All 14 Uses of
contrived
in
Adam Bede
- Hetty had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of trouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself at church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing; that he was constantly finding reason for calling at the Hall Farm, and always would contrive to say something for the sake of making her speak to him and look at him.†
Chpt 9
- Dinah, with her sympathetic divination, knew quite well that Adam was longing to hear if Hetty had said anything about their trouble; she was too rigorously truthful for benevolent invention, but she had contrived to say something in which Hetty was tacitly included.†
Chpt 11
- John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world.†
Chpt 12 *
- The partnership with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present—there were things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept; but Adam thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for themselves in addition to their journeyman's work, by buying a small stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for which Adam had no end of contrivances.†
Chpt 19
- No sooner had this little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular article of furniture that should be undertaken first—a kitchen cupboard of his own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding-doors and bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household provender, and such a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good housewife would be in raptures with it, and fall through all the…†
Chpt 19
- Adam pictured to himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty, and Adam was again beguiled from calculations and contrivances into dreams and hopes.†
Chpt 19
- And now you see what she's brought me to—the sly, hypocritical wench"—Bartle spoke these last words in a rasping tone of reproach, and looked at Vixen, who poked down her head and turned up her eyes towards him with a keen sense of opprobrium—"and contrived to be brought to bed on a Sunday at church-time.†
Chpt 21
- And this uncertainty, which prevented him from contriving a prudent answer, heightened his irritation.†
Chpt 27
- Hetty knew that their meeting yesterday must be the last before Arthur went away—there was no possibility of their contriving another without exciting suspicion—and she was like a frightened child, unable to think of anything, only able to cry at the mention of parting, and then put her face up to have the tears kissed away.†
Chpt 29
- The children soon gave them an opportunity of lingering behind a little, and then Adam said: "Will you contrive for me to walk out in the garden a bit with you this evening, if it keeps fine, Hetty?†
Chpt 30
- Seldom in Adam's life had his face been so free from any cloud of anxiety as it was this morning; and this freedom from care, as is usual with constructive practical minds like his, made him all the more observant of the objects round him and all the more ready to gather suggestions from them towards his own favourite plans and ingenious contrivances.†
Chpt 38
- Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived by him, and he had given her directions how to follow him to Ireland—for Adam knew that Arthur had been gone thither three weeks ago, having recently learnt it at the Chase.†
Chpt 38
- I've no right to be contriving and thinking it 'ud be better if she'd have Seth, as if I was wiser than she is—or than God either, for He made her what she is, and that's one o' the greatest blessings I've ever had from His hands, and others besides me."†
Chpt 50
- And as for knowledge, and contrivances, and manufactures, there's a many things as we're a fine sight behind 'em in.†
Chpt 53
Definition:
-
(contrived) unnatural seeming (due to careful planning)
or more rarely:
arranged (that something should happen)