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obligatory
in a sentence

show 93 more with this conextual meaning
  • Not much would be said, apart from the obligatory "Sleep well, darling?" and "Mmm — you?"†   (source)
  • At night we made love—it seemed almost obligatory at the moment, as if we should take full advantage of our freedom.†   (source)
  • I made the obligatory joke: "Don't grab my boob."†   (source)
  • His dad loved him in a completely obligatory way, like Park loved Josh.†   (source)
  • First there were the obligatory celebrations.†   (source)
  • …died, I feel different, I am different, and there's a certain benumbed pleasure in moving in and out of the group mind, napping in molded plastic chairs and wandering the gleaming aisles of Duty Free and of course everyone perfectly nice when you touch down, indoor tennis courts and private beaches and —after the obligatory tour, all very nice, admiring the Bonnard, the Vuillard, light lunch out by the pool — a hefty check and a taxi ride back to the hotel again a good deal poorer.†   (source)
  • Hall's obligatory turn-around time had come and gone a full two hours earlier.†   (source)
  • He supposed he could have made his obligatory thank-you call to Al from home; he certainly wasn't going to say anything Wendy would object to.†   (source)
  • Without anybody who would pay her a dowry and therefore without an obligatory husband looming on her horizon.†   (source)
  • "He was a good man," she said, dullness with an obligatory injection of empathy.†   (source)
  • He seldom visited a patient on a holy day of obligation unless it was of extreme urgency, and for many years he had not accepted a social engagement that was not obligatory.†   (source)
  • There's the obligatory interview.†   (source)
  • You might call him the obligatory eccentric in the village.†   (source)
  • You would have to look close to see that that is not a mon toe Majid drove us to the homes of various relatives for our obligatory appearances.†   (source)
  • "I don't think that's necessarily so," he said—and wrung from the table the obligatory laugh—"and, anyway, Mrs. Silenski is responsible for a very heavy investment.†   (source)
  • But as he'd grown older, the fishing trips had come to seem more and more obligatory, like something his father planned because he couldn't think what else to do.†   (source)
  • Aunt J never said a disapproving word, but after a week or so, she did offer an obligatory warning.†   (source)
  • Past the obligatory images of Everest, Hillary lingered on frames taken in the 1960s and 1970s, of strapping Western men and slight Sherpas, working together to build schools and clinics in Nepal.†   (source)
  • Maybe some people find comfort in obligatory words and reheatable food; my dad and I just weren't those people.†   (source)
  • They had poked their heads out for an obligatory but, at last, final brunch with the families.†   (source)
  • The chauffeur took the little girl to school, where the first activity of the day was mass and obligatory communion.†   (source)
  • When she marched in the obligatory May Day parades, she could never keep in step, and the girl behind her would shout at her and purposely tread on her heels.†   (source)
  • Over time, though, the congregation had added the obligatory metal buildings—one beside the chapel that dwarfed it, and one behind it where the youth played basketball.†   (source)
  • Administrative duties continued on schedule, and the teams were called into the college's auditorium for obligatory physicals and press conferences.†   (source)
  • To Washington it had been an obligatory farce.†   (source)
  • With narrowed eyes, the queen recognized him as well, Eddis's own chamberlain, brought along to perform the obligatory introductions, which he did without a whisker's deviation from his usual palace style.†   (source)
  • The country's lone medical school was an obligatory stop.†   (source)
  • We eschewed the obligatory silence of plebes and entered noisily, screaming, drunk, out of control.†   (source)
  • Connor gave an obligatory grunt, but Max saw that he was deeply troubled.†   (source)
  • ALESSANDRO FOUND himself caught up in the obligatory descriptions in which a visitor goes to the window to tell the patient about the things the patient cannot see.†   (source)
  • And then I type, Obligatory family meals suck, especially when meat and denial are involved.†   (source)
  • "Now that we've exchanged the obligatory small talk, I'd like to tell you you've done an excellent job on the investigation."†   (source)
  • Wright cut in with, "The intelligentsia feel that basic humanitarian considerations make it obligatory—"†   (source)
  • Saladin observed the obligatory evening prayer as well, though with far less fervor than the men in the warehouse, for he had no intention of achieving martyrdom this night.†   (source)
  • What I had up until then failed to perceive, and was only at this moment perceiving, was that the wearing of hats was no mere fashion but, indeed, obligatory, as much a part of the McGraw-Hill costume as the button-down Arrow shirts and amply tailored Weber & Heilbroner flannel suits worn by everyone in the green tower, from the textbook salesmen to the anxiety-ridden editors of Solid Wastes Management.†   (source)
  • The book showed up at 33 Himmel Street perhaps an hour after Liesel had drifted back to sleep from her obligatory nightmare.   (source)
    obligatory = seemingly required
  • The obligatory Schimpferei occurred in the kitchen, and Liesel composed herself with the fact that there were still two left, and even better, one of them was the mayor, the wife, the books.   (source)
    obligatory = required
  • The obligatory questions, the perfunctory answers.†   (source)
  • She was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and the obligatory leather jacket.†   (source)
  • He didn't touch me much, except for that one obligatory kiss.†   (source)
  • Seclusion in Panama was almost an obligatory penance in the life of the rich.†   (source)
  • Pastor Dan gives an obligatory chuckle, then awkwardness takes over.†   (source)
  • The Colonel gave an obligatory laugh, then asked, "Want a smoke?"†   (source)
  • After That He pulls carefully away from the curb, turn signal doing its obligatory thing.†   (source)
  • He sat down in the obligatory chair in the hotel room and looked around.†   (source)
  • Then came the long period of mourning and the obligatory withdrawal and they separated for a time.†   (source)
  • We had already delayed the obligatory invitation far too long.†   (source)
  • Mr. Wandati's mother was a heavy, rather pompous woman who lived in another part of town, with the obligatory team of servants and her two beloved dogs.†   (source)
  • I'm taken to the doctor's once a month, for tests: urine, hormones, cancer smear, blood test; the same as before, except that now it's obligatory.†   (source)
  • Do you remember when Insley and her dancing-monkey husband made us come over to admire their baby, and we did the obligatory visit to their strangely perfect, overflowered, overmuffined house for brunch and baby-meeting and they were so self-righteous and patronizing of our childless state, and meanwhile there was their hideous boy, covered in streaks of slobber and stewed carrots and maybe some feces—naked except for a frilly bib and a pair of knitted booties—and as I sipped my orange…†   (source)
  • They established an obligatory Chair of Cholera and Yellow Fever in the Medical School, and realized the urgency of closing up the sewers and building a market far from the garbage dump.†   (source)
  • But inside the house the name cards were in confusion and people sat where they could in an obligatory promiscuity that defied our social superstitions on at least this one occasion.†   (source)
  • And he handed Florentino Ariza the obligatory five reales, letting him know with a relieved smile that he would not have given them to him if the news had been bad.†   (source)
  • Dr. Juvenal Urbino attempted to force the City Council to impose an obligatory training course so that the poor could learn how to build their own latrines.†   (source)
  • He imposed obligatory military service for men over eighteen, declared to be public property any animals walking the streets after six in the evening, and made men who were overage wear red armbands.†   (source)
  • I suck in some coffee, skip to the last paragraph: the inevitable eclectic, the obligatory post-feminist, a however and a despite.†   (source)
  • They wade patiently through the obligatory introductions, disappear upstairs to spend time alone in Jake's room.†   (source)
  • There was another knock at the door, AZt, almost apologetic— the obligatory fruit plate, along with a not( addressed to Mr. Omar al-Farouk, promising to futhll his every wish.†   (source)
  • On Sunday evening, Kate and Decca and I drive to my dad's new house in the more expensive part of town for Weekly Obligatory Family Dinner.†   (source)
  • Since Giannini had not had many questions or objections during the first two days of the trial, those in the courtroom expected that she would once again ask some obligatory questions and then bring the questioning to an end.†   (source)
  • His relationship with his daughter had never been good, and after her unfortunate marriage it had deteriorated to the point where only the obligatory politeness Clara imposed allowed them to live under the same roof.†   (source)
  • Right about now, I'm feeling pretty damn good because I got Violet into the car and my dad is headed out of town on business, which means no Obligatory Family Dinner tonight.†   (source)
  • In discussing any joint action, it becomes obligatory that A should argue in favour of B's supposed wishes and against his own, while B does the opposite.†   (source)
  • A unit, membership in which is obligatory for all Communists, is the party's basic form of organization.†   (source)
  • One missed the obligatory thread of smoke in the foreground and the pack-animals grazing.†   (source)
  • ] The very circumstances which render matrimonial fidelity more obligatory also render it more easy.†   (source)
  • Equality has an organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction.†   (source)
  • And so they forced him to do something he evidently preferred not to do, whereas to them it seemed the most natural and logical thing in the world: to make formal introductions—which Settembrini now did, with obligatory gestures and good-natured phrases, but so that they all had to shake hands across his chest as they half stood there, half kept moving.†   (source)
  • And by the time tea had been taken, both in the dining room below and in room 34, it was very close to five o'clock; and by the time Joachim had returned from his third obligatory walk and had dropped in on his cousin again, it was so close to six o'clock that, once you rounded it off a little, the time left in the rest cure until supper was reduced to just one hour—and it was child's play to drive such paltry forces of opposing time from the field of battle, particularly if you had…†   (source)
  • Thus, taxes are voted by the State, but they are levied and collected by the township; the existence of a school is obligatory, but the township builds, pays, and superintends it.†   (source)
  • He did not know that where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs' payments had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work had been increased by a half.†   (source)
  • He did not wear the uniform cloak—which was not obligatory at that epoch of less liberty but more independence—but a cerulean-blue doublet, a little faded and worn, and over this a magnificent baldric, worked in gold, which shone like water ripples in the sun.†   (source)
  • The world, to his sense, was a great bazaar, where one might stroll about and purchase handsome things; but he was no more conscious, individually, of social pressure than he admitted the existence of such a thing as an obligatory purchase.†   (source)
  • "I shall always be glad to see you, sir, at my office (as in duty bound [not that it is obligatory to receive any man within your dwelling (unless so inclined), which is a castle], according to the forms of politeness), or at any other place; but the papers are most strictly confidential (and, as such, cannot be read by any one), unless so directed (by Judge Temple's solemn injunctions), and are invisible to all eyes; excepting those whose duties (I mean assumed duties) require it of…†   (source)
  • Once, on the subject of education, which Marius wished to have free and obligatory, multiplied under all forms lavished on every one, like the air and the sun in a word, respirable for the entire population, they were in unison, and they almost conversed.†   (source)
  • ] Authorities Of The Township In New England The people the source of all power here as elsewhere—Manages its own affairs—No corporation—The greater part of the authority vested in the hands of the Selectmen—How the Selectmen act—Town-meeting—Enumeration of the public officers of the township—Obligatory and remunerated functions.†   (source)
  • And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is the lot of a whole class—the military.†   (source)
  • But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.†   (source)
  • The question now is, Who it was that gave to these written Tables the obligatory force of Lawes.†   (source)
  • And for that cause, in buying, and selling, and other acts of Contract, A Promise is equivalent to a Covenant; and therefore obligatory.†   (source)
  • If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.†   (source)
  • If, therefore, the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made; nor, if made, can be effectual; because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of acts of Assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches.†   (source)
  • The want of means to know the Law, totally Excuseth: For the Law whereof a man has no means to enforme himself, is not obligatory.†   (source)
  • The Parliament, it is true, is sometimes seen employing itself in altering the existing laws to conform them to the stipulations in a new treaty; and this may have possibly given birth to the imagination, that its co-operation was necessary to the obligatory efficacy of the treaty.†   (source)
  • Congress, by the articles which compose that compact (as has already been stated), are authorized to ascertain and call for any sums of money necessary, in their judgment, to the service of the United States; and their requisitions, if conformable to the rule of apportionment, are in every constitutional sense obligatory upon the States.†   (source)
  • Covenants Extorted By Feare Are Valide Covenants entred into by fear, in the condition of meer Nature, are obligatory.†   (source)
  • Free Gift Passeth By Words Of The Present Or Past Words alone, if they be of the time to come, and contain a bare promise, are an insufficient signe of a Free-gift and therefore not obligatory.†   (source)
  • All constitutional acts of power, whether in the executive or in the judicial department, have as much legal validity and obligation as if they proceeded from the legislature; and therefore, whatever name be given to the power of making treaties, or however obligatory they may be when made, certain it is, that the people may, with much propriety, commit the power to a distinct body from the legislature, the executive, or the judicial.†   (source)
  • Nothing Can Be Made A Crime By A Law Made After The Fact No Law, made after a Fact done, can make it a Crime: because if the Fact be against the Law of Nature, the Law was before the Fact; and a Positive Law cannot be taken notice of, before it be made; and therefore cannot be Obligatory.†   (source)
  • They had not in Commission to make Laws; but to obey, and teach obedience to Laws made; and consequently they could not make their Writings obligatory Canons, without the help of the Soveraign Civill Power.†   (source)
  • And supposing such a Law were obligatory; yet a man would reason thus, "If I doe it not, I die presently; if I doe it, I die afterwards; therefore by doing it, there is time of life gained;" Nature therefore compells him to the fact.†   (source)
  • The Interpretation Of The Law Dependeth On The Soveraign Power The Legislator known; and the Lawes, either by writing, or by the light of Nature, sufficiently published; there wanteth yet another very materiall circumstance to make them obligatory.†   (source)
  • …and his Apostles, left not new Laws to oblige us in this world, but new Doctrine to prepare us for the next; the Books of the New Testament, which containe that Doctrine, untill obedience to them was commanded, by them that God hath given power to on earth to be Legislators, were not obligatory Canons, that is, Laws, but onely good, and safe advice, for the direction of sinners in the way to salvation, which every man might take, and refuse at his owne perill, without injustice.†   (source)
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