Precise

Examples

• Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than Greenleaf. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
• We see this plainly in our own children; we cannot tell whether a child will be tall or short, or what its precise features will be. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
• We cannot state the precise nature of the thoughts which passed through Mr. Trotter's mind, because we don't know what they were. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
• Take the words in your precise sense, and tell me whether I am not right. Plato. The Republic.
• But however easily we may form these ideas, it is impossible to produce any definition of them, which will fix the precise boundaries betwixt them. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
• They had passed the door of their inn, and walked a little way down the village, before they recollected the precise spot in which it stood. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
• He had been so fortunate as toI forget the precise wordsone has no business to remember them. Jane Austen. Emma.
• He is very precise about dates and facts, and has the power of making us believe that the narrator of the tale must have been an eyewitness. Plato. The Republic.
• This will immediately cut off all loose discourses and declamations, and reduce us to something precise and exact on the present subject. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
• The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than it sometimes is in a Court of Justice. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
• Yes--she's been abominably treated; but it's unfortunately the precise thing that a man who wants to show his sympathy can't say to her. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
• Do you think your habits are as precise and methodical as--shall I say as mine are? Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
• It was the precise, crackling, curling roll of automatic rifle fire. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
• No definition can be just--too precise a one can only deceive us into thinking that our definition is true. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• They were both upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
• We know how far off is the profound and precise knowledge we desire. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• Did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he would addict himself? George Eliot. Middlemarch.
• Why then isn't there a budget, a large, comprehensive budget, precise and informing, in which provision is made for beginning to civilize Chicago? Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
• Miss Farish's heart was a fountain of tender illusions, Miss Stepney's a precise register of facts as manifested in their relation to herself. Edith Wharton. The House of Mirth.
• On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand: The second most dangerous man in London. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
• Still, I said, let us have a more precise statement of terms, lest we should hereafter fall out by the way. Plato. The Republic.
• If I remember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
• Their employment is confined almost to a precise spot, to the farm, and to the shop of the retailer. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
• Will soon come to London, said I, after casting about for a precise form of words, or summon me anywhere else? Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
• His very name carried an impressiveness hardly to be measured without a precise chronology of scholarship. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
• It was characteristic of the man that the direction was a precise, and the writing as firm and clear, as though it had been written in his study. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
• Indeed, Will had declined to fix on any more precise destination than the entire area of Europe. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
• We shall now correct this fault by giving a precise definition of cause and effect. David Hume. A Treatise of Human Nature.
• It naturally aims at bringing always that precise quantity thither which may be sufficient to supply, and no more than supply, that demand. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
• For a hundred needs of the nation it has no thought, but about the precise morality of an historical transaction eight years old there is a meticulous interest. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.

Edited by Babbage