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loophole
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  • I decided to carefully read all the literature about the program, looking for loopholes.†   (source)
  • —but I got a clipped, cold no. A no without loopholes.†   (source)
  • And how did he keep finding these loophole openings?†   (source)
  • "You're still looking for the way out, the loophole in the deal that means you can pack your bags and go without consequences.†   (source)
  • It's not commonly known—Father says it's some odd loophole in Empire law.†   (source)
  • Obviously Mattie knew what there was to know about loopholes.†   (source)
  • Looking for a loophole through which he could escape, he spent hours on end in the telegraph office conferring with the commanders of other towns, and every time he would emerge with the firmest impression that the war was at a stalemate.†   (source)
  • I rest my head against the headrest and close my eyes, attempting to conjure up a loophole in our situation.†   (source)
  • His eyes were red loopholes in the last glow from the fire.†   (source)
  • I don't want to go through all the hopes and the uncertainty of trying to find a loophole to escape from.†   (source)
  • A person misplaced, disorganized, miscalculated, overlooked everything and opened every loophole, and just when he thought he had it made, the government gave him a lake or a forest or an oilfield and spoiled everything.†   (source)
  • There was obviously some kind of loophole that had allowed Ridley to get inside.†   (source)
  • I frowned, my mind racing, looking for loopholes.†   (source)
  • However, if his mission to donate his heart dovetailed with mine—to strike down the death penalty—then why not use the same loophole law to get what we both wanted?†   (source)
  • You've been slipping through loopholes to avoid Testing."†   (source)
  • The loophole.†   (source)
  • Biting her lip, Julie's eyes darted about as though searching for possible loopholes.†   (source)
  • I'm telling you," he laughed sourly, "they got all the loopholes plugged.†   (source)
  • Whatever else was being denied them out of hate, indifference to the power of their vote, loopholes, simple ignorance, this withdrawal was their own, unpublicized, private.†   (source)
  • The daily firings produced by the withering economy offered loopholes of opportunity for a young man who kept his eyes open.†   (source)
  • It was true that the questions were of no importance, no interest, even; nevertheless, he felt there were things that weren't getting said, loopholes left open, problems of contradiction and confusion.†   (source)
  • Belle was at one of the loopholes.†   (source)
  • There were no loopholes anywhere.†   (source)
  • There's a loophole in the law, you'll find ….   (source)
  • You've just got to make sure you close the loopholes.†   (source)
  • That was another loophole Sean had found.†   (source)
  • The part called, Loopholes for Your Claiming Day?†   (source)
  • Rationality twenty-four hours a day, with no loophole, no rest, no escape?†   (source)
  • He thought he could see Kreacher struggling to see a loophole in the instructions he had just been given and waited.†   (source)
  • Admittedly he had not, as he had with Sirius, looked desperately for some kind of loophole, some way that Dumbledore would come back … he felt in his pocket for the cold chain of the fake Horcrux, which he now carried with him everywhere, not as a talisman, but as a reminder of what it had cost and what remained still to do.†   (source)
  • Their sole purpose is to exploit loopholes in the contest rules and subvert the intention of Jim's will.†   (source)
  • That's when Sean discovered, deep in the recesses of the NCAA rules, yet another loophole: the student-athlete was allowed to generate fresh new grades for himself right up until August 1, so long as that student-athlete was "Learning Disabled."†   (source)
  • One of the lessons he had picked up from his own career as an NCAA student-athlete was that good enough grades were available to anyone who bothered to exploit the loopholes.†   (source)
  • There are no loopholes tonight.†   (source)
  • I didn't have time to think through all the possible stories to see if they had loopholes or bear traps further down the line.†   (source)
  • "If you were to take her claim seriously," Greenleaf said, "you'd see that what she's really asking for is a legally binding sentence to be massaged, because of a loophole called religion.†   (source)
  • "What loophole?" asked Connor.†   (source)
  • I was nervous, all right—and not just because this was a high-profile death penalty case that might or might not have found a constitutional loophole.†   (source)
  • Therein lies a possible loophole.†   (source)
  • If you hold the irrational as your standard of value and the impossible as your concept of the good, if you long for rewards you have not earned, for a fortune or a love you don't deserve, for a loophole in the law of causality, for an A that becomes non-A at your whim, if you desire the opposite of existence-you will reach it.†   (source)
  • Yet you propose a plan to destroy me, a plan which demands, with an idiot's crudeness, without loopholes, detours or escape, that I work at a loss-that I work, with every ton I pour costing me more than I'll get for it-that I feed the last of my wealth away until we all starve together.†   (source)
  • They did not realize that every time black men thought they had found a loophole in the closed society, a way to accomplish this, that loophole was quickly plugged by the consent of all white society.†   (source)
  • We've got Cust on the Doncaster murder-the bloodstained coat, the knife-not a loophole there.†   (source)
  • Chance: But I guess the contract we signed is full of loopholes?†   (source)
  • But I discovered the loophole of whiskey and escaped his jurisdiction.†   (source)
  • And I see only one loophole of escape for our friend.†   (source)
  • We climbed down from the wall with the crowd, and had a last look at the bulls through the loopholes in the wall of the corral.†   (source)
  • The only thing that interests me now is the problem of circumventing the machine, learning if the inevitable admits a loophole.†   (source)
  • Later that night when they had the last houses on the hill, he lay comfortable behind a brick wall with a hole knocked in the bricks for a loophole and looked across the beautiful level field of fire they had between them and the ridge the fascists had retired to and thought, with a comfort that was almost voluptuous, of the rise of the hill with the smashed villa that protected the left flank.†   (source)
  • The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress.†   (source)
  • The renting of rooms on the upper floors, under the Raines-Law loopholes, makes the establishment legally a hotel and gives it the privilege of serving liquor in the back room of the bar after closing hours and on Sundays, provided a meal is served with the booze, thus making a back room legally a hotel restaurant.†   (source)
  • This problem of a loophole obsesses me; I am always wondering if there have been cases of condemned prisoners' escaping from the implacable machinery of justice at the last moment, breaking through the police cordon, vanishing in the nick of time before the guillotine falls.†   (source)
  • And at that, up I jumped, and rubbing my eyes, ran to a loophole in the wall.†   (source)
  • I want to have every loophole plugged up before I announce anything whatever!†   (source)
  • He saw no solution of anything-not a loophole left.†   (source)
  • >From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes.†   (source)
  • There was, apparently, no considered loopholes.†   (source)
  • Do you not see some loophole, some flaw?†   (source)
  • Not a loophole was left, through which the bravest, the most cunning man might escape.†   (source)
  • The head of Job Anderson, the boatswain, appeared at the middle loophole.†   (source)
  • I turned to the loophole nearest me and looked out.†   (source)
  • Thirty-eight loopholes, pierced by the English at irregular heights, are there still.†   (source)
  • Here he ensconced himself, and peeped through the loophole in the direction of the rider's approach.†   (source)
  • But it left me no loophole for escape—no chance to be the common, weak creature I am.†   (source)
  • So then there are loopholes, after all, to creep out of the hermitage to the ladies.†   (source)
  • The next morning I peeped through my loophole, and saw that it was dark and cloudy.†   (source)
  • because every door was not closed and justice might still find a loophole.†   (source)
  • The wall at the bottom has a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell.†   (source)
  • "Saltwater!" exclaimed June, laughing, as she stood peeping through a loophole.†   (source)
  • These loopholes were separated from each other by equal spaces.†   (source)
  • Why no look? plenty loophole, made purpose.†   (source)
  • There are loopholes only in the south wall, as the principal attack came from that quarter.†   (source)
  • Pretty Mabel!" said he; "Look out of one of the loopholes, and pity our condition.†   (source)
  • The recollection of his confession of the night before was a cause of acute pain to him; the priest had drawn out every ridiculous detail of the affair and in the end had so magnified his sin that he was almost thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation.†   (source)
  • As Clyde could see, Jephson was not afraid, or perhaps not sufficiently sensitive, to refrain from presenting any thought or trick that seemed to him likely to provide a loophole for escape.†   (source)
  • Once in my room I had to stop every loophole, to close the shutters, to dig my own grave as I turned down the bed-clothes, to wrap myself in the shroud of my nightshirt.†   (source)
  • At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a slender loophole in the wall.†   (source)
  • A high wind, blowing through the loopholes, went rushing up the shaft, and filled the girl's skirts like a balloon, so that she was ashamed, until he took the hem of her dress and held it down for her.†   (source)
  • When he first heard Cornelius's voice demanding admittance, it brought merely the hope of a loophole for escape.†   (source)
  • I descended, minding carefully where I went for the stairs were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry.†   (source)
  • But the front one was dripped over with honeysuckle and virginia creeper, and looked upon the tree-tops of the oak-wood across the yard, while the little back window, no bigger than a handkerchief, was a loophole to the east, to the dawn beating up against the beloved round hills.†   (source)
  • I don't count upon seeing her to-night, myself; still if she would like me to come, or if you find a loophole, you've only to send me a line at Mme. de Saint-Euverte's up till midnight; after that I shall be here.†   (source)
  • But on a night when he stood at the rail for hours, he admitted that he was afraid of their criticism, and afraid because his experiment had so many loopholes.†   (source)
  • Another had been shot at a loophole in the very act of firing into the house and now lay in agony, the pistol still smoking in his hand.†   (source)
  • Hunter lay beside his loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move again; while right in the centre, the squire was supporting the captain, one as pale as the other.†   (source)
  • If the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole and shoot us down like rats in our own stronghold.†   (source)
  • He must have risen in the dark, for the day had hardly come; and when I ran to a loophole and looked out, I saw him standing, like Silver once before, up to the mid-leg in creeping vapour.†   (source)
  • At the same moment, another pirate grasped Hunter's musket by the muzzle, wrenched it from his hands, plucked it through the loophole, and with one stunning blow, laid the poor fellow senseless on the floor.†   (source)
  • Out of the eight men who had fallen in the action, only three still breathed—that one of the pirates who had been shot at the loophole, Hunter, and Captain Smollett; and of these, the first two were as good as dead; the mutineer indeed died under the doctor's knife, and Hunter, do what we could, never recovered consciousness in this world.†   (source)
  • I will confess that I was far too much taken up with what was going on to be of the slightest use as sentry; indeed, I had already deserted my eastern loophole and crept up behind the captain, who had now seated himself on the threshold, with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the water as it bubbled out of the old iron kettle in the sand.†   (source)
  • Mr. Trelawney, you are the best shot—you and Gray will take this long north side, with the five loopholes; it's there the danger is.†   (source)
  • The doctor's watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be certain, and a flea in his ear, as the saying is.†   (source)
  • On the two short sides of the house, east and west, there were only two loopholes; on the south side where the porch was, two again; and on the north side, five.†   (source)
  • There were many strange circumstances connected with this venerable building, among which, not the least startling and mysterious were, that when the wind blew, it rumbled in the chimneys, or even howled among the trees in the neighbouring forest; and that when the moon shone, she found her way through certain small loopholes in the wall, and actually made some parts of the wide halls and galleries quite light, while she left others in gloomy shadow.†   (source)
  • Coupling the poor girl's intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good friend's inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare the whole villainy which by these lights became plain as day.†   (source)
  • He persisted until, at last, he had not sufficient strength to rise and cast his supper out of the loophole.†   (source)
  • Then, swallowing the contents of his glass, which he put down close to him, Athos arose carelessly, took the musket next to him, and drew near to one of the loopholes.†   (source)
  • CHAPTER III — A LOOPHOLE MR. GRADGRIND walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable satisfaction.†   (source)
  • "Ah!" said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole here; "but would that be your opinion at Walworth?"†   (source)
  • Cassy had remarked the young man from her loophole in the garret, and seen him bear away the body of Tom, and observed with secret exultation, his rencontre with Legree.†   (source)
  • The Loophole Of Retreat.†   (source)
  • When Mabel awoke the light of the sun was streaming in through the loopholes, and she found that the day was considerably advanced.†   (source)
  • But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea.†   (source)
  • To the right of the Tournelles, that truss of enormous towers, black as ink, running into each other and tied, as it were, by a circular moat; that donjon keep, much more pierced with loopholes than with windows; that drawbridge, always raised; that portcullis, always lowered,—is the Bastille.†   (source)
  • I had left myself a loophole.†   (source)
  • …is matter of history that the settlements on the eastern shores of the Hudson, such as Claverack, Kinderhook, and even Poughkeepsie, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century since; and there is still standing on the banks of the same river, and within musket-shot of the wharves of Albany, a residence of a younger branch of the Van Rensselaers, that has loopholes constructed for defence against the same crafty enemy, although it dates from a period scarcely so distant.†   (source)
  • But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon confronted one another as before.†   (source)
  • The wall of which he spoke was the one in which was fixed the loophole by which light was admitted to the chamber.†   (source)
  • Several moments after passing the bell chamber, he came upon a little landing-place, built in a lateral niche, and under the vault of a low, pointed door, whose enormous lock and strong iron bars he was enabled to see through a loophole pierced in the opposite circular wall of the staircase.†   (source)
  • "Then," resumed he, "mad, desperate, determined to get rid of an existence from which she had stolen everything, honor and happiness, my poor brother returned to Lille, and learning the sentence which had condemned me in his place, surrendered himself, and hanged himself that same night from the iron bar of the loophole of his prison.†   (source)
  • He slowly climbed the stairs of the towers, filled with a secret fright which must have been communicated to the rare passers-by in the Place du Parvis by the mysterious light of his lamp, mounting so late from loophole to loophole of the bell tower.†   (source)
  • This loophole, which gradually diminished in size as it approached the outside, to an opening through which a child could not have passed, was, for better security, furnished with three iron bars, so as to quiet all apprehensions even in the mind of the most suspicious jailer as to the possibility of a prisoner's escape.†   (source)
  • Countless were the nights that I sat late at the little loophole scarcely large enough to give me a glimpse of one twinkling star.†   (source)
  • I have induced you to take a charming promenade; here is a delicious breakfast; and yonder are five hundred persons, as you may see through the loopholes, taking us for heroes or madmen—two classes of imbeciles greatly resembling each other.†   (source)
  • I had not spoken to him for seven years, though I had been under the same roof, and seen him every day, when I was well enough to sit at the loophole.†   (source)
  • In the morning the jailer brought him fresh provisions—he had already devoured those of the previous day; he ate these listening anxiously for the sound, walking round and round his cell, shaking the iron bars of the loophole, restoring vigor and agility to his limbs by exercise, and so preparing himself for his future destiny.†   (source)
  • With a strength which the sense of danger increased tenfold, he seized one of the beams—the longest and heaviest; he pushed it out through a loophole, then, grasping it again outside of the tower, he made it slide along the angle of the balustrade which surrounds the platform, and let it fly into the abyss.†   (source)
  • The latter thrust the muzzle of the rifle through the loophole; and, taking care to make noise enough to attract attraction, she pulled the trigger.†   (source)
  • From distance to distance, one could distinguish on the gray surface, almost invisible loopholes which resembled black threads.†   (source)
  • I was thankful when there came a day sufficiently mild for me to wrap myself up and sit at the loophole to watch the passers by.†   (source)
  • …Charles V. had amalgamated with his palace: the Hôtel du Petit-Muce, with the airy balustrade, which formed a graceful border to its roof; the Hôtel of the Abbe de Saint-Maur, having the vanity of a stronghold, a great tower, machicolations, loopholes, iron gratings, and over the large Saxon door, the armorial bearings of the abbé, between the two mortises of the drawbridge; the Hôtel of the Comte d' Etampes, whose donjon keep, ruined at its summit, was rounded and notched like a…†   (source)
  • All this, and much more, I thought of, as I sat at my loophole, waiting for the family to return from the grave; sometimes weeping, sometimes falling asleep, dreaming strange dreams of the dead and the living.†   (source)
  • She withdrew to a seat, and hid her face in her apron for several minutes, until a low call from June again drew her to a loophole.†   (source)
  • …no doors, ladders, ladders to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders are withdrawn carbines and blunderbusses trained from the loopholes; no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred inhabitants,— that is the village.†   (source)
  • There existed no reason, therefore, to dread the fire of the assailants, except as a casual bullet might find a passage through a loophole.†   (source)
  • The wall is hidden on the outside by a tall hedge; the French came up, thinking that they had to deal only with a hedge, crossed it, and found the wall both an obstacle and an ambuscade, with the English guards behind it, the thirty-eight loopholes firing at once a shower of grape-shot and balls, and Soye's brigade was broken against it.†   (source)
  • …in length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the circuit of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes, no doors, ladders, ladders to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases…†   (source)
  • She then ascended the ladder to the room above, where by means of a loophole she was enabled to get as good a view of the island as the surrounding bushes would allow.†   (source)
  • Although Mabel and June went to every loophole, not a sign of the presence of a living being on the island was at first to be seen, themselves excepted.†   (source)
  • Just as she reached the opposite side of the room, to which she had retired in her alarm, a forked stream shot up through the loophole, the lid of which she had left open, and illuminated the rude apartment, with Mabel and her desolation.†   (source)
  • The logs were bullet-proof, squared and jointed with a care to leave no defenceless points; the windows were loopholes, the door massive and small, and the roof, like the rest of the structure, was framed of hewn timber, covered properly with bark to exclude the rain.†   (source)
  • When they were set up, our carpenters built a stage of boards all round within, about six feet high, for the men to stand on when to fire thro' the loopholes.†   (source)
  • In the dormitories I observed loopholes, at certain distances all along just under the ceiling, which I thought judiciously placed for change of air.†   (source)
  • The other bank of the stream was open ground—a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge.†   (source)
  • Well, on the knoll, and enclosing the spring, they had clapped a stout loghouse fit to hold two score of people on a pinch and loopholed for musketry on either side.†   (source)
  • How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course intimate.†   (source)
  • Among nouns Thornton notes /fox-fire/, /flap-jack/, /jeans/, /molasses/, /beef/ (to designate the live animal), /chinch/, /cord-wood/, /homespun/, /ice-cream/, /julep/ and /swingle-tree/; Halliwell[39] adds /andiron/, /bay-window/, /cesspool/, /clodhopper/, /cross-purposes/, /greenhorn/, /loophole/, /ragamuffin/, /riff-raff/, /rigmarole/ and /trash/; and other authorities cite /stock/ (for cattle), /fall/ (for autumn), /offal/, /din/, /underpinning/ and /adze/.†   (source)
  • "Only one of your fair hands," said Maritornes, "to enable her to vent over it the great passion passion which has brought her to this loophole, so much to the risk of her honour; for if the lord her father had heard her, the least slice he would cut off her would be her ear."†   (source)
  • To level this, the bold Italians join; The wary Trojans obviate their design; With weighty stones o'erwhelm their troops below, Shoot thro' the loopholes, and sharp jav'lins throw.†   (source)
  • …the contrary, they are on this account the sooner broken, some slight pretence being found in the words of the treaties, which are purposely couched in such ambiguous terms that they can never be so strictly bound but they will always find some loophole to escape at, and thus they break both their leagues and their faith; and this is done with such impudence, that those very men who value themselves on having suggested these expedients to their princes would, with a haughty scorn,…†   (source)
  • To go on with my story; the courtyard of our prison was overlooked by the windows of the house belonging to a wealthy Moor of high position; and these, as is usual in Moorish houses, were rather loopholes than windows, and besides were covered with thick and close lattice-work.†   (source)
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