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obstruct
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  • I got up from my chair and headed for the door, but my path was obstructed by an exuberant Dr. Collier.†   (source)
  • /—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,/And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan..../These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown/Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.'†   (source)
  • After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried abut the terrible number of things they didn't know about.†   (source)
  • And if you and your fluorescent uniform don't get out of my way, I'll yank your operating licence and have you thrown into the cells for obstructing an LEP officer.†   (source)
  • "I have no intention of obstructing you," said Mr. Beeman in the tense silence that followed.†   (source)
  • Desi moves around so he is staring at me full-face, completely obstructing my vision.†   (source)
  • It was difficult to hear what they were saying because their voices sounded like bees, as if something was obstructing their noses.†   (source)
  • At first his long democratic experience impeded his ability to set traps for the new government, but he soon gave up the idea of obstructing it by legal means and came to accept the fact that the only way to unseat it was by using Illegal ones.†   (source)
  • Before long Eragon's hands and face were slick with dew from a tangled wall of chokecherry bushes that obstructed his way.†   (source)
  • I wasn't sure if Irwin had done what he planned to do, or if my virginity had obstructed him in some way.†   (source)
  • Only once, with the village very close, could I find no obvious way to gain access to the next field down, and I had to shine my bicycle lamp to and fro along the hedgerow obstructing me.†   (source)
  • Don't go toward—" I move faster, finding an empty channel where there are no people to obstruct my path.†   (source)
  • Their sexes, so to speak, obstructed them.†   (source)
  • She ended up in obstructed labor, with the baby stuck inside her birth passage.†   (source)
  • The bowel was completely obstructed.†   (source)
  • Unlike me, Mom has glossy red hair that bounces around and might obstruct America's view of her small freckled face.†   (source)
  • So she became, and her process of becoming was like most of ours: she developed a hatred for things that mystified or obstructed her; acquired virtues that were easy to maintain; assigned herself a role in the scheme of things; and harked back to simpler times for gratification.†   (source)
  • Because an inconsiderable party, inconsistent in their own policies, and always hostile to all government but their own, endeavor to obstruct our measures, and clog the wheels of government?†   (source)
  • Bamboo nodes obstruct water.†   (source)
  • I do hope, however, that you will not permit a tragedy in your son's past to obstruct a wonderful opportunity in his future.†   (source)
  • Inside we found the TV rooms packed, because a jury had found Martha Stewart guilty on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a well-timed stock sale.†   (source)
  • Nothing too serious yet, but I might be arrested for obstructing a police investigation.†   (source)
  • Though Connally has been wheeled inside to Trauma Room Two and no longer obstructs the car door, Jackie Kennedy still refuses to let go of her husband.†   (source)
  • Eugenides knew of one that had been a solarium until recent building had obstructed its sunlight and left it too cold and too dark to be useful.†   (source)
  • Bronwyn used her strength to pull open the door, and it came straight off, hinges flying— but the hallway it let onto was completely obstructed by ice.†   (source)
  • I just didn't want your company to be accused of obstructing an investigation.†   (source)
  • Later, as a young man in Johannesburg, I yearned for the basic and honorable freedoms of achieving my potential, of earning my keep, of marrying and having a family—the freedom not to be obstructed in a lawful life.†   (source)
  • "Septon Raynard and Septon Torbert are of the Most Devout," Cersei said, "and will be furious to learn that you obstructed me.†   (source)
  • And if that one decides to, I've got all thirty-nine links of Obstructively to protect us.†   (source)
  • As the Austrians ran through the trees, cutting the obstructive tent cords with bayonets and short-swords, and as a line of enemy advanced toward him, cocking their arms if they carried clubs and raising their rifles if they were going to use bayonets, Alessandro realized that the entire Italian army was dressed like waiters.†   (source)
  • We must not let vulgar difficulties obstruct our feeling that it's a noble plan motivated solely by the public welfare.†   (source)
  • The German and Dutch police used it to dump wrecked military and civilian vehicles that obstructed key roads.†   (source)
  • Tell these women to stop obstructing me in the performance of my duty.†   (source)
  • You can be obstructive and destructive, and you can slow it all up and distort it for your own ends, but somehow it keeps on happening.†   (source)
  • De Roos was on the offensive again, trying to spoil Kwang's show with the same questions about his role in the boycotts, suggesting that he was obstructing the efforts of the police and community groups.†   (source)
  • If any State becomes disloyal to the Union's authority, it could still use force to obstruct the execution of the Union's laws.†   (source)
  • With an obstructed view.†   (source)
  • The overseer, startled by this sudden obstructing body, planted squarely in the doorway, turned away from the door, picked up a two-pound weight from the counter, and hurled it at the fleeing slave.†   (source)
  • It's forbidden to obstruct the crossing point.†   (source)
  • A man can get in a lot of trouble for suppressing evidence, obstructing justice.†   (source)
  • The sexual memory in which I was drenched during that season in Brooklyn, whenever I forlornly unloosed the floodgates, was of uneasy darkness, sweat, reproving murmurs, bands and sinews of obdurate elastic, lacerating little hooks and snaps, whispered prohibitions, straining erections, stuck zippers and a warm miasmal odor of the secretions from inflamed and obstructed glands.†   (source)
  • —and comfortable, darkly grandiose as a gentlemen's club in the warm, obstructed light of a summer afternoon.†   (source)
  • Now explain how you as Councilor of England can obstruct those measures for the sake of your own, private, conscience.†   (source)
  • They travelled to seek money and business, and for weddings, and on pilgrimages, and the river was obstructing their path, and the ferryman's job was to get them quickly across that obstacle.†   (source)
  • Other times it's a cop and he leans against my horse (sometimes it has four legs, sometimes eight) and writes a ticket for obstructing traffic, riding with out-of-date license, failing to observe stop sign, and gross insubordination.†   (source)
  • Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in prison for obstructing a CIA investigation?†   (source)
  • If you continue to obstruct the proceedings?" he said.†   (source)
  • Intentionally obstructing a CIA investigation?†   (source)
  • He had come within inches of possessing the pyramid, but destiny had obstructed him.†   (source)
  • She had never seen the road so obstructed, she informed John.†   (source)
  • And you've obstructed every decision I've made during the past few months.†   (source)
  • What gives you the right to obstruct our leader of men in the performance of his duty?†   (source)
  • In surgery, Ghosh had found an obstructing rectal cancer which he was forced to resect.†   (source)
  • I'm going to bulldoze anyone who is obstructive or who tries to damage SMP in some other way.†   (source)
  • Around her neck she was wearing Obstructively, Jonathan's thirty-nine-link chain.†   (source)
  • Seabiscuit was built low to the ground, so Woolf's view was constantly obstructed by bigger horses.†   (source)
  • He was going southeast, toward the highest mountains that obstructed the path of the sun.†   (source)
  • After two full days of obstructed labor, Simeesh was barely conscious.†   (source)
  • It's called Obstructively: thirty-nine links.†   (source)
  • She whispered its name, "Obstructively."†   (source)
  • Jonathan unwound Obstructively from his fist.†   (source)
  • (ROPER descends and grabs him) Are you obstructing me, sir†   (source)
  • When Alicia Spinnet turned up in the hospital wing with her eyebrows growing so thick and fast they obscured her vision and obstructed her mouth, Snape insisted that she must have attempted a Hair-thickening Charm on herself and refused to listen to the fourteen eyewitnesses who insisted they had seen the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx while she worked in the library.†   (source)
  • Harry had soon mastered the Impediment Curse, a spell to slow down and obstruct attackers; the Reductor Curse, which would enable him to blast solid objects out of his way; and the Four-Point Spell, a useful discovery of Hermione's that would make his wand point due north, therefore enabling him to check whether he was going in the right direction within the maze.†   (source)
  • Although the Squamscott was never the Thames, the big oceangoing ships once made their way to Gravesend on the Squamscott; the channel has since become so obstructed by rocks and shoals that no boat requiring any great draft of water could navigate it.†   (source)
  • The ground had caved in where the whale had hit it, revealing a network of galleries and passages, now largely obstructed by collapsed rubble and entrails.†   (source)
  • The trees were mostly bare now, and the few withered brown leaves that still clung to the branches did little to obstruct her view.†   (source)
  • They joined arms with other jockeys to "clothesline" riders trying to cut between horses, formed obstructive "flying wedges" to block closers, and bashed passing horses into the inside rail.†   (source)
  • There are enough reporters and cameramen on the narrow sidewalk that the police have set up barricades to keep them from flowing out into the street and obstructing traffic.†   (source)
  • "Allow me to verify this," said Miss Wren, and she left to go to the ymbryne meeting room, where the windows were obstructed from ice mostly from the outside, and a few had small telescope tunnels melted through them with mirror attachments that let us look down at the street below.†   (source)
  • Paterson said he lamented that an "adherence to forms" might "obstruct business of the greatest moment and concern."†   (source)
  • The accusation that the King had "suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these states" was edited to a simpler "He has obstructed the administration of justice."†   (source)
  • Although different opinions and party haggling can sometimes obstruct good plans, they often promote deliberation and careful analysis.†   (source)
  • He pushed him out of his way, not roughly, but with a simple, smooth sweep of his arm, as one brushes aside an obstructing curtain, then walked out.†   (source)
  • He revolutionized Pimlico, installing a public-address system and a modern starting gate and leveling out the large hill in the infield that had given the track its nickname—"OldHilltop"—but obstructed the view of the races.†   (source)
  • The immediate cause of death may be eclampsia, hemorrhage, malaria, abortion complications, obstructed labor or sepsis.†   (source)
  • If need be, he'd use scissors on its collarbones, scalpel on ribs; he would grab, slash, slit, and smash whatever fetal part obstructed delivery, because only by getting it out could Mary be out of her misery and the bleeding cease.†   (source)
  • The week before, Congress had resolved that, if "practicable," every effort be made to "obstruct effectually" navigation on the Hudson at Fort Washington, but whether this was known in advance of the council of war, or had any bearing on the decision, is not clear.†   (source)
  • He tried to explain what had happened: finding Sister, their discovery of her pregnancy and then her obstructed labor, the shock, the bleeding that never stopped— "Ayoh, what is this?" she said, cutting him off, her eyes round with alarm, brows shooting up and her mouth a perfect O. She pointed at the bloody trephine and the open textbook resting by Sister Mary Joseph Praise's belly.†   (source)
  • In contrast, the anthropoid pelvis is elongated, permits fast running, and is more likely to result in obstructed labor.†   (source)
  • "Scandalous behavior for British troops," wrote Major Stephen Kemble, the Loyalist serving with the British army, "and the Hessians outrageously licentious, and cruel to such a degree as to threaten with death all such as dare obstruct them in their depredations."†   (source)
  • And now, as she rushed through the darkness, thinking only of finding a telephone booth, she felt a new sensation rising irresistibly within her, past the immediate tension of danger and concern: it was the sense of freedom of a world that had never had to be obstructed.†   (source)
  • But then improved medical care all but eliminated the problem; now almost no woman in the rich world spends four days in obstructed labor—long before then, doctors give her a C-section.†   (source)
  • the blast of the motor's sound that broke off, like a mountain rockslide, all contact with the time behind her-to the circling fall of a blade that vanished in a fragile sparkle of whirling air that cut the space ahead-to the start for the runway-to the brief pause-then to the forward thrust-to the long, perilous run, the run not to be obstructed, the straight line ran that gathers power by spending it on a harder and harder and ever-accelerating effort, the straight line to a purpose-to the moment, unnoticed.†   (source)
  • And if the birth attendant had been better schooled, she would have referred a case of obstructed labor to the hospital—and she certainly would not have sat on Prudence's stomach.†   (source)
  • I lost Obstructively.†   (source)
  • facts, there are only people's arbitrary wishes-a man who seeks knowledge in a laboratory by means of test tubes and logic is an old-fashioned, superstitious fool; a true scientist is a man who goes around taking public polls-and if it weren't for the selfish greed of the manufacturers of steel girders, who have a vested interest in obstructing the progress of science, you would learn that New York City does not exist, because a poll of the entire population of the world would tell you by a landslide majority that their beliefs forbid its existence.†   (source)
  • Fistulas like hers are common in the developing world but, outside of Congo, are overwhelmingly caused not by rape but by obstructed labor and lack of medical care during childbirth.†   (source)
  • "It is those like thee who obstruct all effort to win this war," Gomez said to the staff officer.†   (source)
  • Squeezing his rotundity past the obstructing passengers he entered the compartment, Poirot close behind him.†   (source)
  • But the circumstance is obstructive too, for the feelings come to rest in the symbols and resist passionately every effort to go beyond.†   (source)
  • For the rest of the evening whenever some figure obstructed Toohey's view of the hall, his head would jerk impatiently to find Roark again.†   (source)
  • A Trotskyite or a man bent upon wrecking or disrupting the work of the Communist party would have remained within the organization so as better to quarrel, obstruct.†   (source)
  • Accordingly he trotted heavily up the hill, turned ponderously into the alley ruts, and advanced heavily until, feeling the great circle of his right forefoot obstructed by some foreign particle, he looked down and slowly removed his hoof from what had recently been the face of a little boy.†   (source)
  • On the contrary, the basic problem is: to enlarge the pupil of the eye, so that the body with its attendant personality will no longer obstruct the view.†   (source)
  • The thrill, the beat of her pulses, almost obstructed her thought of purpose.†   (source)
  • Never before had I seen houses burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive crowd.†   (source)
  • WE left the cabin and found a man at the companion obstructing our way.†   (source)
  • But other people got between them in the street, obstructing him, blotting her out.†   (source)
  • Black night, cedars, brush, rocks, washes, seemed not to obstruct her.†   (source)
  • Fast riding through the forest along a crooked, obstructed trail called forth all her alertness.†   (source)
  • Tom followed closely, to be annoyed by the fact that Burn's wagon obstructed his view.†   (source)
  • Tips of trees rose level with her gaze, obstructing sight of the blue depths.†   (source)
  • Burn turned also, thus still obstructing Tom's vision.†   (source)
  • The road was so obstructed with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage.†   (source)
  • On the contrary, you'll have to answer, gentlemen, for violently obstructing the course of justice.†   (source)
  • After crossing through a moderately dense thicket, we again found some plains obstructed by bushes.†   (source)
  • Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man's icy hand obstructs us!†   (source)
  • The being who obstructed his destiny was disappearing.†   (source)
  • If he were to reach another outlet, he would find it obstructed by a plug or a grating.†   (source)
  • When they would thrust at, or parry, the noses of his champing horses, making them swing their heads and move their feet, disturbing a solid dreamy repose, he swore at the men as fools, for he himself could perceive that Providence had caused it clearly to be written, that he and his team had the unalienable right to stand in the proper path of the sun chariot, and if they so minded, obstruct its mission or take a wheel off.†   (source)
  • They sat at a table, her eyes in a profundity of suspicion, her hand moving across her line of sight as if it were obstructed.†   (source)
  • LADY BRITOMART [coming from the shed and stopping on the steps, obstructing Sarah, who follows with Lomax.†   (source)
  • Milly hesitated, and then suddenly the new turn of her mind obstructed her old habit of obedience and she nimbly stepped to a seat beside the driver.†   (source)
  • The intercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass through in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a large river that obstructed them.†   (source)
  • When he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same.†   (source)
  • All of a sudden, as he lifted, his cousin stood close to his elbow, pausing a moment on the bend of her foot till the obstructing object should have been removed.†   (source)
  • And then lifting her gaze, instinctively drawn by something obstructing the sky line, she was suddenly struck with surprise and delight.†   (source)
  • Babbitt thrilled over the citizen-soldiers, hated the scoundrels who were obstructing the pleasant ways of prosperity, admired Colonel Nixon's striding contempt for the crowd; and as Captain Clarence Drum, that rather puffing shoe-dealer, came raging by, Babbitt respectfully clamored, "Great work, Captain!†   (source)
  • He reached the Indian and the point where he, too, could see beyond that vast jutting wall that had obstructed his view.†   (source)
  • Scarcely any one was interested in the dinner, because a chamber orchestra of four having arrived, the strains of a preliminary fox trot were already issuing from the adjacent living room—a long, wide affair from which all obstructing furniture with the exception of wall chairs had been removed.†   (source)
  • Oh, man, how dost thou forget and obstruct thy brother man, and say, "Give us this day our daily bread," when he has none!†   (source)
  • She could not, however, see far either to right or left of the camp, owing to the obstructing foliage.†   (source)
  • They flew into his mouth and vanished with a faint watery taste, plastered his eyelashes, making him squint and blink, inundated his eyes until there was no hope of even trying to see—which would have been useless in any case, because the veil of blinding white obstructed his view and made the act of seeing almost totally impossible.†   (source)
  • My sun-bonnet obstructed the view.†   (source)
  • This was naturally imputed by the court to the same vocal embarrassment which had retarded or obstructed previous answers.†   (source)
  • She was "perfect" to every one: subservient to Bertha's anxious predominance, good-naturedly watchful of Dorset's moods, brightly companionable to Silverton and Dacey, the latter of whom met her on an evident footing of old admiration, while young Silverton, portentously self-absorbed, seemed conscious of her only as of something vaguely obstructive.†   (source)
  • Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.†   (source)
  • But Mulvey seemed obstructed.†   (source)
  • Fed with the oil supplied by the war-contractors (whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death), with flickering splashes of dirty yellow light they pollute the pale moonshine all but ineffectually struggling in obstructed flecks thro' the open ports from which the tompioned cannon protrude.†   (source)
  • They would sit silent, more bodeful of the direct antagonism of things than of their insensate and stolid obstructiveness.†   (source)
  • Madeline caught a glimpse of tents inside, then her view was obstructed by a curious, pressing throng.†   (source)
  • Finally progress to the south was obstructed by impassable gullies where the wash plunged into the head of a canyon.†   (source)
  • She walked fast, peering back over her shoulder, and, hanging to Carley's arm, she rounded a large cedar that had obstructed some of the firelight.†   (source)
  • Rocks obstructing his advance, the narrow defiles he had to squeeze through, the hard sharp edges tearing his shirt, the smell of the hot earth, the glaring sun—all seemed obstacles that put the fact of Indians in the background.†   (source)
  • This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn.†   (source)
  • I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a stag-like swiftness.†   (source)
  • She fell on her knees by the side of the inanimate Louisa, tearing from the person of her friend, with instinctive readiness, such parts of her dress as might obstruct her respiration, and encouraging their only safeguard, the dog, at the same time, by the sounds of her voice.†   (source)
  • Hence arose that philosophy, at once bold and timid, broad and narrow, which has hitherto prevailed in England, and which still obstructs and stagnates in so many minds in that country.†   (source)
  • The customs of the provostship and the viscomty had not yet been worked over by President Thibaut Baillet, and by Roger Barmne, the king's advocate; they had not been obstructed, at that time, by that lofty hedge of quibbles and procedures, which the two jurisconsults planted there at the beginning of the sixteenth century.†   (source)
  • I didn't like what I saw when I was studying there—so much empty bigwiggism, and obstructive trickery.†   (source)
  • Newman thought it a damp, gloomy place to live in, and was puzzled by the obstructive and fragmentary character of the furniture.†   (source)
  • Alarmed by the rapidity of its progress, those who despair of arresting its motion endeavor to obstruct it by difficulties and impediments; they vainly seek to counteract its effect by contrary efforts; but it gradually reduces or destroys every obstacle, until by its incessant activity the bulwarks of the influence of wealth are ground down to the fine and shifting sand which is the basis of democracy.†   (source)
  • If his notice was sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features, proving that there was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intellectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage.†   (source)
  • With no worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of divers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he fulils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman is deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms.†   (source)
  • But what was a great deal worse was, that it was not one story, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and interrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and annoyance.†   (source)
  • Perhaps it is that high achievements demand some other unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high prizes; perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather indolent, their divinae particulum aurae being obstructed from soaring by a too hearty appetite.†   (source)
  • "Pawnee, I die as I have lived, a Christian man," resumed the trapper with a force of voice that had the same startling effect upon his hearers, as is produced by the trumpet, when its blast rises suddenly and freely on the air, after its obstructed sounds have been heard struggling in the distance: "as I came into life so will I leave it.†   (source)
  • Some few minutes had elapsed, and the stranger began to show manifest signs of impatience, when a slight noise was heard outside the aperture in the roof, and almost immediately a dark shadow seemed to obstruct the flood of light that had entered it, and the figure of a man was clearly seen gazing with eager scrutiny on the immense space beneath him; then, as his eye caught sight of him in the mantle, he grasped a floating mass of thickly matted boughs, and glided down by their help to within three or four feet of the ground, and then leaped lightly on his feet.†   (source)
  • Nothing in this garden obstructed the sacred effort of things towards life; venerable growth reigned there among them.†   (source)
  • June was in the basement, preparing their frugal meal, and Mabel herself had ascended to the roof, which was provided with a trap that allowed her to go out on the top of the building, whence she commanded the best view of surrounding objects that the island possessed; still it was limited, and much obstructed by the tops of trees.†   (source)
  • But when the matter is of common interest to the whole community, and the doing or not doing something affects everybody, the majority must have their way; unless the minority were to take up arms and show by force that they were the effective or real majority; which, however, in a society of men who are free and equal is little likely to happen; because in such a community the apparent majority is the real majority, and the others, as I have hinted before, know that too well to obstruct from mere pigheadedness; especially as they have had plenty of opportunity of putting forward their side of the question.†   (source)
  • He had scarcely turned his head about again, and it was still bent down, listening to the girl, when the stoppage ceased, and the obstructed stream of people flowed on.†   (source)
  • On the side of the Green that led towards the church, the broken line of thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate; but on the opposite northwestern side, there was nothing to obstruct the view of gently swelling meadow, and wooded valley, and dark masses of distant hill.†   (source)
  • High above this to the right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, the blurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.†   (source)
  • The forest was dark, as a matter of course, but it was no longer obstructed by underbrush, and the footing was firm and dry.†   (source)
  • Snow began to fall an hour after they started, a fine snow, however, which happily could not obstruct the train; nothing could be seen from the windows but a vast, white sheet, against which the smoke of the locomotive had a greyish aspect.†   (source)
  • For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort; the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity of the times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, direct and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby Dick.†   (source)
  • "I see you are getting tired and stupid, Ben," said Mrs. Garth, accustomed to these obstructive arguments from her male offspring.†   (source)
  • In this part of the Union the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few harbors which exist amongst these lagoons afford much shallower water to vessels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of the North.†   (source)
  • Early in the morning, before she had risen, he cleared away the snow that obstructed her path to the milk-house, drew water from the well, and brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his perpetual astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an invisible hand.†   (source)
  • "Perhaps, sir, I had better call my cousin Hepzibah," said Phoebe; hardly knowing, however, whether she ought to obstruct the entrance of so affectionate a kinsman into the private regions of the house.†   (source)
  • The wings of her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth, entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.†   (source)
  • Maggy, who pushed her way into the foreground immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little Mother equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last were obstructed by tears.†   (source)
  • She reminded Newman of his friend, Mademoiselle Nioche; this was what that much-obstructed young lady would have liked to be.†   (source)
  • He made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's for a time; and he performed that difficult task with as much delicacy as he could, only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself and his parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a clergyman.†   (source)
  • In essence, manatees, like seals, are designed to graze the underwater prairies, destroying the clusters of weeds that obstruct the mouths of tropical rivers.†   (source)
  • Occasionally he rose and walked about the battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him with bags and charges.†   (source)
  • "Accursed Parisians!" he said to himself (for Gringoire, like a true dramatic poet, was subject to monologues) "there they are obstructing my fire!†   (source)
  • It was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books.†   (source)
  • If she had felt that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had been entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward harmony; but now her penitence and submission were constantly obstructed by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise than as a just indignation.†   (source)
  • Besides the rosebush, she had observed several other species of flowers growing there in a wilderness of neglect, and obstructing one another's development (as is often the parallel case in human society) by their uneducated entanglement and confusion.†   (source)
  • We shall not try to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedral nose, that horseshoe mouth; that little left eye obstructed with a red, bushy, bristling eyebrow, while the right eye disappeared entirely beneath an enormous wart; of those teeth in disarray, broken here and there, like the embattled parapet of a fortress; of that callous lip, upon which one of these teeth encroached, like the tusk of an elephant; of that forked chin; and above all, of the expression spread over the whole; of that mixture of malice, amazement, and sadness.†   (source)
  • He left in order not to obstruct the commander in chief's undivided control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then be taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and enfeebled.†   (source)
  • It must have been a faulty maneuver because this underwater tunnel was obstructed by such blocks and didn't make for easy navigating.†   (source)
  • In this was to be found the basis of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the best of confiscating his property after a short term of enjoyment, as though invention were on a par with felony.†   (source)
  • The infantry passing before him came to a halt without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in front.†   (source)
  • The Torres Strait is about thirty-four leagues wide, but it's obstructed by an incalculable number of islands, islets, breakers, and rocks that make it nearly impossible to navigate.†   (source)
  • France has her relapses into materialism, and, at certain instants, the ideas which obstruct that sublime brain have no longer anything which recalls French greatness and are of the dimensions of a Missouri or a South Carolina.†   (source)
  • Its splendid halls and suites of spacious apartments are floored with a mosaic-work of costly marbles; its windows, the whole height of each room, admit the sunshine through the most transparent of plate-glass; its high cornices are gilded, and its ceilings gorgeously painted; and a lofty dome—through which, from the central pavement, you may gaze up to the sky, as with no obstructing medium between—surmounts the whole.†   (source)
  • At the moment when the soldier was sighting Marius, a hand was laid on the muzzle of the gun and obstructed it.†   (source)
  • "After taking Fort Duquesne," says he, "I am to proceed to Niagara; and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can hardly detain me above three or four days; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara."†   (source)
  • The whole of Lucy's behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience.†   (source)
  • But as in carrying them into effect they become revealed and known, they are at once obstructed by those men whom he has around him, and he, being pliant, is diverted from them.†   (source)
  • He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.†   (source)
  • I had agreed with Captain Morris, of the paquet at New York, for my passage, and my stores were put on board, when Lord Loudoun arriv'd at Philadelphia, expressly, as he told me, to endeavor an accommodation between the governor and Assembly, that his majesty's service might not be obstructed by their dissensions.†   (source)
  • However, when the news of this disaster reached England, our friends there, whom we had taken care to furnish with all the Assembly's answers to the governor's messages, rais'd a clamor against the proprietaries for their meanness and injustice in giving their governor such instructions; some going so far as to say that, by obstructing the defense of their province, they forfeited their right to it.†   (source)
  • Those we found inconvenient in these respects: they admitted no air below; the smoke, therefore, did not readily go out above, but circulated in the globe, lodg'd on its inside, and soon obstructed the light they were intended to afford; giving, besides, the daily trouble of wiping them clean; and an accidental stroke on one of them would demolish it, and render it totally useless.†   (source)
  • For as in this Disease, there is an unnaturall spirit, or wind in the head that obstructeth the roots of the Nerves, and moving them violently, taketh away the motion which naturally they should have from the power of the Soule in the Brain, and thereby causeth violent, and irregular motions (which men call Convulsions) in the parts; insomuch as he that is seized therewith, falleth down sometimes into the water, and sometimes into th†   (source)
    standard suffix: Today, the suffix "-eth" is replaced by "-s", so that where they said "She obstructeth" in older English, today we say "She obstructs."
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