty and ventilation.†
Chpt 22-24
- More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times.†
Chpt 28-30
- The glasses and cups still stood upon the table, a water-jug being overturned, from which a small rill, after tracing its course with marvellous precision down the centre of the long table, fell into the neck of the unconscious Mark Clark, in a steady, monotonous drip, like the dripping of a stalactite in a cave.†
Chpt 34-36
- There was not a sound of life save that acme and sublimation of all dismal sounds, the bark of a fox, its three hollow notes being rendered at intervals of a minute with the precision of a funeral bell.†
Chpt 40-42
- "Nobody can hurt a dead woman," at length said Coggan, with the precision of a machine.†
Chpt 40-42 *
- [2] [Footnote 2: The local tower and churchyard do not answer precisely to the foregoing description.†
Chpt 46-48
- Bathsheba, having previously been living in a state of suspended feeling which was not suspense, now lived in a mood of quietude which was not precisely peacefulness.†
Chpt 49-51
Definition:
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(precise as in: about noon; 12:03 to be precise) exact (accurate)editor's notes: In the fields of science, engineering, and statistics, precise and accurate are not properly used as synonyms the way they are in general usage.
If you throw darts at a dartboard and keep missing the bullseye, but hit in the same place on the dartboard each time, you would be described as precise, but not accurate.
If you seldom hit the bullseye, but tended to get close each time, you would be described as accurate, but not precise.
Finally, if you hit the bullseye each time, you would be considered both accurate and precise.