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modulate
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  • In view of his august new neighbors, Joe's friends anticipated that life at his new home might perforce be a bit more modulated than it had been at 16 East Jones Street.†   (source)
  • Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr.†   (source)
  • His voiced modulated into a scream.†   (source)
  • Toward the end of the meal she became able to speak to me directly, in her high but gentle and modulated voice, and I was so clumsy and fumbling and embarrassed that my behavior throughout lunch amounted to one long and elaborate apology which, when she offered me a second dessert, I saw she had accepted.†   (source)
  • Mrs. Dewitt likes to modulate her reading list, and she does a big push right before Christmas with Shakespeare.†   (source)
  • His voice was slightly modulated but easy to understand.†   (source)
  • The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure.†   (source)
  • There was motion and stillness, stillness and modulation, and all the charge and magic of a great painting.†   (source)
  • Soft, well modulated, sexless… they remind me of the poorly programmed homecomps one encounters on backward worlds.†   (source)
  • I tried to modulate my voice.†   (source)
  • Then she performs the sacrament, swiping the card through its electromagnetic slot with a carefully modulated sweep of the arm, as though tearing back a veil, handing over the slip, mumbling that she needls a signature and daytime phone number.†   (source)
  • Far away the grandparents huddle in a chair, eagerly sharing the receiver as carrier waves modulate into audible signals.†   (source)
  • Now was the hour of Caerra, meaning the light in the room had modulated to a soft purplish hue.†   (source)
  • She said nothing, but used her hands to modulate Mammachi's fury, to stoke it anew.†   (source)
  • "Even as you say, human," responded Blodhgarm in a perfectly modulated voice.†   (source)
  • He had been dancing about the stage, waving his spear, modulating his voice, and now suddenly he became still, and lowered his voice.†   (source)
  • "Tell my wife," he answered in a well-modulated voice, "to give the girl the name of Ursula."†   (source)
  • I think I can rig a modulator on this baby, then, and make it into a gertrude for ya.†   (source)
  • "PWM means 'pulse-width modulation,' " Luis answered, looking completely unfazed by the attention.†   (source)
  • And I felt the cold metallic hardness of my words as I spoke, the modulation, the control.†   (source)
  • After all,' said General Peckem with his low, well-modulated chuckle, 'if dropping bombs on the enemy isn't a special service, I wonder what in the world is.†   (source)
  • Cedric modulates the speed of his step to stay tucked in the middle of the crowd as it winds a quarter-mile to MIT's newish glass-and-steel dining hall, following a spicy aroma into a banquet room where a tower of pizza boxes is waiting, closed and still steaming.†   (source)
  • "I'm sorry," the woman said in a carefully modulated voice as empty of expression as a computer.†   (source)
  • Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen, she would say in her new, well-modulated voice.†   (source)
  • Normally, he spoke slowly and his modulation had an icy control to it, but I had witnessed many times when he had caught fire and when he did, when he arrived at a subject that consumed him, then you could see the eyes change, not the color, but the light behind the eyes, which flared whenever an article of his unwavering faith arose in a speech or a conversation.†   (source)
  • I have a charcoal-gray pencil skirt that's hard to walk in despite the kick pleat, and a bat wing sweater, a red one with modulated gray horizontal stripes across it.†   (source)
  • A human listener would have heard a short burst of rapidly modulated sound, not unlike a high-speed Morse sender in action.†   (source)
  • He has begun feeling his sister up and nibbling at her neck; the dialogue modulates into the fevered figures of intemperate desire, and the scene ends with the couple collapsing onto a divan.†   (source)
  • It arrested them both at the same instant—that radio announcer's voice with its coached and modulated rhythms.†   (source)
  • The machine received and amplified the patterns of electrical activity being conducted in the Hangman's, might well call it 'brain', then passed them through a complex modulator and pulsed them into the induction field in the operator's head … I am out of my area now and into that of Weber and Fechner, but a neuron has a threshold at which it will fire, and below which it will not.†   (source)
  • "The contention of Comrade Mundt," he began— his mild voice was rather pleasantly modulated—"is that Leamas is lying; that Comrade Fiedler either by design or ill chance has been drawn into a plot to disrupt the Abteilung, and thus bring into disrepute the organs for the defense of our socialist state.†   (source)
  • You had to raise your voice to make yourself heard above the clatter of the machines and the modulated trills of Kirill Modes-tovich, the canary in its cage in the window (the former owner had carried with her to the grave the secret of the bird's improbable name).†   (source)
  • Modulated, Mr. Reich.†   (source)
  • Why should not the symmetry and truth that modulate these, glide into our spirits, and we participate the invention of nature?   (source)
  • She could not modulate out the key of self-abasement in which she had started.   (source)
  • He was certain that the radio signal before him had been modulated by intelligence.†   (source)
  • She was certain that the radio signal before her had been modulated by intelligence.†   (source)
  • Amos modulated his tone, making it calm and reassuring for our trainees.†   (source)
  • Maybe it was a hundred and ten, a hundred and twelve, telephones warbling in modulated phrases.†   (source)
  • They are painted in another style: smooth, finely modulated, realistic as a snapshot.†   (source)
  • She had a pure, well-modulated voice of great range and strength.†   (source)
  • The carefully modulated tone of her voice and her equally modulated posture had conveyed only nonchalant indifference.†   (source)
  • He modulated his voice.†   (source)
  • But then at last his face brightened, as the reels turned and the voice spoke in an even modulated tone: "It was a very warm evening, and I could tell as soon as I saw him on St. Charles that he had someplace to go ….'†   (source)
  • It was because of the Southern accent, that perfectly modulated mimicry which made me believe that the possessor of such a voice had to be one teethed on fatback and grits.†   (source)
  • Now, at noon, the sunlight was modulated slightly so that it flooded the tables and benches, the crystal and silver apparatus, the cover-alled workers with a gentle peach radiance.†   (source)
  • However, the modulation is unlike that used in conventional radio communications.†   (source)
  • The odd sound, the devoicing, with contour and modulation strained out.†   (source)
  • Jones bypassed the pulse control on the sonar amplifier and wired in the modulator.†   (source)
  • The lingo—acceleration curves and pulse-width modulation—sounded like a foreign language.†   (source)
  • Captain, I got the modulator to make the gertrude.†   (source)
  • Turgenev somewhere describes these whistling, fluting modulations.†   (source)
  • I worked to modulate the volume of my voice so Charlie wouldn't hear, but I wanted to shout the words.†   (source)
  • With a microsecond pause, and a finely calculated micro-modulation of pitch and timbre—nothing you could actually take offense at—Marvin managed to convey his utter contempt and horror of all things human.†   (source)
  • Directly over her, an unusual series of lights seemed to be modulating from purple red to a deep crimson, illuminating the room's low ceiling.†   (source)
  • These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment—imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile dumpers—all designed to heighten the experience of the poem and make sure that not a single nuance of the poet's thought was lost.†   (source)
  • The assassin's voice warbled, modulating from soprano to baritone as if going through a special effects machine.†   (source)
  • And even those in the audience who were familiar with Lenny's habitual scat, the vocal apparatus with its endless shifts and modulations and assumed identities, the release of underground words and tensions—they felt a small medicinal jolt at the pitch of the decorator's voice.†   (source)
  • Pulse-width modulation.†   (source)
  • We have a spare modulator in stores, and I can probably rig it up in thirty minutes, no sweat," the sonarman said.†   (source)
  • It is extremely painful, but the level of pain can be controlled by modulating the pressure exerted by your thumb.†   (source)
  • These children had known the leather strap too long to be controlled by the threatening modulation of the vocal cords.†   (source)
  • His voice was oddly pleasant to the ear, the well-modulated voice of a gentleman, resonant and overlaid with the flat slow drawl of the Charlestonian.†   (source)
  • He had a non-committal voice, beautifully modulated—its words might have meant the opposite of what they said.†   (source)
  • When she spoke her voice had a beautiful low timbre, soft and modulated, and yet with ringing overtones.†   (source)
  • The anger of many hibakusha, directed at first against the Americans for dropping the bomb, had by now subtly modulated toward their own government, for having involved the country in a rash and doomed aggression.†   (source)
  • Ashley began to read the prayers and all heads bowed as his resonant, beautifully modulated voice rolled out the brief and dignified words.†   (source)
  • A complaining clamor, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears.†   (source)
  • The former curves of sensuousness were now modulated to lines of devotional passion.†   (source)
  • After our position fix, the Nautilus's latitude bearings were modulated to the southwest.†   (source)
  • The lines of his features softened, and dismay modulated to illimitable sadness.†   (source)
  • "I am feeling very old to-day, Amory," she would sigh, her face a rare cameo of pathos, her voice exquisitely modulated, her hands as facile as Bernhardt's.†   (source)
  • Her voice was low and well modulated.†   (source)
  • She looked at Lily as the latter approached: her look was terrible, but her voice was modulated to a ghastly cheerfulness.†   (source)
  • But now John put his hand into his pocket, brought out a whistle, and blew upon it several modulated blasts that rang far across the heated air.†   (source)
  • There was amaze in the voice usually so even and well modulated—amaze in the handsome face usually so indifferent.†   (source)
  • He drew up his chair and modulated his voice to such a degree that what he said seemed wholly confidential.†   (source)
  • His full rich voice was not found to suffer by a comparison with the soft tones of the girls; and his more modulated strains possessed, at least for the ears of those to whom they were peculiarly addressed, the additional power of intelligence.†   (source)
  • His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.†   (source)
  • He spoke to her in low tones, and she instinctively modulated her own to the same pitch, and her voice ultimately even caught the inflection of his.†   (source)
  • I am certain of it; his languishing looks and modulated tones when addressing Mademoiselle Danglars fully proclaim his intentions.†   (source)
  • Henchard's face settled into an expression of stolid loneliness which gradually modulated into something softer.†   (source)
  • He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different feelings expressed in his speech, with an eye so full of lofty design and heroism, that can you wonder that these men were moved?†   (source)
  • By this time Hetty had become excited; her eye gleamed with the earnestness of her feelings, her cheeks flushed, and her voice, usually so low and modulated, became stronger and more impressive.†   (source)
  • There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale.†   (source)
  • All this was uttered by M. de Bellegarde with the modulated smoothness of the man of the world, and in spite of his excellent English, of the Frenchman; but Newman, at the same time that he sat noting its harmonious flow, perceived that it was not mere mechanical urbanity.†   (source)
  • Edgar, flashing with fury, dominated all the others with his clearer voice; Ashton hurled homicidal provocations at him in deep notes; Lucie uttered her shrill plaint, Arthur at one side, his modulated tones in the middle register, and the bass of the minister pealed forth like an organ, while the voices of the women repeating his words took them up in chorus delightfully.†   (source)
  • "Upon my song 'tis another ten minutes for us," said the Valiant Soldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into another without stopping.†   (source)
  • Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric of night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its beginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished.†   (source)
  • The way to become human is to learn to recognize the lineaments of God in all of the wonderful modulations of the face of man.†   (source)
  • The scent organ was playing a delightfully refreshing Herbal Capriccio–rippling arpeggios of thyme and lavender, of rosemary, basil, myrtle, tarragon; a series of daring modulations through the spice keys into ambergris; and a slow return through sandalwood, camphor, cedar and newmown hay (with occasional subtle touches of discord–a whiff of kidney pudding, the faintest suspicion of pig's dung) back to the simple aromatics with which the piece began.†   (source)
  • She could not modulate out the key of self-abasement in which she had started.†   (source)
  • HIGGINS [with professional exquisiteness of modulation] I walk over everybody!†   (source)
  • At the corner of the street, from a lower storey, rose a kind of humming with strident modulations.†   (source)
  • She seemed to be won by Gabriel's heartiness, as Gabriel had been won by her modulations.†   (source)
  • Thus it came about that a mere atmospheric variation would be sufficient to provoke in me that modulation, without there being any need for me to await the return of a season.†   (source)
  • Their peculiar hooting invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation, and was, I believe, in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to the suctional operation.†   (source)
  • The most overpowering phrase of the melody occurs three times, always in its modulating second half—the third time, then, being in the reprise of the last half-stanza that begins "And many now the hours."†   (source)
  • A piano stood near—actually the old piano that Phillotson had possessed at Marygreen—and though the dark afternoon almost prevented him seeing the notes Jude touched them in his humble way, and could not help modulating into the hymn which had so affected him in the previous week.†   (source)
  • She loved to modulate her voice after the conventional manner of the distressed heroine, and repeat such pathetic fragments as appealed most to her sympathies.†   (source)
  • He would cross the floor, not too hastily, to Mrs. St. Claire, and say with exactly the correct modulation: "My dear Mrs. St. Claire, I'm frightfully sorry to be late, but my maid"—he paused there and realized he would be quoting—"but my uncle and I had to see a fella—Yes, I've met your enchanting daughter at dancing-school."†   (source)
  • She knocked a third time, three regular strokes, gentle, but perfectly distinct, and with meaning in them; for, modulate it with what cautious art we will, the hand cannot help playing some tune of what we feel upon the senseless wood.†   (source)
  • This subtle modulation marked a momentous discovery—the perception of an entirely new attitude on the part of her listener.†   (source)
  • And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me--by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice--and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which she habitually uttered.†   (source)
  • She did so evidently feeling there was a charm in the exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the syllables.†   (source)
  • Hitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his will by the charm of Dinah's mellow treble tones, which had a variety of modulation like that of a fine instrument touched with the unconscious skill of musical instinct.†   (source)
  • However flattering this compliment, the officer made no reply; but drawing from his belt a little silver whistle, such as boatswains use in ships of war, he whistled three times, with three different modulations.†   (source)
  • "Is this prudent?" demanded Mabel, with an impetuosity that rendered her incautious in modulating her sweet voice.†   (source)
  • …almost unnatural, degree of ignorance and uncouthness of men, of sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice, giving instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes, the want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis, of foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with great entertainment.†   (source)
  • There were continual outbursts, melodies, unexpected cadences, then simple phrases strewn with aerial and hissing notes; then floods of scales which would have put a nightingale to rout, but in which harmony was always present; then soft modulations of octaves which rose and fell, like the bosom of the young singer.†   (source)
  • "I am very glad to hear it," said Dorothea, laughing out her words in a bird-like modulation, and looking at Will with playful gratitude in her eyes.†   (source)
  • She was at the modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called "having a fancy for."†   (source)
  • That the men forward were not indifferent to this touching interruption, was proved by their inaction; nor did their oars again dip until the last of the sweet sounds had actually died among the remarkable shores, which, at that witching hour, would waft even the lowest modulations of the human voice more than a mile.†   (source)
  • Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?" said Adam, with the same gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth.†   (source)
  • "Oh yes, but I have!" exclaimed the young man; and he at once rendered "O Nannie" with faultless modulations, and another or two of the like sentiment, winding up at their earnest request with "Auld Lang Syne."†   (source)
  • …in mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope of the old marl-pit making a red background for the burdock; the huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of approach; the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering wood; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful.†   (source)
  • At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward; for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words "Isle of Wight," drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran through the preliminary modulations of the air whose name he had just mentioned, with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice.†   (source)
  • But the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the end of summer, was bearded with withered bents that formed waves under the brush of the wind, returning to the attentive ear aeolian modulations, and detaining for moments the flying globes of thistledown.†   (source)
  • And, according to what she was saying, her voice was clear, sharp, or, on a sudden all languor, drawn out in modulations that ended almost in murmurs as she spoke to herself, now joyous, opening big naive eyes, then with her eyelids half closed, her look full of boredom, her thoughts wandering.†   (source)
  • Charles gazed at her with the dull look of a drunken man, while he listened motionless to the last cries of the sufferer, that followed each other in long-drawn modulations, broken by sharp spasms like the far-off howling of some beast being slaughtered.†   (source)
  • His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and well plac'd, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleas'd with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick.†   (source)
  • Then there was his voice, unmodulated and startling, as if the volume knob had frozen on its highest setting.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unmodulated means not and reverses the meaning of modulated. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
  • The immigrants I know have loud voices, unmodulated to American tones even after years away from the village where they called their friendships out across the fields.†   (source)
  • "Your brother?" asked Newman, in his unmodulated voice.†   (source)
  • Too insouciant, in reaction from the late disturbance, she had assumed the privileges of a child—the result being to remind the Divers of their exclusive love for their own children; Rosemary was sharply rebuked in a short passage between the women: "You'd better leave the message with a waiter," Nicole's voice was stern and unmodulated, "we're leaving immediately."†   (source)
  • I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly unmodulated as I stood here.†   (source)
  • 'Wherever she lives,' said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated hard voice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were reading them off from separate bits of metal that she took up one by one, 'she has made a secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret from me.'†   (source)
  • The nicely modulated voice was rising.†   (source)
  • Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a strange legend on an allied theme?†   (source)
  • What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts by guest to host and by host to guest?†   (source)
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