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incumbent
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  • She had to defeat an incumbent governor to win.
    incumbent = then holding office
  • She was more suited to running as an outsider than she is to defending her office as an incumbent.
    incumbent = someone who currently holds an official position
  • Barbarians and urbanites, incumbents and rebels, masters and slaves — all forget their differences and make common cause.   (source)
    incumbents = people holding positions of power
  • Ex-nun, and incumbent baby grandaunt.   (source)
    incumbent = someone who currently holds an official position
  • I met the present incumbent a few times earlier in the year, and she told me that Falk lives in some geriatric home in Hedestad.   (source)
    incumbent = person holding an official position
  • Splashed across the screen was election coverage: the race between the incumbent district attorney and his challenger, the dean of students at Harvard Law School, a man named Logan Rourke.   (source)
  • Incumbents and front-runners obviously have more cash, but they only spend a lot of it when they stand a legitimate chance of losing; otherwise, why dip into a war chest that might be more useful later on, when a more formidable opponent appears?   (source)
    incumbents = people who currently hold office
  • But incumbents generally have the upper hand, so no worries.   (source)
  • But eight years ago, when I was running for D.A. for the first time against a powerful incumbent and I needed money the way a fat kid needs cake, that sorry SOB that owned the Mouse's Tail gave my opponent five thousand in cash as a campaign contribution.   (source)
    incumbent = person holding an elected position
  • When Faye came down from Sacramento and opened her house there was a flurry of animosity from the two incumbents.   (source)
    incumbents = people currently running houses that would compete
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  • With Congress out of session, with the tide running strongly against the incumbent Democrats, there appeared to be no necessity for the Senator to make more than the usual campaign utterances on the usual issues.   (source)
    incumbent = currently holding office
  • The Left Front group declared that the incumbent leadership did not reflect the wishes of the club.   (source)
  • Then he would talk about Memphis, the city, in a vague and splendid way, as though all his life he had been incumbent there of some important though still nameless municipal office.   (source)
    incumbent = someone holding an official position
  • It is essential, in order to form a complete estimate of the advantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the in-coming of a hostile administration.   (source)
    incumbent = person who currently holds an official position
  • Tom listened with some shame and some sorrow; but escaping as quickly as possible, could soon with cheerful selfishness reflect, firstly, that he had not been half so much in debt as some of his friends; secondly, that his father had made a most tiresome piece of work of it; and, thirdly, that the future incumbent, whoever he might be, would, in all probability, die very soon.   (source)
    incumbent = person holding an official position
  • Much and deservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the Custom-House steps.   (source)
    incumbency = term in an official position
  • So front-runners and incumbents raise a lot more money than long shots.†   (source)
  • Between incumbencies of Finn maids from the North Woods, Germans from the prairies, occasional Swedes and Norwegians and Icelanders, Carol did her own work—and endured Aunt Bessie's skittering in to tell her how to dampen a broom for fluffy dust, how to sugar doughnuts, how to stuff a goose.†   (source)
  • The whole were grouped in a manner that aped the streets of a city, and were evidently so arranged by the directions of one who looked to the wants of posterity rather than to the convenience of the present incumbents.†   (source)
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  • It is incumbent on them to pay their own debts.
  • Mohammed’s accomplishments implied—proved, really—that the Zeitouns were extraordinary. It was incumbent, thereafter, on each and every child to live up to that legacy.   (source)
    incumbent = expected as a responsibility
  • He had a bad feeling about this parting; he didn't know when they would next see each other and he felt it was incumbent upon him to say something to Sirius to stop him doing anything stupid.   (source)
    incumbent = required as a responsibility
  • The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life.   (source)
    incumbent = required (for the activity)
  • I see that you understand the gravity of the situation, so I will say this only once: you bear full responsibility for this girl's doom, and, because of the wrong you did her, it is incumbent upon you to help her if ever the opportunity should arise.   (source)
    incumbent = necessary as a duty or responsibility
  • "He ain't as yellow as he was," Joe said, feeling that it was incumbent on him to take up for July a little bit, since July would never take up for himself.   (source)
  • Things were often incumbent upon him, and he frequently acted with greatest reluctance.   (source)
    incumbent = required
  • It was also incumbent upon them to attend to his personal wants.   (source)
  • Jefferson also said, "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes."   (source)
    incumbent = expected as a responsibility
  • But before doing so, there were a few words that he felt it incumbent upon him to say.   (source)
    incumbent = required
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  • There was a moment's pause, and then Archer felt it incumbent on him to say: "All right. Shall we go together this afternoon?"   (source)
  • He was really more interested in Hortense, yet felt it incumbent on him, for the time being, anyhow, to show some attention to Laura Sipe.   (source)
  • When it did, the lieutenants assigned to batteries felt it incumbent on them, in some instances, to stand with drawn swords behind the men working the guns.   (source)
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  • In the months leading up to Election Day, incumbent mayors routinely try to lock up the law-and-order vote by hiring more police—even when the crime rate is standing still.†   (source)
  • His Democratic opponent, incumbent Senator James Huffman, challenged Bricker to stand with either Taft or Dewey, declaring: A country that has suffered the scourge of modern war, lost more than 300,000 of its finest men, and spent $300,000,000,000 of its resources because of the acts of these convicted gangsters can never feel that the sentences meted out have been too severe…… This is not the time to weaken in the punishment of international crimes.†   (source)
  • He had elected for the place among his fellow workers that he judged incumbent upon him-in the forefront of the fight.†   (source)
  • He would have felt it incumbent on him to supply his granddaughter with clothes if she were indecently clad or if she were ragged or cold, but not to marry in.†   (source)
  • As incumbent of that office, he stumbled up-stairs late at night, as his father had done before him.†   (source)
  • After taking off his coat, he felt it incumbent upon him to make some little report of his day.†   (source)
  • But it was incumbent upon her to go on now.†   (source)
  • I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort.†   (source)
  • Heyward felt it had now become incumbent on him to act.†   (source)
  • Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue talking.†   (source)
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  • …being a general scuffle, wherein a black board was split, three panes of the school windows were broken, an inkbottle was spilled over a town-councillor's shirt front, a churchwarden was dealt such a topper with the map of Palestine that his head went right through Samaria, and many black eyes and bleeding noses were given, one of which, to everybody's horror, was the venerable incumbent's, owing to the zeal of an emancipated chimney-sweep, who took the side of Phillotson's party.†   (source)
  • Still, in the light of the trader's blunt philosophy, and of his own assurance that he was no fool, Shefford felt it incumbent upon him to accept a belief that there were situations no man could resist without an anchor.†   (source)
  • He turned, and she, being convinced that he felt that she-was lying now, felt it incumbent upon herself to do something about it—to win him around to her again.†   (source)
  • But an innate repugnance to playing a part at all approaching that of an informer against one's own shipmates—the same erring sense of uninstructed honor which had stood in the way of his reporting the matter at the time though as a loyal man-of-war-man it was incumbent on him, and failure so to do if charged against him and proven, would have subjected him to the heaviest of penalties; this, with the blind feeling now his, that nothing really was being hatched, prevailed with him.†   (source)
  • Prosecutor Paravant felt it incumbent upon him, as the party's representative as it were, to speak in their behalf, to offer in a low voice a few words to their honored host.†   (source)
  • And this duty that was incumbent upon Odette, of going to the Hippodrome, to which Swann thus gave way, seemed to him to be not merely ineluctable in itself; but the mark of necessity which stamped it seemed to make plausible and legitimate everything that was even remotely connected with it.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Peniston disliked giving dinners, but she had a high sense of family obligation, and on the Jack Stepneys' return from their honeymoon she felt it incumbent upon her to light the drawing-room lamps and extract her best silver from the Safe Deposit vaults.†   (source)
  • But this … But now, as the Coroner shrewdly foresaw, might not this case prove the very thing to fix the attention and favor of the people upon one man—the incumbent district attorney—a close and helpful friend of his, thus far—and so sufficiently redound to his credit and strength, and through him to the party ticket itself, so that at the coming election all might be elected—the reigning district attorney thus winning for himself not only the nomination for but his election to the…†   (source)
  • Or rather, in light of our duty, our holy obligation—for example, the debt of honor incumbent upon me to turn with a most cordial heart to you, so small but full of character—a gin, my love!†   (source)
  • What is incumbent upon me to say is not so much that, but primarily and above all this: that we are duty-bound, that we are charged with an inviolable— I repeat with all due emphasis—inviolable obligation—No!†   (source)
  • Yet for no one of these places, thus far, other than that of the county judgeship, could the present incumbent of the office of district attorney possibly look forward with any hope, since already he had held the position of district attorney for two consecutive terms, a length of office due to the fact that not only was he a good orator of the inland political stripe but also, as the chief legal official of the county, he was in a position to do one and another of his friends a favor.†   (source)
  • And in passing technically on whether this boy had actually committed the crime charged, it was incumbent upon this jury to see that no generous impulse relating to what this poor girl might have suffered in her love-relations with this youth be permitted to sway them to the belief or decision that for that this youth had committed the crime specifically stated in the indictment.†   (source)
  • That every man felt his condition to be, somehow or other, worse than it might be; that every man considered it incumbent on him to join the rest, towards the making of it better; that every man felt his only hope to be in his allying himself to the comrades by whom he was surrounded; and that in this belief, right or wrong (unhappily wrong then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, faithfully in earnest; must have been as plain to any one who chose to see what was there, as…†   (source)
  • For the duties incumbent on the legislator differ at different times; the goal towards which the human race ought ever to be tending is alone stationary; the means of reaching it are perpetually to be varied.†   (source)
  • Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular denomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so very remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his volunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience; but he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number.†   (source)
  • * and he felt it incumbent on him, as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander's envoy.†   (source)
  • During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of _the thing_ upon my face, and its vast weight--an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off--incumbent eternally upon my _heart!†   (source)
  • It is incumbent on you to attend places of public worship, as I am pleased to see that you have done this evening.†   (source)
  • 'I have felt it incumbent upon me, Master Copperfield,' said Uriah, 'to point out to Doctor Strong what you and me have already talked about.†   (source)
  • ] "Gentle Reader,—I have for some length of time looked upon it as a duty incumbent, especially on the immediate successors of those that have had so large experience of those many memorable and signal demonstrations of God's goodness, viz.†   (source)
  • It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.†   (source)
  • She did not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his.†   (source)
  • Some Radical fellow speechifying at Middlemarch said Casaubon was the learned straw-chopping incumbent, and Freke was the brick-and-mortar incumbent, and I was the angling incumbent.†   (source)
  • It was a mansion exceedingly inadequate to the style of living which it would be incumbent on Mr. Pyncheon to support, after realizing his territorial rights.†   (source)
  • It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, "Much better," Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again.†   (source)
  • For though Pitt did not care for joviality, being a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he considered that to be hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on-his station, and every time that he got a headache from too long an after-dinner sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty.†   (source)
  • Guillaume Rym considered it incumbent on him to intervene,— "Master Coppenole, you are speaking to a puissant king."†   (source)
  • I rarely passed more unpleasant moments, so much so that when they did arrive all together punctually at six I was overjoyed to see them, as though they were my deliverers, and even forgot that it was incumbent upon me to show resentment.†   (source)
  • "Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said Maggie, "and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the circumstances."†   (source)
  • But towards the close, the raps became so sharp and frequent, and his voice so quarrelsome, that Vixen felt it incumbent on her to jump out of the hamper and bark vaguely.†   (source)
  • With the prospect of spending at least two months at Uppercross, it was highly incumbent on her to clothe her imagination, her memory, and all her ideas in as much of Uppercross as possible.†   (source)
  • The Hermit replies, by once more insisting on the duties incumbent upon him as a churchman, and continues to affirm himself free from all such breaches of order: "Many day I have here been, And flesh-meat I eat never, But milk of the kye; Warm thee well, and go to sleep, And I will lap thee with my cope, Softly to lye."†   (source)
  • …haughtily out of the office; setting at defiance, in his indignation, those ancient laws of chivalry, which not only made it proper and lawful for all good knights to hear the praise of the ladies to whom they were devoted, but rendered it incumbent upon them to roam about the world, and knock at head all such matter-of-fact and un-poetical characters, as declined to exalt, above all the earth, damsels whom they had never chanced to look upon or hear of—as if that were any excuse!†   (source)
  • But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance.†   (source)
  • To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay — that little village yonder on the hill — and that church near the gates was his.†   (source)
  • Balashev, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light.†   (source)
  • "Well, sir," cried Mr. Weston, "as I took Miss Taylor away, it is incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs. Goddard in a moment, if you wish it."†   (source)
  • …part been in some degree entertained, which involves your residence in this neighborhood in a capacity which I am justified in saying touches my own position in such a way as renders it not only natural and warrantable in me when that effect is viewed under the influence of legitimate feeling, but incumbent on me when the same effect is considered in the light of my responsibilities, to state at once that your acceptance of the proposal above indicated would be highly offensive to me.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Irwine and her daughters were waiting at the churchyard gates in their carriage (for they had a carriage now) to shake hands with the bride and bridegroom and wish them well; and in the absence of Miss Lydia Donnithorne at Bath, Mrs. Best, Mr. Mills, and Mr. Craig had felt it incumbent on them to represent "the family" at the Chase on the occasion.†   (source)
  • He was not originally a cruel or even a severe man; but with passions by nature cold, and with a high, though mistaken, sense of duty, his heart had been gradually hardened by the ascetic life which he pursued, the supreme power which he enjoyed, and the supposed necessity of subduing infidelity and eradicating heresy, which he conceived peculiarly incumbent on him.†   (source)
  • Now, it is incumbent upon all people in an exalted position, but it is particularly so on this family, for reasons which I—ha—will not dwell upon, to make themselves respected.†   (source)
  • Sir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect towards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary expenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be unpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some graceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the Church service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High Court of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of the congregation be requested…†   (source)
  • For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation.†   (source)
  • "I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing — the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind."†   (source)
  • As to her younger daughters, she could not take upon her to say—she could not positively answer—but she did not know of any prepossession; her eldest daughter, she must just mention—she felt it incumbent on her to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged.†   (source)
  • Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal acknowledgments, tendered them in the form which always expressed his highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity.†   (source)
  • He had never danced like that in Moscow and would even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.†   (source)
  • Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character of…†   (source)
  • No sooner had the artist traveller ceased speaking than he himself spoke with great dignity, as having it incumbent on him to take the lead in most places, and having deserted that duty for a little while.†   (source)
  • Very well—and for the next presentation to a living of that value—supposing the late incumbent to have been old and sickly, and likely to vacate it soon—he might have got I dare say—fourteen hundred pounds.†   (source)
  • A living, of which Mr. Morland was himself patron and incumbent, of about four hundred pounds yearly value, was to be resigned to his son as soon as he should be old enough to take it; no trifling deduction from the family income, no niggardly assignment to one of ten children.†   (source)
  • — It is a rectory, but a small one; the late incumbent, I believe, did not make more than 200 L per annum, and though it is certainly capable of improvement, I fear, not to such an amount as to afford him a very comfortable income.†   (source)
  • Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal her distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole of the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict silence.†   (source)
  • I dare say you have seen enough of Edward to know that he would prefer the church to every other profession; now my plan is that he should take orders as soon as he can, and then through your interest, which I am sure you would be kind enough to use out of friendship for him, and I hope out of some regard to me, your brother might be persuaded to give him Norland living; which I understand is a very good one, and the present incumbent not likely to live a great while.†   (source)
  • He felt it incumbent on him to say a few words.†   (source)
  • The incumbent they called him.†   (source)
  • The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits.†   (source)
  • Jones had never less inclination to an amour than at present; but gallantry to the ladies was among his principles of honour; and he held it as much incumbent on him to accept a challenge to love, as if it had been a challenge to fight.†   (source)
  • Don Diego and his son commended his laudable resolution, and bade him furnish himself with all he wanted from their house and belongings, as they would most gladly be of service to him; which, indeed, his personal worth and his honourable profession made incumbent upon them.†   (source)
  • "As for my friends," answered he, "I need not be much concerned, having already done for them all that was incumbent on me; for when I was not only in good health, but fresh and young, I distributed that among my kindred and friends which other people do not part with till they are old and sick: when they then unwillingly give that which they can enjoy no longer themselves.†   (source)
  • Hence it is, that a miser, though he pays every body their own, cannot be an honest man, when he does not discharge the good offices that are incumbent on a friendly, kind, and generous person: for, faith the prophet Isaiah, chap.†   (source)
  • Ambition, and Covetousnesse are Passions also that are perpetually incumbent, and pressing; whereas Reason is not perpetually present, to resist them: and therefore whensoever the hope of impunity appears, their effects proceed.†   (source)
  • Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air, That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He lights—if it were land that ever burned With solid, as the lake with liquid fire, And such appeared in hue as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds, And leave a singed bottom all…†   (source)
  • Th' incumbent hero wrench'd, and pull'd, and strain'd; But still the stubborn earth the steel detain'd.†   (source)
  • As when loud Boreas, with his blust'ring train, Stoops from above, incumbent on the main; Where'er he flies, he drives the rack before, And rolls the billows on th' Aegaean shore: So, where resistless Turnus takes his course, The scatter'd squadrons bend before his force; His crest of horses' hair is blown behind By adverse air, and rustles in the wind.†   (source)
  • I have redressed injuries, righted wrongs, punished insolences, vanquished giants, and crushed monsters; I am in love, for no other reason than that it is incumbent on knights-errant to be so; but though I am, I am no carnal-minded lover, but one of the chaste, platonic sort.†   (source)
  • It was incumbent on the convention, therefore, to define and establish this right in the Constitution.†   (source)
  • It is a reproach to a man to be sent for by any of them, or for them to speak to him in secret, for that always gives some suspicion: all that is incumbent on them is only to exhort and admonish the people; for the power of correcting and punishing ill men belongs wholly to the Prince, and to the other magistrates: the severest thing that the priest does is the excluding those that are desperately wicked from joining in their worship: there is not any sort of punishment more dreaded by…†   (source)
  • They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate.†   (source)
  • Should we be able to preserve it against the incumbent weight of Connecticut on the one side, and the co-operating pressure of New Jersey on the other?†   (source)
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