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tact
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show 188 more with this conextual meaning
  • Minho shouted, always the tactful one.†   (source)
  • She alluded to Jess only tactfully, and gave me little hugs from time to time, or compliments.†   (source)
  • Modest people, never boastful, tactful and courtly in their way.†   (source)
  • With tactful good grace, Betty set Doll to scrubbing new potatoes, and Polly went outside with a knife.†   (source)
  • Dad is not so tactful and grimaces at the meal.†   (source)
  • I wanted to say that he and my dad could both stuff it up their asses, but I knew this situation required some tact.†   (source)
  • She flooded into my present, and only tact kept me from burying my face in the dirty laundry overfilling the hamper by her dresser.†   (source)
  • Dwarfs don't have to be tactful.†   (source)
  • Tact.†   (source)
  • Already it was embarrassing enough: Hobie's tact whenever her name came up, the careful flatness in his voice.†   (source)
  • Usually he waited a tactful amount of time, like a summer or at least a weekend, before asking her out.†   (source)
  • He was still holding it when we came out of the theater, and my friend's brother tactfully left us there, in the twirling snowy Cambridge night.†   (source)
  • If I complained about our life, he would chew his dinner while looking tactfully away, as one might ignore a child who has deliberately broken her dolls and then whines she has nothing to play with.†   (source)
  • I had never been enormously tactful; I had no practice dealing with overly friendly boys.†   (source)
  • She looked around for her Italian friend—her fellow fervent striker—but Bella had tactfully slipped away, to let the sisters talk by themselves.†   (source)
  • We told each other everything, within the limits of one's preoccupation with breeding and tact.†   (source)
  • When Velutha arrived, Mammachi lost her bearings and spewed her blind venom, her crass, insufferable insults, at a panel in the sliding-folding door until Baby Kochamma tactfully swiveled her around and aimed her rage in the right direction, at Velutha standing very still in the gloom.†   (source)
  • "Idiot," he grunted, thinking about Tony the mailman; an overly friendly Italian with a big heart but little tact.†   (source)
  • Commentators mused on the likely implications of the tact that neither Megan's phone nor her hank cards had been used for more than a week.†   (source)
  • My mind raced as I tried to think of a tactful way to extricate myself.†   (source)
  • And she concluded with conviction: "He is an honorable man, and he is the soul of tact."†   (source)
  • Colton was in that narrow window of life where he hadn't yet learned either tact or guile.†   (source)
  • And Ruth had been at her best: encouraging, funny, tactful, wise.†   (source)
  • But it was not the most tactful thing he could have said at that moment.†   (source)
  • Tact was a quality which Blackavar valued about as much as Bigwig did; and now he made the worst possible reply.†   (source)
  • Eragon felt that it would be wrong to end the conversation on such a depressing note, but he could not think of a tactful way to change the subject.†   (source)
  • They leave me alone, mostly because I've come on the scene too late and it's hard to absorb me (they are not blotters, after all), but they are tactful, which surprises me really.†   (source)
  • My capacity for tact sometimes surprises even myself.†   (source)
  • After the coffee, Clara made the girls go to bed, and tactfully went up herself, so that Augustus and Lorena could have a moment alone.†   (source)
  • He had long tolerated false allegations with tactful restraint, but he saw this as a strike against his honesty and an attempt to group him with the race-fixers from the sport's past.†   (source)
  • Puller took a few seconds to slip the ceramic plates into the inserts in the tact vest to bump up his protection level.†   (source)
  • He embodied everything the military was looking for: leadership, intelligence, dependability, integrity, tact, selflessness, and perseverance.†   (source)
  • "Come on," she murmured, tactfully dropping the bread onto a nearby table.†   (source)
  • And when it comes to tact, I'm pretty sure it isn't listed in his internal dictionary.†   (source)
  • I half-expect the look she impales him with to kill him on con- tact.†   (source)
  • 'He's dead, you idiot!' he said with his characteristic charm and tact.†   (source)
  • Up until that point he had never felt rejected or abandoned, and in each of his affairs he had had to resort to all his tact to disengage himself without hurting the girl.†   (source)
  • Milo studied Yossarian diffidently through the corner of his eye, hesitating tactfully.†   (source)
  • "I never thought you were"—I struggled to find tactful words and gave up—"less than I was."†   (source)
  • When the last towel was in place, blotting out all light, Ferraro fell tactfully quiet.†   (source)
  • I said with my usual delicacy and tact.†   (source)
  • They would be elegant and tactful.†   (source)
  • And you explained, tactfully, about civic duty.†   (source)
  • I had done as much of what we tactfully refer to as "runnin' around" as a man can, without being shotgunned to death climbing out of someone's bedroom window.†   (source)
  • You're full of tact.†   (source)
  • I took the message, and worded it as tactfully as I could, so that Aphra might know there was a place for her also, if she wished to be out of her croft.†   (source)
  • When he heard the poor woman's tactful rendering of Annie's message, he just smiled and shook his head.†   (source)
  • Not, I think, because I ever actually classified her in my mind as a Deviation, but it had to be admitted that she did not quite qualify as a true image, so it seemed more tactful to avoid that aspect.†   (source)
  • "So we'll use tact and cleverness," said Jace.†   (source)
  • So he gave advice, attention and a tactful, patient interest, whenever he could.†   (source)
  • I don't know where you pick up all these elephantine notions of tact.†   (source)
  • As they say in Cold Sassy, Aunt Loma was behind the door when they passed out the tact.†   (source)
  • And I lack my mother's naturalsocial grace and her effortless tact at dealing with aristocracies that nature and circumstances prevented her from joining.†   (source)
  • You pay them for their tact when they keep the bare truth from you about the person who's dying.†   (source)
  • They suggested tactfully that Old Rit had better see to it that this new girl baby was trained as a cook or a weaver or a seamstress.†   (source)
  • Most people just tactfully discarded them, but Marge Ellis brought a whole handful to the Whitshanks' front door, where Red accepted them with a confused look on his face.†   (source)
  • Even Agorwal, though the spokesman from Termalaine tactfully tried to hide the fact, would no longer look Regis straight in the eye.†   (source)
  • The tact is I KNOW I'M BETTER!†   (source)
  • There was tact there, a tone of caution.†   (source)
  • In short, we all tactfully lied a few times during the opening of the gifts.†   (source)
  • Theresa tactfully nibbled a slice of stir-fried hot dog.†   (source)
  • After what she thought was a suitably tactful pause, she said, "How do we know that ghosts are the continuance of dead people?†   (source)
  • Randy tried to be at once tactful and truthful.†   (source)
  • It is culture and business—not politics—which are on the Professor's mind as he tactfully leads the conversation.†   (source)
  • This is my last time to counsel you, Annie, and you do lack some—by some I mean all—what, tact or talent to bend.†   (source)
  • How could I put it tactfully?†   (source)
  • It required great tact to be a schoolteacher.†   (source)
  • "I'm afraid that wasn't very tactful, was it?" he said.†   (source)
  • Being tactful and discreet, he made no attempt to talk him out of his extravagant ideas.†   (source)
  • I don't care to listen — MARY Tactfully.†   (source)
  • CROMWELL Don't be too tactful, innkeeper.†   (source)
  • "It was a remarkably complex case, sir," Powell began tactfully.†   (source)
  • Speaking like this to a native, appealing to him, was contrary to Dick's ideas of the relationship between white and black, but he was furious with Mary for her lack of consideration and tact.†   (source)
  • Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but the act annoyed me, and her next remark made me rigid.   (source)
    tactful = polite (handled in a way that is considerate of others' feelings)
  • Ruth cued, too upset to be more tactful.†   (source)
  • "Every country is plagued by factionalism," says Simon tactfully.†   (source)
  • He pauses; he does not wish to appear lacking in tact.†   (source)
  • Now I know where you get your sweet, tactful nature.†   (source)
  • It was also clear that she would have to be helped in a delicate, tactful manner.†   (source)
  • That meant when I wasn't happy about something, I spoke up, often directly and not always tactfully.†   (source)
  • "He's a master," Sim responded tactfully.†   (source)
  • At least Gholam had the tact not to put it on in his presence.†   (source)
  • With a startled glance up the road, John tactfully freed himself.†   (source)
  • "You could have used a little more tact," Paul said.†   (source)
  • From a corner came the agitated whispers of children, which I thought it tactful to ignore.†   (source)
  • Fernanda very tactfully tried not to cross his path.†   (source)
  • "He's feeding worms," said Bronn with his usual tact.†   (source)
  • There was an air of tact in the room, a sensitivity to feelings.†   (source)
  • My mother tactfully pours him a cup of tea.†   (source)
  • He extended the hand and looked away at the same time, sort of tactfully.†   (source)
  • "Yes, that could have been it," said the old man tactfully.†   (source)
  • In a way, it was her tact he was furious at.†   (source)
  • I was by her side as much as tact and duty would allow.†   (source)
  • "But I guess I didn't say it very tactfully, did I?"†   (source)
  • He had a flashlight, but kept its beam tactfully away from her face.†   (source)
  • She let her voice fade into a tactful silence.†   (source)
  • The trouble with Rupert Is that he likes to show oft; and he's got no tact.†   (source)
  • CROMWELL When the likes of you are too tactful, the likes of me begin to wonder who's the fool.†   (source)
  • " "It requires great tact," said Mr. Rolf.†   (source)
  • Perhaps it would be tactful of me to change the subject.†   (source)
  • George paused, realizing that this would require tact.†   (source)
  • But when it suited their purpose the Overlords could be impeccably tactful.†   (source)
  • He was a big, good man with a soft baritone, who ruled with easy tact a choir of repressed soloists, and who had an unerring memory for the favorite hymns of District Superintendents.†   (source)
  • When all the forms were signed, he tactfully placed before Idris a pamphlet titled "General Price List."†   (source)
  • The tact was amazing.†   (source)
  • Ron got back off the bed, put his arm around her once more, and frowned at Harry as though reproaching him for lack of tact.†   (source)
  • Most people actually liked him, but perhaps for things like his angular frame and slow-spoken manner, his bone-deep understanding of the tact with which you talk to farmers of northern European extraction, his occasional flash of dark wit, no doubt inherited from his mother, who was the only daughter of a long line of Norwegian farmers.†   (source)
  • She said, "You know I've never been exactly tactful, but I swear to God I've never laughed at you, Hank.†   (source)
  • "With exquisite delicacy and tact," Sullivan said, "Jefferey, at a meeting of the Committee, persuaded Daniel, come to Judgment, to add the Western men to the list of his nominations."†   (source)
  • But he knew, and he realized that he had to move with more tact, although the blunder showed him that her temper was still as short as it had been in her youth although she had learned to soften it.†   (source)
  • Fowles thought this over before offering, tactfully, "For certain, Mrs. Price, there are Christians and then there are Christians.†   (source)
  • Shagga's coat could have used a good brushing too, but it would have been less than tactful to mention it.†   (source)
  • He was very good at that part of it—very respectful of grief, very tactful (while at the same time he managed to be very specific).†   (source)
  • Courteously, Hobie introduced me around the circle —gentle, tactful, unhurried, a social lion of the mildest sort.†   (source)
  • My good friend Scott Sherman, whom I met freshman year, now recalls me as "having a total lack of tact, and being universally acclaimed as the person quickest to offend someone he had just met."†   (source)
  • Jem and I had always enjoyed the free run of Miss Maudie's yard if we kept out of her azaleas, but our con- tact with her was not clearly defined.†   (source)
  • He attributed this circumstance to Burnham: "too high an estimate cannot be placed on the industry, skill and tact with which this result was secured by the master of us all."†   (source)
  • Kit was too astonished to be tactful.†   (source)
  • Harry could not think of anything to say, not least because it was highly unusual for Ron to be teaching anyone else tact.†   (source)
  • "Albus Severus," Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, "you were named for two head-masters of Hogwarts.†   (source)
  • "We have nothing to gain and everything to lose by meeting Lord Tywin in the field," Catelyn said tactfully.†   (source)
  • Iggy said with his usual tact.†   (source)
  • He had pointed out to his sovereign, with glibness taking the place of tact, that the Thief had never so far as he knew been in the command of anyone.†   (source)
  • Mona had even grown tactful.†   (source)
  • How tactful of him.†   (source)
  • Eve let Commander Whitney's terse instructions play in her head: Be tactful, respectful, and tell him nothing he doesn't already know.†   (source)
  • All I ask is that you at least try to be a little bit tactful, the way I'm feeling right now—that's all.†   (source)
  • He had proved himself brilliantly under pressure, and he concluded the briefing with an inspiring peroration that every instinct told him was a masterful exhibition of eloquent tact and subtlety.†   (source)
  • Instead she has a girl about i 5 or 16 with her, the sister of the servant you have with you," she said, tactfully avoiding the word slave.†   (source)
  • In cities you build a language of circumspection and tact, a thousand little intimations, the nuance that has a shimmer of rubbed bronze.†   (source)
  • Dahwar was tactful enough not to pursue the subject, but from his thoughts Eragon concluded that the seneschal would have paid a handsome price for further details-any information about Eragon or Saphira was valuable in Orrin's government.†   (source)
  • He was furious at Mrs. Brill for witnessing it, even though he had to admit that she had behaved very tactfully.†   (source)
  • That night my mother, Angela, and I picked over all the food that had been brought; there was more food than the three of us could ever possibly eat, and Mama in a tactful way had suggested that Angela take a lot of it home with her.†   (source)
  • He had no taste for sham, tact or pretension, and his credo as a professional soldier was unified and concise: he believed that the young men who took orders from him should be willing to give up their lives for the ideals, aspirations and idiosyncrasies of the old men he took orders from.†   (source)
  • I can assure you of his [Vergennes's] pleasure in giving his approval to publish in the Mercure everything that shall come from such a good pen," wrote Genet, who tried tactfully to convince Adams he would do better with his French readers if he were not quite so long-winded.†   (source)
  • In any case, Cahle had tactfully and not so tactfully got the islanders to wander back up to the fields.†   (source)
  • She lives wild in the inner ghetto, a slice of the South Bronx called the Wall—a girl who forages in empty lots for discarded clothes, plucks spoiled fruit from garbage bags behind bodegas, who is sometimes seen running through the trees and weeds, a shadow on the rubbled walls of demolished structures, unstumbling, a tactful runner with the sweet and easy stride of some creature of sylvan myth.†   (source)
  • I was not expecting this vehement denunciation of my colleague, nor did I know exactly how to change the subject tactfully.†   (source)
  • A Cabinet member, possibly recalling this metaphor, impatiently told Henry Adams in 1869, "You can't use tact with a Congressman!†   (source)
  • I might add, too, that I always sensed that it was Nathan—perhaps again because of his "seniority," or maybe because of the pure electric force of his presence—who set the tone of our conversation, although his innate tact and sense of proportion prevented him from hogging the stage.†   (source)
  • Dick's face was averted from Charlie, who, since he had never become convinced of the necessity for tact, gazed intently at Dick, as if trying to force him into some explanation or statement.†   (source)
  • "There's the General's transport right there," he said, and then, realizing that Mark had tactfully implied he wanted to be alone with his brother, added, "But I'll go along to the <> Club, and get the mess officer on the ball."†   (source)
  • Powell tactfully closed the door and turned to T'sung's second secretary, who was quaking in a corner.†   (source)
  • Once again, tactfulness and pity for their former comrades kept the guards from falling on him or shooting him down at once for his attempt.†   (source)
  • It will require great tact.†   (source)
  • They both turned up in the few surviving Moscow drawing rooms like those in which Yurii Andreievich had spent his childhood, where he was remembered and welcomed with his companion (after tactful inquiries as to whether they had been to the baths-typhus was still raging) and in which he was soon told of the circumstances of his family's departure from Russia.†   (source)
  • Above all …. he had tact and humor.†   (source)
  • "And what did you do after that, Mademoiselle?" asked Poirot, passing from the subject tactfully.†   (source)
  • Poirot, however, was careful to soothe her feelings tactfully.†   (source)
  • " Instinctive tact made Katie put it that way instead of saying, "You'll share my room.†   (source)
  • Sir Joseph Emden's tactful adaptation of traditional material to modern needs ….†   (source)
  • You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with God or the gods.†   (source)
  • Be easy, mon vieux , I will be most tactful.†   (source)
  • It must be tact on the part of your bank manager.†   (source)
  • Fortunately Chang had ushered himself out, with admirable tact, in good time to escape the worst.†   (source)
  • Tact never was my strong point, as Maxim will tell you.†   (source)
  • Scarlett's spirits soared at his laugh and she blessed Melanie's tact.†   (source)
  • Melanie, the most tactful of women, had tears in her eyes at her own cruelty.†   (source)
  • Dear Frank Crawley, how tactful he was and considerate.†   (source)
  • "Well'm, Prissy ain' fixin' ter be no cow midwife, Miss Scarlett," Pork said tactfully.†   (source)
  • I thought perhaps it was not very tactful to talk about blindness, and I glanced at the nurse.†   (source)
  • "Well," said Mr. Duffy, whose experience and tact were equal to any situation, "they tells me school-teachers are made with it in the same place."†   (source)
  • However, Japp had never been remarkable for tact where I was concerned so I put a good face upon it and agreed that we were none of us getting any younger.†   (source)
  • He had a tendency when he was rebuffed in an undertaking to stubbornly push all the harder straight for it, whereas a Japanese would more tactfully look for some way around.†   (source)
  • The Wart thought it was time to ask. a tactful question, so he made a polite cough and said: "Please, who is Morgan the Fay?"†   (source)
  • With great tactfulness the Chinese assumed that he was still on good terms with everybody, and the four exiles allowed the assumption to stand.†   (source)
  • Tact was a quality unknown to her, discretion too, and because gossip was the breath of life to her this stranger must be served for her dissection.†   (source)
  • Usually I agree with Lorraine about everything, but this time I did think she could have been more tactful.†   (source)
  • Fred Maitland thus resolutely refused to believe, though tactfully instructed by Carry, that Leslie's tempers were more than what he called (in his biography) coloured showers of sparks.†   (source)
  • There was an odd silence everywhere, even in the other cells; it was as if the whole world had tactfully turned away to avoid seeing him die.†   (source)
  • He treated Uncle Pio with great tact and some deference; he understood which errands the other should not be asked to undertake and he understood his need for variety and intermission.†   (source)
  • I should have been more tactful.†   (source)
  • "Jewel," Vernon says, not loud, but his voice going full and clear along the water, peremptory yet tactful.†   (source)
  • Father Latour needed his Vicar, who had so much tact with the natives, so much sympathy with all their shortcomings.†   (source)
  • Keating had come here prepared to exercise caution and tact to the limit of his ability; he had achieved a purpose he had not expected to achieve; he knew he should take no chances, say nothing else and leave.†   (source)
  • But Dick, with his quick watchfulness, his gentle and persuasive tact, was careful to see this did not happen.†   (source)
  • Katie, you're very tactful and kind…but drop the act," he said, knowing in dread that it was not an act.†   (source)
  • We were going to the opera, The Ring; it was broad daylight, and George, with a lack of tact with which he reproached himself afterwards—he would tot up the night's successes and failures—had placed her opposite the window; and she was then not quite at her prime.†   (source)
  • They decided that tact was needed.†   (source)
  • After luncheon the last hardy passengers went to rest and we were alone as though the place had been cleared for us, as though tact on a titanic scale had sent everyone tip-toeing out to leave us to one another.†   (source)
  • He had drawn himself erect now and looked straight ahead, but her hand was still on his arm, and if you had seen them you would have got the impression that she was expertly and tactfully guiding a blind man.†   (source)
  • Conversation during the meal would have languished more than once but for the tact and affability of the Chinese; now, in his absence, a rather unhappy silence supervened.†   (source)
  • He's just relaxed with me, thought Keating, he's tired, he can't be tactful all the time, he doesn't realize what he… "Stoneridge.†   (source)
  • Lady Marchmain was engaged in making a memorial book for circulation among her friends, about her brother, Ned, the eldest of three legendary heroes all killed between Mons and Passchendaele; he had left a quantity of papers—poems, letters, speeches, articles; to edit them, even for a restricted circle, needed tact and countless decisions in which the judgment of an adoring sister was liable to err.†   (source)
  • He was a better fencer than his. maestro—though Uncle Dap would not admit it, and his pupil tactfully pretended that he was not.†   (source)
  • This worked great hardship and strained the tact and forbearance of the unrelated half of the town, for the India-Melanie feud made a rupture in practically every social organization.†   (source)
  • She stopped, turning a little pink, fearing a loss of tact; but I agreed with her at once to save embarrassment, and I heard myself saying boldly, brazenly, 'Rebecca must have been a wonderful person.†   (source)
  • Every evening when he called at her house, weary and discouraged, she was tireless in her tactful, helpful suggestions.†   (source)
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