dynamic
toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

proportion
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

proportion as in:  the proportion of females

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • The proportion of women to men at my college is about 6 to 4.
    proportion = ratio (the quantity of one thing in relation to another)
  • The recommended proportion of bleach to water is different for sanitizing a kitchen counter than it is for disinfecting a toilet.
    proportion = ratio (the quantity of something in relation to something else)
  • I stammered nervously as I introduced him to Mother, who was blending bergamot and ylang-ylang, clicking her fingers to test the proportions.   (source)
    proportions = relative amounts (of things that go together)
  • The late twentieth century has witnessed a scientific gold rush of astonishing proportions: the headlong and furious haste to commercialize genetic engineering.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (or quantity)
  • There was also something disturbing about the proportions of the rooms — the ceilings were too low for the width, the tunnels too narrow.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions
  • My dreaming became quite expert: all ingredients for my dishes were always in fresh and plentiful supply; the oven or frying pan was always at just the right temperature; the proportion of things was always bang on; nothing was ever burnt or undercooked, nothing too hot or too cold.   (source)
    proportion = relative amounts
  • Maycomb's proportion of professional people ran high: one went there to have his teeth pulled, his wagon fixed, his heart listened to, his money deposited, his soul saved, his mules vetted.   (source)
    proportion = share or percentage
  • The economy wasn't producing new jobs for high school dropouts, an increasing proportion of whom -- roughly half -- were unemployed.   (source)
    proportion = percentage
  • Disorientated, Redd's imaginings fizzled and faded, less and less of a threat to Alyss, whose abilities seemed to be increasing in direct proportion to her confidence.   (source)
    proportion = relative amount
  • Black powder is composed of three basic ingredients in roughly the following proportions: 15 percent charcoal, 10 percent sulfur, and 75 percent saltpeter.   (source)
    proportions = relative amounts (of things that go together)
▲ show less (of above)
show 12 more with this conextual meaning
  • Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.   (source)
    proportion = share or percentage
  • Most of the Avonlea people were on Premier's side of politics; hence on the night of the meeting nearly all the men and a goodly proportion of the women had gone to town thirty miles away.   (source)
  • The great breast and heavy fore legs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin.   (source)
    proportion = relative amount
  • These two ingredients are mixed in equal proportions, and formed into pills.   (source)
    proportions = relative amounts
  • My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery.   (source)
    proportion = portion or share
  • My loyalty to my father had increased in proportion to the miles between us.   (source)
    proportion = relative amount
  • A growing proportion -- two thirds, compared with half in the mid-1970s -- thinks the government should reduce immigration from current levels.   (source)
    proportion = percentage
  • I always added a little sea water to Richard Parker's fresh water, in a greater proportion in the days following a rainfall, in a lesser during periods of drought.   (source)
    proportion = relative amount
  • And while the proportion of the population that is foreign-born, at 12 percent, is still lower than the all-time high of 15 percent in 1890, it has risen from 5 percent in 1970.   (source)
    proportion = percentage
  • Franz himself, however, saw his way more plainly in proportion as he went on towards the light, which served in some manner as a guide.   (source)
    proportion = relative amounts
  • Peppino is a lad of sense, who, unlike most men, who are happy in proportion as they are noticed, was delighted to see that the general attention was directed towards his companion.   (source)
    proportion = relative degree to the amount
  • It is impossible to tell what proportion is memory and what exists here and now—so that a strange compound is formed of memory and reality; past and present; response to stimuli stored in my brain centers, and response to stimuli in this room.   (source)
    proportion = share or percentage
▲ show less (of above)

proportion as in:  a problem of large proportion

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • It was a scandal of enormous proportions.
    proportions = size or dimension
  • It is a building of vast proportions.
  • My grandmother gave me furniture of large proportions, but my apartment is small.
    proportions = dimensions
  • Also, in the space of just over half a year, the Hubermanns had lost a son and gained a replacement of epically dangerous proportions.   (source)
    proportions = size or dimension
  • An intrusion of diorite sculpted by ancient glaciers into a peak of immense and spectacular proportions, the Thumb is especially imposing from the north: Its great north wall, which had never been climbed, rises sheer and clean for six thousand feet from the glacier at its base, twice the height of Yosemite's El Capitan.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (sizes)
  • On Fifth Avenue that summer, demolition was soon to begin on the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, clearing the way for a skyscraper of unprecedented proportions, the Empire State Building.   (source)
    proportions = size or dimension
  • It was a placid explosion of orange and red, a great chromatic symphony, a colour canvas of supernatural proportions, truly a splendid Pacific sunset, quite wasted on me.   (source)
  • Ekwefi went to bring the pot and Okonkwo selected the best from his bundle, in their due proportions, and cut them up.   (source)
    proportions = amounts
  • This squabble grew to the proportions of a battle in the woods between partisans of both sides, and it is said to have lasted for two days.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (in this case, of the intensity of the disagreement)
  • He stood eight centimetres short of the standard Alpha height and was slender in proportion.   (source)
    proportion = size or dimensions
▲ show less (of above)
show 20 more with this conextual meaning
  • The thing approached the proportions of a scandal — then died away.   (source)
  • But so many were the men who had rushed into the Klondike, and so many were the sweethearts, wives, and kin that had not rushed in, that the congested mail was taking on Alpine proportions; also, there were official orders.   (source)
    proportions = size
  • The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion.   (source)
    proportion = amount
  • The people possessed by hereditary right the quality of reverence, which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force in the selection and estimate of public men.   (source)
  • It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (in this case, sizes associated with the body)
  • Franz had so managed his route, that during the ride to the Colosseum they passed not a single ancient ruin, so that no preliminary impression interfered to mitigate the colossal proportions of the gigantic building they came to admire.   (source)
    proportions = size
  • I strained my sight to discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of a well-known form within.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (in this case, sizes associated with the body)
  • His ears are large beyond the proportions of his other features, as are his gnarled, meaty hands.   (source)
    proportions = sizes or dimensions
  • It is this: that the island was not an island in the conventional sense of the term—that is, a small landmass rooted to the floor of the ocean—but was rather a free-floating organism, a ball of algae of leviathan proportions.   (source)
  • From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion.   (source)
    proportion = size
  • Behind the penitents came a man of vast stature and proportions.   (source)
  • We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit.   (source)
    proportions = amounts
  • When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him, he had been angry at his interruption at such a time, but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognized the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (in this case, sizes associated with the body)
  • A man of thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor's proportion of those qualities), may, at any time, be a man of affairs, if he will only choose to give himself the trouble.   (source)
    proportion = amount
  • "Who and what are you?" demanded Villefort, turning over a pile of papers, containing information relative to the prisoner, that a police agent had given to him on his entry, and that, already, in an hour's time, had swelled to voluminous proportions, thanks to the corrupt espionage of which "the accused" is always made the victim.   (source)
  • The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours.   (source)
  • Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her eyes were dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of a regular proportion, and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink.   (source)
    proportion = size
  • There were men, too, of a sturdier texture of mind than his, and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd, hard iron, or granite understanding; which, duly mingled with a fair proportion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly respectable, efficacious, and unamiable variety of the clerical species.   (source)
    proportion = amount
  • Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe—gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions.   (source)
    proportions = dimensions (in this case, sizes associated with the body)
  • Hester looked by way of humouring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance.   (source)
    proportions = sizes or dimensions
▲ show less (of above)

proportion as in:  respond in proportion

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • The punishment should be in proportion to the crime.
    proportion = an amount that is appropriate relative (to something)
  • Tall and solidly proportioned, he wears wire-rimmed glasses that give him a professorial demeanor.   (source)
    proportioned = dimensioned (in relative body sizes)
  • Success was slow to come, and when it did, it was much appreciated, but the effort seemed out of proportion to the reward.   (source)
    out of proportion = not appropriate in amount
  • Indeed, he had had little opportunity to be anything else, and he now seemed pleased out of all proportion at this slight notice from his master.   (source)
    proportion = appropriate amount
  • It's as if I got everything out of proportion.   (source)
    out of proportion = not appropriate in size or degree
  • Huge it was, and nobly proportioned.   (source)
    proportioned = dimensioned (relative sizes)
  • He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability of self-support.   (source)
    proportioned = in keeping with (where more of one results in more of the other)
  • His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.   (source)
    proportion = appropriate size
  • My father had felt so uncomfortable and scared because of the secrecy of all the arrangements, the men in uniform everywhere and the vulnerability of our family, that he had panicked and blown the incident out of proportion.†   (source)
  • I looked like a normally proportioned person with a balloon for a head.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)
show 87 more with this conextual meaning
  • Even when things are bad, He's stood next to me and things are a little less prone to becoming blown out of proportion by my emotions ...You know, I wonder what God is going to do with my life.†   (source)
  • Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots.†   (source)
  • The space did have tall windows with dramatic views of the square, but the once-stately progression of beautifully proportioned rooms had been sacrificed to make bathrooms, bedrooms, closets, and a kitchen.†   (source)
  • "THEY'RE UNNATURAL," he said; but what, I thought, could be more UNNATURAL than the squeaky falsetto of The Granite Mouse or his commanding presence, which was so out of proportion to his diminutive size?†   (source)
  • He played the tuba in the marching band, and his body looked all out of proportion, as if he'd stopped growing halfway through puberty.†   (source)
  • They're every known colour from deepest black to whitest white, they're various heights, but each one of them is admirably proportioned.†   (source)
  • And here"— she pointed to the flayed hand —"see how he calls attention to it by painting it so big, all out of proportion to the rest of the body?†   (source)
  • I want to reexamine the van Daans and decide for myself what's true and what's been blown out of proportion.†   (source)
  • I was about to give her my whole one-kiss-not-equaling-a-relationship spiel and to explain that I didn't want to blow it out of proportion, but I stopped myself.†   (source)
  • I was beginning to think that this whole thing was being blown out of proportion.†   (source)
  • It was apparent in a second that my visitor was not from Lusus-his compact form was well proportioned by Web standards, athletic but thin.†   (source)
  • He gnawed on our fingers with surprisingly sharp baby teeth and stomped clumsy circles around us on giant tawny paws that were way out of proportion to the rest of his body.†   (source)
  • You know how rumors get blown out of proportion.†   (source)
  • It was painted a soft, faded white, three stories tall, rectangular and well proportioned.†   (source)
  • Edith is small and thin, proportioned like a girl, her white hair cut in a bob and her face deeply wrinkled.†   (source)
  • On one level this was natural and something to which Ned had become accustomed, for both women were great beauties, Gertie slim and dark, Julia tall and felicitously proportioned.†   (source)
  • It should be fairly proportioned out.†   (source)
  • Added to that was a vampire's skill and a vampire's intensity, so that in the space of one night when I had turned her away from killing, she, with that same insatiable need, created out of a few sticks of wood, with her chisel and knife, a perfect rocking chair, so shaped and proportioned for Claudia that seated in it by the fire, she appeared a woman.†   (source)
  • As soon as they found out that the I.U.N. prophet was the son of Senator Trueba, the opposition blew the story out of proportion to make fun of him, using the son's spiritual quest as a political weapon against the father.†   (source)
  • Prince, for example, a cat-quick Liberian and one of the team's best returning players, had spent the summer cultivating a crown of perfectly proportioned braids that traversed his head and dangled down the back of his neck in the style of Allen Iverson, the NBA point guard.†   (source)
  • As human beings we have a hard time with this kind of progression, because the end result — the effect — seems far out of proportion to the cause.†   (source)
  • Dogs have a sense of self-consciousness that is far out of proportion to their intelligence, and Cujo was disgusted with himself.†   (source)
  • I merely meant that sometimes, particularly if one has been through distressing events in one's young life, one might be inclined to jump to conclusions—to inadvertently blow things out of proportion.†   (source)
  • She had always been petite, slender and well-proportioned, and the ungainliness of her body amazed and depressed her.†   (source)
  • The bed is hugely out of proportion to the room itself.†   (source)
  • He was a tiny man, my size standing on a log, perfectly proportioned, except for one thing.†   (source)
  • "Don't be a panocha," I say, knowing I'm blowing it out of proportion.†   (source)
  • "Rebecca," he says, "you're getting this all out of proportion.†   (source)
  • After commenting on the customer's oddly proportioned figure-the oversized torso supported by the undersized legs-he added, "I'm afraid we haven't anything that would fit without alteration."†   (source)
  • His personal appearance is truly noble and majestic, being tall and well proportioned.†   (source)
  • In photos from around this time, Jim appears as a neatly groomed, well-proportioned young man, a few inches shorter than Farmer, with jet black hair swept into a knifelike wave, and wire-rimmed glasses over narrow eyes.†   (source)
  • Elderly players, meanwhile, are victims of taste-based discrimination: in the early rounds and late rounds, they are eliminated far out of proportion to their skills.†   (source)
  • This defendant was small and delicately proportioned—the kind of guy who grew up being the punch line to high school jokes.†   (source)
  • She and Portia had discussed it, and it was Portia's opinion that Wade Lanier and the lawyers on the other side would blow this out of proportion if she admitted it.†   (source)
  • The arrangement was all out of proportion.†   (source)
  • Nelly was seriously blowing things out of proportion.†   (source)
  • The classic style is straightforward, unadorned, unemotional, economical and carefully proportioned.†   (source)
  • The sort of activities you describe are the rarest part of our work, and frankly blown out of proportion by films and misinformed writers.†   (source)
  • Nevertheless, small problems sometimes got blown out of proportion.†   (source)
  • But talking about eliminating for what was honest mistake—well, it's out of proportion.†   (source)
  • It was almost eight inches long, wafer thin and proportioned like a narrow leaf.†   (source)
  • Even though she was perfectly proportioned, she was short, and sometimes she jumped to reach things, but only after ascertaining that no one would see.†   (source)
  • He was shaking; there was some formless, desperate, almost superstitious quality in his terror, out of proportion to the dangers he named.†   (source)
  • He was a good deal taller than I, and in contrast to my somewhat ordinary but decently proportioned features and dark hair, his face seemed to have been cut from stone.†   (source)
  • I had to find out the truth: Was he messing with me, was I blowing this out of proportion, or ...or something else?†   (source)
  • A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion.†   (source)
  • It was not for a White man to tell Ta-Kumsaw that the killers of his people had received a punishment exactly proportioned to their sin.†   (source)
  • With one swift slice, he cut two evenly proportioned lamb chops.†   (source)
  • The rooms, while small, were well proportioned.†   (source)
  • "You've got it all wrong," he said, "you've got it all out of proportion.†   (source)
  • A tall, nobly proportioned man lay upon the floor at his feet, his head resting upon his right shoulder.†   (source)
  • He seemed so content there, and although it did get back to us that he was boasting to people and magnifying his job all out of proportion, that was harmless enough.†   (source)
  • Peter's incongruous, out-of-proportion sneeze had touched off one of his peoples' most highly developed traits: a sense of the ridiculous; a sense so keenly felt as to be almost beyond control.†   (source)
  • So completely was he the self he resolved to be that everything about him seemed inevitable, exact, perfecthis well-proportioned, handsomely set head, his impetuous step, his long legs, his knee boots which may well have been muddy but looked polished, and his gray serge tunic which may have been creased but looked as if it were made of the best linen and had just been pressed.†   (source)
  • Everything about her seemed exaggerated and blown out of proportion.†   (source)
  • Reich marched into Tate's exquisite consultation room, glanced once at Tate's tiny frame—a figure slightly out of proportion but carefully realigned by tailors.†   (source)
  • When they returned to the veranda of the store, which was crowded with sacks and packing cases, he knocked his leg against the pedal of a leaning bicycle, and began to swear with a violence out of proportion to the small accident.†   (source)
  • Your emotions never seem in proportion to their objects, Aziz.   (source)
    proportion = appropriate amount
  • For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship.   (source)
    proportion = relative amount
  • There's no downside for you to go, so don't blow this out of proportion.†   (source)
  • The blue room was smaller, the bed more reasonably proportioned.†   (source)
  • You're blowing this wildly out of proportion.†   (source)
  • It was a mansion, really, with fifteen-foot ceilings and large, well-proportioned rooms.†   (source)
  • His enormous paws no longer looked so comically out of proportion.†   (source)
  • Did we, as Cassie and Mona and her mother claimed, "blow the whole thing way out of proportion?"†   (source)
  • I know I have my faults and shortcomings, but they blow them all out of proportion!†   (source)
  • I think they've completely blown this whole thing out of proportion.†   (source)
  • This was amusing, but Deo's laughter seemed oddly misshapen, out of proportion to the joke.†   (source)
  • As a result, it had a popularity out of proportion to what it had achieved on the ground.†   (source)
  • It's a harmless weekend that you're blowing completely out of proportion.†   (source)
  • Furthermore, although she was large, she was well proportioned.†   (source)
  • Clearly the issue had been blown out of proportion.†   (source)
  • No. He said it sounded like she was blowing it out of proportion.†   (source)
  • Its head was large, out of proportion to the rest of its body.†   (source)
  • She was slight and blonde, with a beautiful, evenly proportioned face.†   (source)
  • "As they received more information," Oskamp concluded, "their certainty about their own decisions became entirely out of proportion to the actual correctness of those decisions."†   (source)
  • This man was shorter than the first, and oddly proportioned; his shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey.†   (source)
  • Although normally proportioned outside, ten people with Mundungus driving were able to fit into it quite comfortably.†   (source)
  • I was aware of the painting in a nagging but vague way which was entirely out of proportion to its actual importance, as if it were a school project I'd left unfinished.†   (source)
  • With the Barbours, my lack of pocket money had been a continual worry; having always to hit Mrs. Barbour up for lunch money, lab fees at school, and other small expenses had occasioned dread and anxiety quite out of proportion to the sums she carelessly disbursed.†   (source)
  • A long time back you told me that Carlos's 'spine' was as big as his head, which had to be swollen all out of proportion for him to be in the business he's in.†   (source)
  • The lines weren't exactly right and her features were rather out of proportion, but he'd been able to capture her smile and her eyes with surprising skill.†   (source)
  • Breathing hard, she couldn't deny that as brave and logical as she'd tried to be, as much as she'd tried to convince herself that she was blowing this out of proportion, fear was getting the best of her.†   (source)
  • I didn't blow it out of proportion.†   (source)
  • That "world"—London of the 1780s—was a city grown all out of proportion, with nearly a million souls.†   (source)
  • Situated 11,300 feet above sea level, Namche occupies a huge, tilting bowl proportioned like a giant satellite television dish, midway up a precipitous Mountainside.†   (source)
  • FEDERAL HALL, where Congress met, was a handsomely proportioned stone building at the junction of Broad and Wall Streets distinguished by its glassy cupola and colonnaded front balcony.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)
show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • With her it was not hope, or wistful thoughts—it was her sense of being alive that thinned by the proportion of her spirit devoted to him.†   (source)
  • Just when I was getting used to the taste of dust in my mouth, along came a frog infestation of biblical proportions.†   (source)
  • After a large number of balls, the proportion of balls that fall within the irregular shape compared to the total number of balls used to hit the circle will yield the area of the shape.†   (source)
  • The columns, the fountain, the arches were all realized in perfect perspective to perfect proportion, with every ornament in place.†   (source)
  • We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far.†   (source)
  • Each block was carved with a symbol, seemingly at random, creating a cipher of unfathomable proportion.†   (source)
  • "I think that hall was actually cut off here, not there," and "Watch your proportions," and "Draw straighter, you shank."†   (source)
  • Some were grotesquely fat, or weirdly over-muscled, or uncomfortably thin, and almost all of them had wrong, ugly proportions.†   (source)
  • We'll need water.... There's a tap marked on this map the Muggle gave us," said Ron, who had followed Harry inside the tent and seemed completely unimpressed by its extraordinary inner proportions.†   (source)
  • Circles with black indicate the proportion of foreign blood.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)
show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.†   (source)
  • I used to be a partner in a law firm, but a couple of years ago I quit and moved my office into this house so I could mix business and pleasure in whatever proportion I wanted.†   (source)
  • The proportions of the place are all off, and not in a provocative way.†   (source)
  • And one way was being frightened of being far away from a place I was used to, and the other was being frightened of being near where Father lived, and they were in inverse proportion to one another, so that the total fear remained a constant as I got further away from home and further away from Father like this.... It takes 19 minutes for the bus to get to school from our house, but it took me 47 minutes to walk the same distance, so I was very tired when I got there and I hoped that I could stay at school for a little while and have some biscuits and some orange juice before I went to the train station.†   (source)
  • He began embellishing-a teaspoon of blood became a cup; the stain on her white pants grew from a modest spot to a Rorschach blot of enormous proportion.†   (source)
  • The pale, whitewashed arms were too long for the smaller proportions of my mother's figure; but I suppose that these overreaching arms had only enhanced Owen's memory of the affection my mother had felt for him.†   (source)
  • But when the covers were finally lifted, a feast of kingly proportions was revealed: a roasted goose, its flesh a perfect golden brown; a whole salmon and a whole cod, each outfitted with lemons and fresh dill and pats of melting butter; a bowl of steamed mussels; platters of roasted vegetables; loaves of bread still cooling from the oven; and all manner of jellies and sauces I didn't recognize but that looked delicious.†   (source)
  • A direwolf had a bigger head and longer legs in proportion to its body, and its snout and jaw were markedly leaner and more pronounced.†   (source)
  • Yet another Silver of epic proportions.†   (source)
  • A fierce display of vivid colors in odd proportions, she seemed to have stepped right out of a canvas for the sole purpose of throwing a fit.†   (source)
  • There were some thirty tapes in the collection altogether, with varying proportions of music to spoken word.†   (source)
  • What appeared among the cool trees as she approached was a brick barn of elegant dimensions, like a Greek temple, with a black-tiled roof, windows of plain glass, and a low portico with white columns beneath a clock tower of harmonious proportions.†   (source)
  • He makes charts of Irish grammar, Irish history and algebra at home, hangs them on an easel and we have to chant our way through the cases, conjugations and declensions of Irish, famous names and battles, proportions, ratios, equations.†   (source)
  • How lovely her teeth seemed now, assuming their true proportion within the perfect harmony of delicate features that formed her face.†   (source)
  • What Samuel had said was true, of course, but it also pointed too clearly to a certain fact—that Lindsey and Buckley had come to live their lives in direct proportion to what effect it would have on a fragile father.†   (source)
  • He suggested that she increase the proportion of preservative that she used.†   (source)
  • Not a remarkable house by any means—it was about thirty years old, squattish, squarish, made of brick, and had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly failed to please the eye.†   (source)
  • Too small for an adult, the wrong proportions for a child.†   (source)
  • Andy had these features as well, but in ungainly proportions, without her slinky ermine grace.†   (source)
  • "Let's hope the animals that live there aren't in proportion to the mountains," said Eragon lightly.†   (source)
  • You admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorus, the purply orange glow of napalm, the rocket's red glare.†   (source)
  • They taught us to do miniatures of the mural on paper to the proportion of the area we were working on, then how to square every section of the miniatures which we would replicate on the wall with a chalk line.†   (source)
  • Unlike the other Tombs, which lay open and were easily inspected, the Sphinx was a mass of heavy blocks honey-combed with narrow corridors, some of which tightened to impossibility, some of which widened to auditorium-sized proportions, but none of which led anywhere but back on themselves.†   (source)
  • It does bear some small resemblance to him, in general shape and proportion.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile, conditions in the city began to deteriorate in reverse proportion, you might say, to the increasing courage and determination of its people.†   (source)
  • Alongside the clutter there is a starkness about the place that appeals to him: the floors are bare, the woodwork stripped, many of the windows without curtains to highlight their generous proportions.†   (source)
  • Nighttime was a misery of epic proportion for the girls' mother, punctuated by only a few moments of fitful rest.†   (source)
  • In that same period of the late nineteenth century, syphilis and gonorrhea reached near-epidemic proportions, yet except for Henrik Ibsen and some of the later naturalists, venereal diseases were hardly on the literary map.†   (source)
  • Lieutenant Skaaiat's smile grew broader in proportion to Lieutenant Awn's silent, indignant anger.†   (source)
  • Or when my Aunt Caroline and Marian spent half the night debating the location of the first public library in the U.S. (Charleston) or the proper proportions for "Charleston green" paint (two parts "Yankee" black and one part "Rebel" yellow).†   (source)
  • Women and men vanished in equal proportion.†   (source)
  • The instant of dismissal we would mob the door of Barracks 8, stepping on each others' heels in our eagerness to get inside, to shrink the world back to understandable proportions.†   (source)
  • What with my sisters and me, our mother, and Mama Tataba being the only females in attendance, and all the men that could walk being in the play, a higher proportion of the audience than you'd care to think was either daydreaming or examining the contents of their nostrils.†   (source)
  • While this laver of nativeness was not vast in proportion to the rest, it had vast importance, for society had been shaped in reaction to it, and unspeakable violence had occurred in relation to it, and yet it endured, fertile, a stratum of soil that perhaps made possible all future transplanted soils, and to which Saeed in particular was attracted, since at a place of worship where he had gone one Friday the communal prayer was led by a man who came from this tradition and spoke of this tradition, and Saeed had found, in the weeks he and Nadia had been in Marin, this man's words to be full of soul-soothing wisdom.†   (source)
  • Whenever there was special press coverage on us, the abuse we later suffered at Central was in direct proportion to the size and quality of the story printed or aired.†   (source)
  • From 1848 to 1948, the proportion of dark peppered moths increased from 1 to 99 percent in certain places.†   (source)
  • When the body count reached epidemic proportions — in fact, your histories blame a disease for the population slump — the Volturi finally stepped in.†   (source)
  • From the national AP ticker, 11:46 P.M.: CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE (AP) A DISASTER OF MAJOR PROPORTIONS HAS STRUCK THE TOWN OF CHAMBERLAIN, MAINE, TONIGHT.†   (source)
  • They wanted to meet everyone: parents, brothers and grandparents, to check out their physical proportions.†   (source)
  • Now that they had attained adult proportions and were finally grown, she could give herself the pleasure of spoiling them as she should have when they were small, but it was too late, for the twins had been raised without her caresses, and they no longer needed them.†   (source)
  • If a group of people had come to the United States legally in the last fifteen years, chances are they were represented in Clarkston in perfect proportion to the numbers in which they were accepted into the country at large.†   (source)
  • The Goetz case has become a symbol of a particular, dark moment in New York City history, the moment when the city's crime problem reached epidemic proportions.†   (source)
  • Her alarm grew to critical proportions during the first week, when she became aware of the familiarity and self-possession with which Florentino Ariza came into the house, and the whispers and fleeting lovers' quarrels that filled their visits until all hours of the night.†   (source)
  • An incredibly large proportion of the assets was deposited in post-office-box companies that owned one another.†   (source)
  • All my parts seem to be in the right proportion and in the right place.†   (source)
  • And think of the enormous proportion of those profits dependent upon a single product — the spice.†   (source)
  • I'll admit, he has one of the best builds this side of the Mr. Olympia contest, but that body is in inverse proportion to his brain.†   (source)
  • Although weighed just ninety-one pounds, her sparrowlike proportions disguised a formidable resolve; to an astounding degree, Yasuko had been propelled up the mountain by the unwavering intensity of her desire.†   (source)
  • This is what these 'trivial errors' as you call them really signify and if you do not heed them, it will not be long before your father commits an error of major proportions.†   (source)
  • In the distance I heard a clanging bell and then a series of automobile horns, the first of what would become a universal bleat, a herd-panic of terrible wailing proportions as vehicles of all sizes and types tried to reach the parkway in the quickest possible time.†   (source)
  • Put your hand up on the paper— no, higher up—the paper is the same size as the page in Audubon's book, so you want to try for the same proportions.†   (source)
  • perfect and driftless, heaped in comical proportion on the branches of the six small cherry trees her father had planted last year.†   (source)
  • Although the carnage was far worse in Dresden, a larger proportion of Plauen's buildings was destroyed.†   (source)
  • Whenever he was uncomfortable— which was often—his arms and legs seemed to stretch to monstrous proportions and he handled them with bewildered loathing, as though he had been afflicted with them only a few moments before.†   (source)
  • The words didn't have the right proportion somehow.†   (source)
  • The proportion of women delivering in health centers rose from 15 percent to 60 percent, and mortality plunged.†   (source)
  • Hema's sofa was too small for a man of Ghosh's proportions, and seeing him scrunched up there, she felt grateful to him and conscious of his sacrifice.†   (source)
  • It was true that the tightening action of a smile contracted his face into its correct proportions, and made it possible to discern a less unnerving personality-an American-style "good kid" with an outgrown crew cut, sane enough but not too bright.†   (source)
  • And, furthermore," he cackled, hopping around gleefully on his stubby legs, "I'll steal your sense of purpose, take your sense of duty, destroy your sense of proportion—and, but for one thing, you'd be helpless yet."†   (source)
  • He's a slender, wide-shouldered six-foot-two, with carefully cropped, pushed-back hair, high cheekbones, and the perfect proportion of eyebrows to slender nose that is the hallmark of male models.†   (source)
  • There was no proportion in it—being drug three thousand miles to be buried at a picnic site.†   (source)
  • After two weeks and ten jumps, Uncle Al is so desperate he approaches a woman of generous proportions in the audience.†   (source)
  • His father, Augustine Washington, was a tobacco planter also known for his "noble appearance and manly proportions."†   (source)
  • And the proportion of white cells in his blood was much higher than usually seen in extrapulmonary tb.†   (source)
  • The murder of two innocents took death to a proportion this town had never experienced, robbed it of its dignity, and shattered custom like a swinging baseball bat against an heirloom vase.†   (source)
  • Oh,that turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions.†   (source)
  • My misery is reaching epidemic proportions.†   (source)
  • While Astaroth's presence had assumed divine proportions, he still looked the same.†   (source)
  • It was a perfect little model of a lamp-post, about three feet high but lengthening, and thickening in proportion, as they watched it; in fact growing just as the trees had grown.†   (source)
  • In Jotunheim, proportions made no sense.†   (source)
  • Proportion, that's the problem.†   (source)
  • He looked like his sister Alexandra, but their physical resemblance ended at the neck: Dr. Finch was spare, almost spidery; his sister was of firmer proportions.†   (source)
  • For whatever reason, and through whatever device, he now possessed knowledge of the most damning proportions.†   (source)
  • On Monday afternoon, May 14, the three "heroes" rolled back into New York for ceremonies that would spotlight a dramatic Wall Street war-bond pledge of staggering proportions.†   (source)
  • It glowed in the sunshine, a beautiful building with graceful proportions and ranks of windows that reflected the afternoon light like jewels.†   (source)
  • She gave me her look which indicated that once again I had lost all sense of proportion.†   (source)
  • He was regarded as something of a troublemaker but was never censured for it in any proportion to the amount of trouble he made.†   (source)
  • I seemed to have lost all sense of proportion.†   (source)
  • "Carlos" is reduced to human proportions and in the compression a truly frightening man comes into focus.†   (source)
  • It was as though he were an oversized fleshy infant whose proportions never changed through life, but rather became larger, more toughened and weathered.†   (source)
  • And the green spot, presumably alive, was composed of elements in roughly the same proportion as earth life.†   (source)
  • The following day I went up to Harlem, an area that had assumed legendary proportions in my mind since the 1950s when I watched young men in Soweto emulate the fashions of Harlem dandies.†   (source)
  • The proportions of everything seemed unimaginably large: rivets larger than a man's head, chain links the size of an automobile, and of course the sopladores-smokestacks that towered two hundred feet skyward in a country whose tallest building was three stories.†   (source)
  • It had been constructed in the mid-twenties when the media boom had hit such astronomical proportions as to generate more profits than a small country.†   (source)
  • Haven't we been taught that it's better to live in a simple house overlooking a garden or the sea than to reside in a palace of great proportion?†   (source)
  • She has allowed herself to grow to ample proportions.†   (source)
  • She wondered why it kept growing in direct proportion to her self-admonitions that faith was the duty she owed him.†   (source)
  • In his mind, that led to a ripple effect of catastrophic proportions.†   (source)
  • The proportion of officers grew as we progressed.†   (source)
  • Errtu, a major demon of catastrophic proportions, faintly heard its named being uttered on the faraway plane.†   (source)
  • You have to keep a sense of proportion.†   (source)
  • So too my old pajamas, the fence around the garden, the friendship torn by misunderstanding, a country being ripped apart by economic and social inequity, and a global divide of enormous proportions—they all need mending.†   (source)
  • On the one hand he didn't know Kyle at all, and moving into the apartment of a total stranger seemed like a stupid move of epic proportions.†   (source)
  • Obviously this is a threat of monumental proportions.†   (source)
  • She escorted them along a hallway of immense proportions.†   (source)
  • They're young, ages three and up, and on the whole they're funny in the face, not so much in proportion as in use.†   (source)
  • Everything in proportion.†   (source)
  • Happiness seemed to increase in direct proportion to how close you were.†   (source)
  • I made it to the mouth of Cypress Creek and almost home with a catch of biblical proportions.†   (source)
  • In other States, the nation owes the citizens more than their State's proportion of the national debt.†   (source)
  • They came from all states of the South in roughly the same proportions as did all Confederate soldiers.†   (source)
  • 'There is only now,' he says, 'and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion.'†   (source)
  • Most were well educated with a large proportion being English, sociology and art majors, all of which Stephen proclaimed was unnecessary and worthless to their present goals.†   (source)
  • Let us keep things in proportion.†   (source)
  • As I drove north through the little towns and the increasing forest rolling away to the horizon, the season changed quickly and out of all proportion.†   (source)
  • Whereas the phrase "till death us do part" is one of the more amusing mockeries in the nuptial arrangements of a large proportion of the human race, with wolves it is a simple fact.†   (source)
  • I feel that though few of them liked it, at least a large proportion of them understood that I worked as much for them and their children as I did for the Negroes.†   (source)
  • It's not a major book, it's a small book but with beautiful proportions and it's the work of a young writer of absolutely unquestionable brilliance.†   (source)
  • Frame, proportion, perspective, the values of light and shade, all are determined by the distance of the observing eye.†   (source)
  • And I care very much that red hair is of that color because it has a larger proportion of sulphur than black hair.†   (source)
  • The immense gleaming cylinder of Karellen's ship lay beyond the buildings of the Overlord base, towering above them and reducing them to man-made proportions.†   (source)
  • Like, ten thousand men dead in a plains battle with centaurs, five thousand lost in an earthquake of frightening proportions.†   (source)
  • It was right, of course, for adolescents to go through a frenzy of purity, but they were overdoing it a bit, they had lost all sense of proportion.†   (source)
  • But, before my melancholy could reach epic proportions, the dog, in a flash of former glory, shot out of his resting place under the house and bit me on the boot.†   (source)
  • He saw that no sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.†   (source)
  • In that state were located a substantial proportion of America's merchant fleet and practically all of the shipbuilding and fishing industries.†   (source)
  • Few people knew what proportion of that income was paid into the Esper Guild for the education of other Telepaths and the furthering of the Guild's Eugenic plan to bring Extra Sensory Perception to everyone in the world.†   (source)
  • But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.†   (source)
  • It was as if, in many ways, a great earthquake had shaken loose the roots and cellars of an Iowa town, and then, in an instant, a whirlwind twister of Oz-like proportions had carried the entire town off to Mars to set it down without a bump.†   (source)
  • At first Aureliano Segundo did not notice the alarming proportions of the proliferation.†   (source)
  • Tonight was a national-security crisis ....of unimaginable proportions.†   (source)
  • The officials measured our proportions: our upper body andour legs, our neck length, even our toes.†   (source)
  • For all things were a mixture of earth, air, fire, and water, but in varying proportions.†   (source)
  • The eggs ripened and grew ever more disgusting, apparently in equal proportion to their delicacy.†   (source)
  • The problem was that the harassment was out of all proportion to the content of the story.†   (source)
  • A little longer again, her proportions drifting from babyish to childlike.†   (source)
  • There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.†   (source)
  • And these men were a small proportion of the total.†   (source)
  • I'm a bio major and I've never seen this Divine Proportion in nature.†   (source)
  • Jack Callum was a jerk of colossal proportions.†   (source)
  • Prepare the gelatin (pectin) thus: Proportion 1:5 ie: 4 teaspoons Pectin 20 teaspoons sugar.†   (source)
  • Their English skills were in inverse proportion to their ages.†   (source)
  • Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight as the Divine Proportion.†   (source)
  • Perhaps it was the style of column, or the pediment, or the proportions of the windows.†   (source)
  • The campaign against you was of quite modest proportions.†   (source)
  • My friends, each of you is a walking tribute to the Divine Proportion.†   (source)
  • The mysterious magic inherent in the Divine Proportion was written at the beginning of time.†   (source)
  • Da Vinci actually exhumed corpses to measure the exact proportions of human bone structure.†   (source)
  • There will be a scandal of enormous proportions.†   (source)
  • But because he was a boy my age, he became heroic in proportion to any other visitor.†   (source)
  • We must value ourselves however and wherever we appear, even in the scantest proportion.†   (source)
  • They know the ingredients, but besides me, only William and Mikil know the proportions.†   (source)
  • The highest proportion of Divergent was among the factionless, not Abnegation.†   (source)
  • The proportion rises to as much as 50 percent during the summer.†   (source)
  • For Manchek was both prepared and disposed to consider a crisis of the most major proportions.†   (source)
  • Eventually, Eragon's anger and frustration boiled over, and all sense of proportion deserted him.†   (source)
  • The problem took on global proportions in the mind of the authorities.†   (source)
  • He doubted there was any nation of Europe "more estimable than the Dutch, in proportion.†   (source)
  • The proportion of slaveholders among officers was almost twice that among enlisted men.†   (source)
  • The proportion of representatives to their constituents is larger in the small republic.†   (source)
  • Carole had brought a gigantic bag, a bag of Haitian-returning-from-the-United-States proportions.†   (source)
  • My wardrobe still consists solely of clothes that are appropriate to my proportions.†   (source)
  • There would be a scandal of enormous proportions.†   (source)
  • Then it was complete, still an exact image of Crenshinibon, but now of mammoth proportions.†   (source)
  • By late evening of my last night in London, my misery has reached operatic proportions.†   (source)
  • The proportions are the same, the colors, the light, the shadows.†   (source)
  • The enlargement had been well done, and the proportions were reasonable.†   (source)
  • But then everything was out of all proportion.†   (source)
  • Near the barn was a farmhouse of modest proportion.†   (source)
  • Dess had never named anything this big before, but its proportions were mathematically perfect.†   (source)
  • I didn't know if he could tread with the same proportion here.†   (source)
  • Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.†   (source)
  • In proportion to his intelligence he was extremely isolated.†   (source)
  • Look, son, you've got to keep a sense of proportion.†   (source)
  • For him it was a cause of virtually religious proportions.†   (source)
  • Not exactly an epidemic of staggering proportions.†   (source)
  • In the weeks since Max had last seen her, Bellagrog had ballooned to enormous proportions.†   (source)
  • , feeling a causeless jolt of dread at the words, out of all proportion to their meaning.†   (source)
  • Explosive emotional reaction out of all proportion to the occasion.†   (source)
  • A snore of kingly proportions rumbles from the bedroom.†   (source)
  • Its proportions are too chunky, too broad of beam, too crudely hewn.†   (source)
  • But some sections of him were not in proportion to others.†   (source)
  • A large proportion of these workers are illegal immigrants.†   (source)
  • Here were height, volume, stirring proportions, and magical details.†   (source)
  • My arms and legs gradually began to wither to sticklike proportions.†   (source)
  • Whatever Shruikan's exact proportions, he was frighteningly large.†   (source)
  • In Georgia, the proportion may be 1:10 voters, far exceeding the proportion in any other State.†   (source)
  • As I said, son, you must have a sense of proportion.†   (source)
  • The response was out of all proportion to the sentence.†   (source)
  • The error began to take on major proportions with the cultures.†   (source)
  • The proportion at some slaughterhouses can be much higher.†   (source)
  • The proportions of the field made it seem particularly spacious and tranquil.†   (source)
  • Using a 3/5 proportion for Negroes, the population will be three million, if it isn't already.†   (source)
  • I divide the money among my clients in proportion to the sums extorted from them.†   (source)
  • In China, the proportion of overweight teenagers has roughly tripled in the past decade.†   (source)
  • In Rhode Island, the proportion is 1:1,000.†   (source)
  • And men are often elected by a small proportion of the electors.†   (source)
  • Soft drinks contain a larger proportion of flavor additives than most products.†   (source)
  • And only a very small proportion of the people are allowed to vote.†   (source)
  • The proportion of fast food workers who cannot speak English is even higher.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)