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vocabulary
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curtail
in a sentence

show 77 more with this conextual meaning
  • Every possibility of excess was curtailed with it.†   (source)
  • Saeed and Nadia began to curtail their wanderings to conserve energy, and thus reduce their need for food and drink.†   (source)
  • After that he curtailed his travel.†   (source)
  • Like animals hiding in camouflage, they curtail their breathing, lower their body temperature, maintain total silence, hold their muscles in check, and block out their portals of awareness.†   (source)
  • The wedding date, of course, was unchanged—it wasn't every day a country had a five hundredth anniversary—but all the festivities were either curtailed entirely or vastly cut down.†   (source)
  • And although the 104th had been sitting there barely twenty minutes and the working day--curtailed because it was winter--didn't end till six, everyone felt already they'd had a rare stroke of luck--now evening didn't seem so far off.†   (source)
  • The only way to get him to begin to curtail his surveillance was to convince him that I shared that fantasy and accepted his decision to live in Iran.†   (source)
  • Mass action was perilous in South Africa, where it was a criminal offense for an African to strike, and where the rights of free speechand movement were unmercifully curtailed.†   (source)
  • If you'll curtail your literary pursuits a moment I'll introduce you to my counterpart and Nemesis; I would be trite and say, 'to my better half,' but I think that phrase indicates some kind of basically equal division, don't you?†   (source)
  • The anti-smoking movement has focused, so far, on raising cigarette prices, curtailing cigarette advertising, running public health messages on radio and television, limiting access of cigarettes to minors, and drilling anti-tobacco messages into schoolchildren, and in the period that this broad, seemingly comprehensive, ambitious campaign has been waged, teenage smoking has skyrocketed.†   (source)
  • But public bigotry has since been vastly curtailed.†   (source)
  • Delta was not closed down and its activities were not curtailed in the slightest.†   (source)
  • Even the air systems had been curtailed.†   (source)
  • And military careers could be curtailed and even destroyed if it was shown that any part of a prisoner's conversation was revealed in an unauthorized way, particularly when a highly decorated combat vet was on the other end of the line.†   (source)
  • Though some provisions were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, key elements were upheld and the bill stands as one of the most aggressive measures to curtail undocumented immigration.†   (source)
  • But in nearly four hours of increasingly bitter debate, there was no direct answer to the blunt question posed by Mr. Maclnnis: If the national security is no longer in danger, what is the reason for curtailing the freedom of Canadian citizens?†   (source)
  • I'm going to be really rigorous about this, because David E. Barton says the very act of noting down purchases should have a curtailing effect.†   (source)
  • The boys' play was abruptly curtailed as the noise of screaming children approached.†   (source)
  • Q: Does this postponement have anything to do with the Russian decision to curtail their space program after the crash of Zond 19?†   (source)
  • 569 For Abigail it was not just that the long journey of public life was ended, but that their capacity to "do good" was to be "so greatly curtailed," as she had written before leaving Washington.†   (source)
  • "As most of it remains in Sounis, my work on it will necessarily be curtailed," said the magus, frowning at him.†   (source)
  • Any other method of curtailing profits is the method of looters —and I recognize it as such.†   (source)
  • I myself had been cutting back on my visits to the shop in recent months, as I'd decided to curtail my pipe smoking to one bowl a week instead of my longtime three or four; but also, I've been finding that the conversation there, which is usually entertaining and vigorous, has been somewhat sodden of late, as the fellows have been preoccupied with perceived "changes" in the character of the town and area, changes that Renny has obviously been compelled to address.†   (source)
  • The pain in his battered left hand suddenly fused with the agony in his shoulder and his arm; he had to push all pain out of his mind; he had to curtail the bleeding as best he could.†   (source)
  • Poor child, she was bewildered by the many injunctions we laid upon her, and the curtailing of her freedom tried her sorely, though not a word of complaint came from her.†   (source)
  • But we cannot solve the problems of legislative independence and responsibility by abolishing or curtailing democracy.†   (source)
  • Criminals' rights were curtailed and stricter sentencing guidelines put in place.†   (source)
  • In the long term I rely on his disease to curtail his empire building.†   (source)
  • The public may curtail my profits any time it wishes-by refusing to buy my product.†   (source)
  • It would be for her a well-spring from which she would draw the most destructive emotions, deceiving the lover and seeking to imprison the beloved, curtailing freedom in every way.†   (source)
  • In the previous chapter of this book, I argued that the twenty-first century would be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power.†   (source)
  • The environmental movement has EPILOGUE ta 262 forced companies to curtail their pollution, and a similar campaign must induce the fast food chains to assume responsibility for their business practices and minimize their harmful effects. what to do†   (source)
  • He began to reconstruct the events of the past twenty-four hours and his smile widened, a brief, curtailed laugh escaping from his throat.†   (source)
  • There are simply times when I find it necessary to curtail activities-leave a dinner party early, absent myself on weekends to the Mediterranean, or decline a few days on the slopes in Gstaad.†   (source)
  • I saw that it was not just my freedom that was curtailed, but the freedom of everyone who looked like I did.†   (source)
  • It stresses that you should be honest and not suddenly curtail or alter your spending pattern—which is lucky, because it's Suze's birthday on Friday and I've got to get her a present.†   (source)
  • Are we to understand that if the public deems it necessary to curtail your profits, you do not recognize its right to do so?†   (source)
  • It took some time, and a great deal of political turmoil, but these incentives were eventually curtailed.†   (source)
  • The African National Congress was formed in 1912 to defend the rights of the African people which had been seriously curtailed by the South Africa Act, and which were then being threatened by the Native Land Act.†   (source)
  • As far as Africans are concerned, both these avenues of advancement are deliberately curtailed by legislation.†   (source)
  • Surely, working in the City, you find your time on the cricket-field greatly curtailed?†   (source)
  • He felt much healthier in the war, probably due to the forced curtailment of the number of meat courses, he had an enormous stock of sodium-bicarbonate, he had his whiskey in the evening, his twenty-three-year-old mistress was having a baby, as were nearly all the other girls who had started out as milicianas in the July of the year before, and now he came into the room, nodded in answer to Gomez's salute and put out his hand.†   (source)
  • I never have learned to reproach myself for such things; and then my experience in curtailing them was limited.†   (source)
  • Probably, therefore, he will say something like this: While freely conceding that the Soviet régime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.†   (source)
  • The old woman prattled on and on, while the penitents stirred restlessly in the next stall and the horse whinnied, prattled of abstinence days broken, of evening prayers curtailed.†   (source)
  • I may have to curtail our time together to-day….†   (source)
  • Who would wish less to curtail your liberty than I?†   (source)
  • "What is your address?" inquired a young lady behind the counter, taking up the curtailed conversation.†   (source)
  • Now, whenever I hear any one advocating measures that are meant to curtail the development of another, I pity the individual who would do this.†   (source)
  • …and had made them melt like honey and flow beyond their proper margins, either surging out in a milky, frothing wave, washing from its place a florid gothic capital, drowning the white violets of the marble floor; or else reabsorbed into their limits, contracting still further a crabbed Latin inscription, bringing a fresh touch of fantasy into the arrangement of its curtailed characters, closing together two letters of some word of which the rest were disproportionately scattered.†   (source)
  • The cottage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner considerably curtailed by demolitions, every house which remained standing was required by the agriculturist for his work-people.†   (source)
  • Presently the moon rose—the exhausted crescent that precedes the sun—and shortly after men and oxen began their interminable labour, and the gracious interlude, which he had tried to curtail, came to its natural conclusion.†   (source)
  • Then, to the consternation of his landlady, he shifted all the furniture of his room—a single one for living and sleeping—rigged up a curtain on a rope across the middle, to make a double chamber out of one, hung up a thick blind that nobody should know how he was curtailing the hours of sleep, laid out his books, and sat down.†   (source)
  • But their tete-a-tete was curtailed by the appearance of Mrs. Deane with little Lucy; and Mrs. Tulliver had to look on with a silent pang while Lucy's blond curls were adjusted.†   (source)
  • Miss Bertram approved the decision, for the less he had to learn the better; and though she could not sympathise in his wish that the Count and Agatha might be to act together, nor wait very patiently while he was slowly turning over the leaves with the hope of still discovering such a scene, she very kindly took his part in hand, and curtailed every speech that admitted being shortened; besides pointing out the necessity of his being very much dressed, and chusing his colours.†   (source)
  • You have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear, comprehensible, elegant English.†   (source)
  • The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast approaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent.†   (source)
  • …attached to Oriental literature, equal to that produced by Mr Galland's first translation of the Arabian Tales; in which, retaining on the one hand the splendour of Eastern costume, and on the other the wildness of Eastern fiction, he mixed these with just so much ordinary feeling and expression, as rendered them interesting and intelligible, while he abridged the long-winded narratives, curtailed the monotonous reflections, and rejected the endless repetitions of the Arabian original.†   (source)
  • Little Rawdon being disposed of, Lord Steyne, who took such a parental interest in the affairs of this amiable poor family, thought that their expenses might be very advantageously curtailed by the departure of Miss Briggs, and that Becky was quite clever enough to take the management of her own house.†   (source)
  • Akakiy Akakievitch thought and thought, and decided that it would be necessary to curtail his ordinary expenses, for the space of one year at least, to dispense with tea in the evening; to burn no candles, and, if there was anything which he must do, to go into his landlady's room, and work by her light.†   (source)
  • The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed muffled in some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to spread high or wide.†   (source)
  • Like a wise commander, who finds he has occupied too much ground for the amount of his force, he began to curtail his outworks.†   (source)
  • It would seem that in Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, they are nevertheless curtailed of some of the greatest qualities of the human species, and considered as seductive but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as a privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid.†   (source)
  • The Moslem Archbishop had been emphatic and over-arrogant; the young prince was merely sulky at the curtailment of his privileges, but there was no need he should continue a correspondence which might some day compromise him.†   (source)
  • "Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence.†   (source)
  • Here Hurry laughed heartily, such tricks being particularly grateful to a set of men who dreaded the approaches of civilization as a curtailment of their own lawless empire.†   (source)
  • It was impossible but that Mrs Clay must hate the sight of Mr Elliot; and yet she could assume a most obliging, placid look, and appear quite satisfied with the curtailed license of devoting herself only half as much to Sir Walter as she would have done otherwise.†   (source)
  • Long after the little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried — when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky — I got up, and I looked round me.†   (source)
  • But there is a way some men have, rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them.†   (source)
  • Judith was a girl of quick sensibilities and of impetuous feelings; and, being under few of the restraints that curtail the manifestations of maiden emotions among those who are educated in the habits of civilized life, she sometimes betrayed the latter with a feeling that was so purely natural as to place it as far above the wiles of coquetry as it was superior to its heartlessness.†   (source)
  • …received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile — when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders — even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.†   (source)
  • /Curb/ has analogues in /curtain/, /curdle/, /curfew/, /curl/, /currant/, /curry/, /curve/, /curtsey/, /curse/, /currency/, /cursory/, /curtail/, /cur/, /curt/ and many other common words: /kerb/ has very few, and of them only /kerchief/ and /kernel/ are in general use.†   (source)
  • First, it must be in sorrowful bitterness of spirit; a condition that has five signs — shamefastness, humility in heart and outward sign, weeping with the bodily eyes or in the heart, disregard of the shame that might curtail or garble confession, and obedience to the penance enjoined.†   (source)
  • —To conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; called me Dromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what privy marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch: and, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith and my heart of steel, she had transformed me to a curtail-dog, and made me turn i' the wheel.†   (source)
  • The answer is, that it could only have been done for greater caution, and to guard against all cavilling refinements in those who might hereafter feel a disposition to curtail and evade the legitimate authorities of the Union.†   (source)
  • But I,—that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no…†   (source)
  • Who copied it out for thee? and everything in the matter that seems to thee worth knowing, asking, and learning; neither adding nor falsifying to give me pleasure, nor yet curtailing lest you should deprive me of it.†   (source)
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