preparatoryin a sentence
- The preparatory school has a reputation for sending students to top colleges.
- She opened the meeting with some preparatory remarks.
- a preparatory meeting to set the agenda
- preparatory steps
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It was a long train ride up to our prep school in Boston, and there were guys on that train.
(source)
prep school = preceding and preparing for something
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Matthew encountered the stationmaster locking up the ticket office preparatory to going home for supper, and asked him if the five-thirty train would soon be along.
(source)
preparatory = in preparing
- And welcome, teachers and students from ...the Beecher Prep School!† (source)
- Without consulting her husband, she arranged for her son to he shipped off to a military prep school—the first of several failed attempts to "normalize" the boy.† (source)
- Educated at prep school and the Sorbonne, he had a cum laude degree in international finance.† (source)
- He paused the way he liked to pause in his sermons, preparatory to driving home a point he was especially fond of, then he said, "The kind of life people lead in this county is getting rarer and rarer.† (source)
- Jason and his friends played it at inter-prep school field parties when scoping out girls.† (source)
show 189 more with this conextual meaning
- This was borderline acceptable to Harriet Wheelwright—although my grandmother was a shrewd enough businesswoman to know that the dollars and cents of teaching (even at as prestigious a prep school as Gravesend Academy) were not exactly in her league.† (source)
- He mounted a starting box, leaned forward from the waist as he had seen racing swimmers do but never had occasion to do himself—I noticed a preparatory looseness coming into his shoulders and arms, a controlled ease about his stance which was unexpected in anyone trying to break a record.† (source)
- This did not prepare me for the unique sort of heat that one encounters fifteen miles south of Birmingham, Alabama, at Culver Creek Preparatory School.† (source)
- He had made one careless blunder though, because he had skimped a bit on his preparatory research.† (source)
- regions on the IQ scale are those that differentiate with high probability between persons who, because of their level of general mental ability, can or cannot attend a regular school (about IQ 50), can or cannot master the traditional subject matter of elementary school (about IQ 75), can or cannot succeed in the academic or college preparatory curriculum through high school (about IQ 105), can or cannot graduate from an accredited four-year college with grades that would qualify for admission to a professional or graduate school (about IQ 115).† (source)
- The school separated these two groups by levels of education: The professional-class kids were provided with college-preparatory classes; the blue-collar students were pushed into "industrial arts."† (source)
- And the way his father had slipped away from them, that had been the worst accident of all, as if the preparatory work of death had been done long ago, the night he was nearly killed, and all that was left for him was one day, quietly, to go.† (source)
- You were teaching English in a Vermont prep school.† (source)
- The Nakhimov School was a special three-year prep school for youngsters aspiring to a career at sea.† (source)
- He said, when I asked, that he went to Perkins Day, the elite prep school on the other side of town, where he was a fifth-year senior; he'd "taken some time off," apparently because of "some problems with administration."† (source)
- Blomkvist went to school first in Blomma and then to prep school on Kungsholmen.† (source)
- He took a preparatory breath-as if he were about to dive into a lake-and lumbered off through the downpour in the direction of the forge.† (source)
- He went to a Southern prep school that specialized in building all-round gentlemen, and by the time you graduated it was an unwritten rule that you had to have known a woman.† (source)
- A sixteen-year-old Kinghorn Preparatory student who police were questioning in what has been dubbed "The Kinghorn Hanging" has been released without charge.† (source)
- At least, as a side effect of the preparatory operations, he had finally been cured of his rage.† (source)
- They wanted me to go to some famous prep school and become a doctor or a lawyer or something.† (source)
- Then it had been a stuck-up rich kids' prep school, but it had originally been built as a monastery for the Saint Augustine People of Faith monks.† (source)
- He went on to thrive at the exclusive Collegiate Preparatory School in Manhattan.† (source)
- It's some kind of a prep school or somethin.† (source)
- The old man bent and spat over the wheel, preparatory to speaking, but his daughter took the words from his mouth.† (source)
- And I know I couldn't face those eyes even in a prep school yearbook.† (source)
- He went to prep school on a scholarship, graduated from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and joined the New York Police Department (this was his mother's longtime wish), where he made detective and, eventually, sergeant.† (source)
- I cheated my way through prep school and college, and just about all I've been doing ever since is shacking up with pretty girls who think I'd make a good husband.† (source)
- "Chaz's childhood friend from prep school, Luke," I explain to him, "has an ancestral home in France that his father rents out during the summer sometimes as a destination wedding spot.† (source)
- Instead of the Rowan you know, they'll be witness to nothing more than a posh little prep school.† (source)
- In London he had been far too old to run: now, he ran at a speed which would have made him certain to win the hundred yards' race at any Prep school in England.† (source)
- Kennedy and Garbo have never met before tonight but have quickly become fast friends, thanks to a practical joke at the expense of Kennedy's roommate from his teenage years at Choate prep school.† (source)
- Mostly with prep school jerks and college jerks.† (source)
- We were charged with sabotage and conspiracy rather than high treason because the law does not require a long preparatory examination (which is highly useful to the defense) for sabotage and conspiracy as it does for treason.† (source)
- It was like taking the downhill rush of a roller coaster without having had the preparatory uphill climb.† (source)
- I came from a privileged family-money, influence, an expensive prep school-that guaranteed me-me, not the black kid on the streets of Philadelphia or Harlem-automatic admittance to Annapolis.† (source)
- "I look like prep school Barbie," Nudge complained, as she entered the kitchen.† (source)
- JOSH RITTENBERG attends Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan, where he plays baseball and guitar and sings tenor in an a cappella group.† (source)
- He wore a velvet prep school blazer with a crest emblazoned on it in glittering thread, and at least a dozen rings.† (source)
- GEORGE (At the bar, still) When I was sixteen and going to prep school, during the Punic Wars, a bunch of us used to go into New York on the first day of vacations, before we fanned out to our homes, and in the evening this bunch of us used to go to this gin mill owned by the gangster father of one of us—for this was during the Great Experiment, or Prohibition, as it is more frequently called, and it was a bad time for the liquor lobby, but a fine time for the crooks and the cops—and we would go to this gin mill, and we would drink with the grown-ups and listen to the jazz.† (source)
- He prefaced everything with "Nobody in Greensboro would do that," or wear that, or say that; he called Fulton "Gritville" and said he couldn't wait to go off to prep school the next year.† (source)
- "I should have got here by morning ....if only this bullock had kept better pace—" He leaped down and lifted the yoke preparatory to watering his animals.† (source)
- Perhaps, thought Natalie, he had attended an English preparatory school or military academy.† (source)
- Before leaving for prep school, she broke up and gave back my I.D. bracelet.† (source)
- They stand up as the PLAYER whips oft their cloaks preparatory to execution.† (source)
- She opens her parasol, preparatory to leaving.† (source)
- The boards must have been washed down from somewhere higher up the hill where they had been stacked preparatory to floating them downstream.† (source)
- You never knew what was really wrong until you were in prep school.† (source)
- It had taken thirty minutes to complete the preparatory rituals leading up to this first vote.† (source)
- "I was teaching at a prep school," Jack said slowly.† (source)
- Martin Vanger was in his last year at the preparatory school in Uppsala in 1966.† (source)
- His grades were not top end, but this was, after all, only prep school and it was still early times.† (source)
- Lena Andersson, seventeen-year-old preparatory school pupil.† (source)
- It's actually worse than that—I'm the headmistress of Hedestad preparatory school.† (source)
- J. They scarcely knew each other and had had no contact since Harriet started preparatory school.† (source)
- Harriet was sixteen and had just begun her second year at prep school.† (source)
- I pulled up Google and typed in "private preparatory schools?† (source)
- But there aren't any preparatory stages in the world she lives in.† (source)
- It's like your old prep school, Castleton, isn't it?† (source)
- Stoddard gathered up his bridle rein, preparatory to moving on.† (source)
- Actually, you look like prep school Barbie.† (source)
- Actually, you look like prep school Barbie.† (source)
- It was an exclusive East Coast prep school and, man, did it look stuck-up.† (source)
- "This is still kind of a preparatory stage for you," Takahashi says.† (source)
- He was kicked out of prep school, partied hard with the "celebrati," and shunned his parents' exhaustive attempts to provide him firm and loving guidance.† (source)
- Across the room, Don Barrett was putting up an extension ladder preparatory to gilding the overhead steel beams with crepe paper.† (source)
- A varsity diver in prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool.† (source)
- They had gone to school together and then both married their professors and settled down in the same town, but Buddy was always off on a scholarship at prep school in the fall or earning money by fighting blister rust in Montana in the summer, so our mothers being old school chums really didn't matter a bit.† (source)
- Thus the technology used to localize a target first detected by SOSUS, or to "delouse" a discrete piece of ocean preparatory to the passage of a convoy, simply was not up to a random search of the deep ocean.† (source)
- , and your mind's on your crush, the boy who goes to that other prep school whose name we won't mention and who folds jeans at Abercrombie in the mall.† (source)
- In the snow, the clock tower of Upper Canada College appears to preside over a preparatory school in a small New England town; when it's not snowing, the cars and buses on the surrounding roads are more numerous, the sounds of traffic are less muted, and the presence of downtown Toronto seems closer.† (source)
- It was through Astrid and Donald that Moushumi had met her former fiancé, Graham; Donald had gone to prep school with him, and he had given Moushumi's number to Graham when he'd moved to Paris.† (source)
- Brinker looked the standard preparatory school article in his gray gabardine suit with square, hand-sewn-looking jacket pockets, a conservative necktie, and dark brown cordovan shoes.† (source)
- After the last name was called, all the kids who'd just won awards stood next to each other onstage, and Mr. Tushman said to the audience: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am very honored to present to you this year's Beecher Prep School scholastic achievers.† (source)
- Dan became the best of those faculty found at a prep school: he was not only a spirited, good teacher, but he believed that it was a hardship to be young, that it was more difficult to be a teenager than a grown-up—an opinion not widely held among grown-ups, and rarely held among the faculty members at a private school (who more frequently look upon their charges as the privileged louts of the luxury class—spoiled brats in need of discipline).† (source)
- As I walked past it the motor was throbbing with wheezy reluctance—prep school doctors don't own very desirable getaway cars, I remember thinking to myself—and then I turned the corner of the building and began to creep along behind it.† (source)
- One of these had been on the Board of Directors for Stovington Preparatory Academy, the old man's favorite charity.† (source)
- He had written her about the play, which was called The Little School, describing the basic conflict between Denker, a gifted student who had failed into becoming the brutal and brutalizing headmaster of a turn-of-the-century New England prep school, and Gary Benson, the student he sees as a younger version of himself.† (source)
- After the war Greger Vanger became a secondary-school teacher and eventually the headmaster of the Hedestad preparatory school.† (source)
- He was in his final year at the preparatory school in Uppsala, where he lived in the home of Harald Vanger.† (source)
- After prep school he worked as a ticket collector in the tunnelbana, saved some money, and travelled abroad.† (source)
- There is nothing to indicate that Blomkvist has ever been active politically, even during the left-wing wave when he was going to prep school.† (source)
- During his prep school days he studied music and played bass in a rock band named Bootstrap, which actually put out a single that was played on the radio in the summer of 1979.† (source)
- Eventually it was converted into Cascia Hall, a private preparatory school for affluent human teenagers.† (source)
- Your mother's maiden name is Bryn Branson Cabot, and she attended St. Mary's Preparatory School in New Hampshire.† (source)
- Once he heard a warning groan beneath his feet and felt the steel settle preparatory to giving way, but he had already moved on.† (source)
- Hell, I'm not even a Catholic, a lot of guys aren't, but they sell us a bill of goods that Trinity is the best prep school for college you can find around here.† (source)
- If it's Security you want, or that Bessie wants for you, your M.A. will at least always qualify you to pass out logarithm tables at any dreary boys' prep school in the country, and most colleges.† (source)
- As a matter of fact, our older boy, who's in prep school, naturally, is very interested in the university where you teach.† (source)
- I felt Misty's absence stronger than ever, and I kept thinking of things I needed to tell her, how Mrs. Poole had spent thirty stupid minutes talking about little Ruthie Sands going to prep school so as not to have to participate in integration, how I had heard the DJ on the radio say that they were going to open a new dedication line, how sometimes the thought of walking into that brand new high school made me feel so scared I felt sick, and how she was the best friend I had ever had and ever would have, and how I would give anything in the world if her mother had not left home.† (source)
- The astonished McAllister instantly recognized it from scores of radio and television newscasts over the years, its inflections learned in an expensive prep school and several prestigious universities, with a postgraduate career in the British Isles.† (source)
- Stuff like that, and soon she was writing away to preparatory schools (all-girls ones) where we would meet and mix with the "right kind" of Americans.† (source)
- We never saw each other during the four years of high school because her parents sent her to a very expensive and exclusive girls' prep school where the tough curriculum was geared to get students into Ivy League colleges.† (source)
- Miss Sessions had smiled upon the piteous little group with a judicious mixture of patronage and mild reproof, and her driver had shaken the lines over the backs of the fat horses preparatory to moving on, when Stoddard's car turned into the street from the corner above.† (source)
- Those shy prep school guys at mixers with their endearing long hands and blushing complexions, I could make them laugh.† (source)
- I remember that when I asked how the prep school had been talked into selling to the vamps Neferet had told me that they'd made them a deal they couldn't refuse.† (source)
- When he's in the States, where he went to prep school and is now in college, he's one of us, our buddy.† (source)
- It was a decadent atmosphere for me whose previous experience of dating had been mixers and parlor calls from boys at prep school.† (source)
- Half the time he doesn't know whether he's using his CIA crash course in Spanish or his prep school Latin or his college French.† (source)
- Immediately, he looked up his old classmate Mundo, who comes from one of those old wealthy families who send their kids to the States to prep school, and the boys on to college.† (source)
- Even before that when he was in prep school, he began dissipating and playing the Broadway sport to imitate you, when he's never had your constitution to stand it.† (source)
- He began to revolve on his toes, preparatory to vanishing.† (source)
- Lunt was secreting the last of them in brown paper preparatory to taking them home.† (source)
- Poirot had just unpacked a few necessaries and was applying a little cosmetic to his moustache preparatory to going out to call upon Joseph Aarons when there came a frenzied knocking at the door.† (source)
- All this I learned about Julia, bit by bit, as one does learn the former—as it seems at the time, the preparatory—life of a woman one loves, so that one thinks of oneself as having been part of it, directing it by devious ways, towards oneself.† (source)
- Often, then, without the preparatory move you observe in other animals, he ejected a straight, heavy squirt of excrement before he wound up to fly again to the top of the wagon.† (source)
- Doan step down in dat mud," he ordered severely, as Scarlett gathered up her skirts preparatory to descending.† (source)
- As he stretched out his right arm preparatory to giving him a box on the ear he looked as if he were going to reach down a star.† (source)
- With the exception of Byron, they had brought no lunch with them today, and they began to gather up their belongings preparatory to quitting until Monday.† (source)
- He looked far more the type that, with a little extra education, would have made a popular headmaster of a prep school.† (source)
- It was no good crouching in the saddle and clutching it in a rigid grip preparatory to the great shock, for if you held it inflexibly like this its point bucked up and down to every movement of your thundering mount and you were practically certain to miss the aim.† (source)
- A preparatory school was attached to it, and to this it was arranged that Philip should go.† (source)
- "Preparatory examination negative," Dr. Krokowski announced.† (source)
- Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his journey.† (source)
- She caught her breath preparatory to giving this incorrigible sister a piece of her mind.† (source)
- He became aware that Mr. Jackson was clearing his throat preparatory to farther revelations.† (source)
- "Tess!" he said in a preparatory tone, after a silence.† (source)
- He had nothing to do with preparatory labour.† (source)
- He knew a good many boys who had been with him at the preparatory school.† (source)
- He would exhaust his strength in preparatory exercises, without advancing beyond them.† (source)
- Thanks to these preparatory labours, he failed completely in his examination for an ordinary degree.† (source)
- — The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet over.† (source)
- You see, Karamazov, Ilusha came into the preparatory class last spring.† (source)
- Well, you know what our preparatory class is—a lot of small boys.† (source)
- "Very well," said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught, "kindly forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes."† (source)
- All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, "Why — ye-es," with very grave, hesitant faces.† (source)
- Well, all that is preparatory.† (source)
- "Will your ladyship stay the night?" asked pretty Miss Sally, who was already busy laying a snow-white cloth on the table, preparatory to providing a simple supper for her ladyship.† (source)
- As he undid his collar and unfastened his studs, preparatory to washing his face and changing his clothes, he dilated upon his trip.† (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)
- Miss Davidson was born in Ohio, and received her preparatory education in the public schools of that state.† (source)
- Thus he passed out of the preparatory school into college, and we who watched him felt four more years of change, which almost transformed the tall, grave man who bowed to us commencement morning.† (source)
- So he and Mme. Verdurin (who, at the other side of the room, where the painter was telling her a story, was shutting her eyes preparatory to flinging her face into her hands) resembled two masks in a theatre, each representing Comedy, but in a different way.† (source)
- She has had her country wedding, and I've got rid of my goose to some fellows who are starting a preparatory school.† (source)
- Mrs. Radford had done all the little jobs preparatory to going to bed, had locked the door and filled the kettle.† (source)
- The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out impatiently to meet Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a word or so of gossip preparatory to helping being them in.† (source)
- Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep of the horizon.† (source)
- Remote was the day when she might aspire to exercise the talents she felt confident of possessing; only experienced workers were entrusted with the delicate art of shaping and trimming the hat, and the forewoman still held her inexorably to the routine of preparatory work.† (source)
- In Hern's Grocery they would be roasting coffee on Friday afternoon, preparatory to the Saturday rush of trade, and the rich odor invaded lower Main Street.† (source)
- I was about to ask him what he meant, when a sort of preparatory tremor passed over his whole person, as a faint ripple may be seen upon stagnant water even before the wind is felt.† (source)
- The slicker was a definite element of success, differing intrinsically from the prep school "big man."† (source)
- "I think," he said, as he spruced around their chambers the next morning, preparatory to going down town, "that I'll straighten out that little deal of mine this month and then we'll get married.† (source)
- One of my most vivid memories is of coming back West from prep school and later from college at Christmas time.† (source)
- The strident school-teachers were gathering up their possessions preparatory to a straggling flight to the wharf; across the beach lay the white steam-boat at the pier; and over the sunlit waters Boston loomed in a line of haze.† (source)
- I thought of asking you to draw the face of a criminal, one minute before the fall of the guillotine, while the wretched man is still standing on the scaffold, preparatory to placing his neck on the block.† (source)
- We have no Eton to create the self-consciousness of a governing class; we have, instead, clean, flaccid and innocuous preparatory schools.† (source)
- "Well," he said, seeing her gather up her purse, handkerchief, and the like, preparatory to departing, "I want you to come out to dinner with me; won't you?† (source)
- He wandered along the sordid street in which, behind a high wall, lay the red brick house which was the preparatory school.† (source)
- ** PREPARATORY TO THE GREAT ADVENTURE The train slowed up with midsummer languor at Lake Geneva, and Amory caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the gravelled station drive.† (source)
- They were soon in full progress, after a preparatory hitch or two, which rejoiced the hearts of those who hated machinery.† (source)
- To attach the preparatory to the senior school these three classes were known officially, on speech days and in reports, as upper, middle, and lower second.† (source)
- He had the good memory which is more useful for scholastic achievements than mental power, and he knew Mr. Watson expected him to leave the preparatory school with a scholarship.† (source)
- The common-room was unanimous in desiring the election of Mr. Watson, headmaster of the preparatory school; he could hardly be described as already a master of King's School, they had all known him for twenty years, and there was no danger that he would make a nuisance of himself.† (source)
- I have pointed to my own manuscript volumes, which represent the toil of years preparatory to a work not yet accomplished.† (source)
- The steward and chambermaid, and all, were busily engaged in cleaning, furbishing, and arranging the splendid boat, preparatory to a grand entree.† (source)
- Dropping the shaft, which he had already lifted from the ground preparatory to occupying the place that was usually filled by an animal less reasoning and perhaps less dangerous than himself, he bluntly exclaimed— "I am a fool, as you often say!† (source)
- These arguments had so powerfully influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few words, that he had on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed 'a lucky touch,' signifying that he considered such commendation of him to Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and becoming triumphant.† (source)
- "You do me great wrong, dear Cousin Hepzibah!" said he, first kindly offering her his hand, and then drawing on his glove preparatory to departure.† (source)
- "Uncle" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.† (source)
- Lucien had found time, preparatory to the count's arrival, to relate many particulars respecting him to Madame Danglars.† (source)
- He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained.† (source)
- In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school.† (source)
- And the clock, in the altar on which Iphigenia was situated, beginning, after a preparatory convulsion, to toll twelve, the mere tolling seemed as if it would last until one—so prolonged was the knell to the anxious spinster.† (source)
- THE ANKLE-CHAIN MUST HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATORY MANIPULATION TO BE THUS BROKEN WITH A BLOW FROM A HAMMER.† (source)
- This was Smurov, a boy in the preparatory class (two classes below Kolya Krassotkin), son of a well-to-do official.† (source)
- A very successful visit:—I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much obliged to you for your preparatory hint.† (source)
- After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget: "The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities and performed nothing.† (source)
- Her husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back, preparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy informed me she was quite at my disposal.† (source)
- The earliest intelligence of the travellers' safe arrival at Antigua, after a favourable voyage, was received; though not before Mrs. Norris had been indulging in very dreadful fears, and trying to make Edmund participate them whenever she could get him alone; and as she depended on being the first person made acquainted with any fatal catastrophe, she had already arranged the manner of breaking it to all the others, when Sir Thomas's assurances of their both being alive and well made it necessary to lay by her agitation and affectionate preparatory speeches for a while.† (source)
- The time having come for her withdrawal for the night, and she having left us, I gave Mr. Wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself.† (source)
- As the labor of drawing the net had been very great, he directed one party of his men to commence throwing the fish into piles, preparatory to the usual division, while another, under the superintendence of Benjamin, prepared the seine for a second haul.† (source)
- As it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow.† (source)
- The approach of the train was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of porters, the movement of policemen and attendants, and people meeting the train.† (source)
- "I like good strong words that mean something," replied Jo, catching her hat as it took a leap off her head preparatory to flying away altogether.† (source)
- 'The baroness pointed, from the window at which they stood, to the courtyard beneath, where the unconscious Lincoln greens were taking a copious stirrup-cup, preparatory to issuing forth after a boar or two.† (source)
- Now, this," said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under it to show the gloss, "is a very sweet article.† (source)
- Having done which, Tim wiped his spectacles and put them on, preparatory to hearing what more the brothers Cheeryble had got to say.† (source)
- That evening, as he was undressing preparatory to going to bed, his hand came in contact, in the pocket of his coat, with the packet which he had picked up on the boulevard.† (source)
- Beyond sat a pair of humble lovers, artlessly holding each other by the hand, a somber spinster eating peppermints out of a paper bag, and an old gentleman taking his preparatory nap behind a yellow bandanna.† (source)
- He could hear the cheering from the ships in the river, where the transports were already taking in their cargoes preparatory to dropping down the Thames.† (source)
- The judges seemed to have anticipated this sentiment, for a consultation was passing among them also, during the deliberation of the jury, and the preparatory movements of the "bench" announced the coming sentence.† (source)
- if we are to go down there, and view all the smoking and squatting about, and hurryscurryation of the preparatory process, we should never eat more!† (source)
- Inspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow, as just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep preparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the freezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire, making its way towards London.† (source)
- "I once thought," continued Faria, "of removing these iron bars, and letting myself down from the window, which, as you see, is somewhat wider than yours, although I should have enlarged it still more preparatory to my flight; however, I discovered that I should merely have dropped into a sort of inner court, and I therefore renounced the project altogether as too full of risk and danger.† (source)
- 'I will not,' said Mrs. Micawber, finishing her punch, and gathering her scarf about her shoulders, preparatory to her withdrawal to my bedroom: 'I will not protract these remarks on the subject of Mr. Micawber's pecuniary affairs.† (source)
- With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once.† (source)
- During the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all the crowned heads of Europe.† (source)
- Mrs Merdle concurred with all her heart—or with all her art, which was exactly the same thing—and herself despatched a preparatory letter by the next post to the eighth wonder of the world.† (source)
- Her father's business was to announce James's being gone out to put the horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls; and she had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing.† (source)
- A general bustle of expectation and preparation was spread through the boat; in the cabin, one and another were gathering their things together, and arranging them, preparatory to going ashore.† (source)
- As he stepped back, preparatory to saying he had no more to ask, he could not but observe how gloomily and fixedly she sat with her eyes fastened on the ground, and a certain air upon her of resolute waiting; also, how exactly the self-same expression was reflected in Mr Flintwinch, standing at a little distance from her chair, with his eyes also on the ground, and his right hand softly rubbing his chin.† (source)
- When this preparatory measure was taken, Dr. Todd selected a piece of the shirt with great care, and handing to Mr. Jones, without moving a muscle, said: "Here, Squire Jones, you are well acquainted with these things; will you please to scrape the lint?† (source)
- While a battle that was still wholly political was in preparation in the same locality which had already witnessed so many revolutionary events, while youth, the secret associations, the schools, in the name of principles, and the middle classes, in the name of interests, were approaching preparatory to dashing themselves together, clasping and throwing each other, while each one hastened and invited the last and decisive hour of the crisis, far away and quite outside of this fatal quarter, in the most profound depths of the unfathomable cavities of that wretched old Paris which disappears under the splendor of happy and opulent Paris, th† (source)
- And she would walk from Brompton in any weather, and embrace Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful evening she had passed, when, the company having retired and Georgy gone off with Mr. Rowson, his attendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and her shawls preparatory to walking home.† (source)
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