How To Use Contrivance In A Sentence

Even if you look past some of the unbelievable contrivances of this portrayal of the U. S. judicial system and just basic common sense, there's nothing that really stands out in this movie.
'She'd have been just the thing for me!' cried Lynmere, haughtily rising, and conceitedly parading his fine form up and down the room; his eyes catching it from looking-glass to looking glass, by every possible contrivance; 'just the thing! matched to perfection!' Camilla
He studied also the contrivances of certain insectivorous plants, such as the Drosera and the Dionaea, to seize their prey. Evolution créatrice. English
Eskimo kaiak or skin boat, made of dressed seal hides stretched around a framework of whale ribs or wood, with an opening in the top only large enough to accommodate the sitting body of one man, is one of the most perfect contrivances in the world for water travel, being light, swift, and practically unsinkable. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 5: Diocese-Fathers of Mercy
In our scheme of things it matters not, or it is of no import, whether the people intervene by accident of fate or by way of contrivance.

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They don't romanticize the instrument's folk origins or go in for New Age contrivances.
Perhaps the idea of a self is a modern, bourgeois contrivance. Times, Sunday Times
That other machine may, in like manner, have proceeded from a former machine: nor does that alter the case; the contrivance must have had a contriver.
They wear simple clothes and shun modern contrivances.
I happen to know every detail of the hellish contrivance, and I can tell you it will be the most finished piece of blackguardism since the Borgias. The Thirty-Nine Steps
Some things are beyond human contrivance.
a belief that the universe is a mechanical contrivance
Some of the plot contrivances evoke memories of his character in The Truman Show, but the actor avoids the temptation to merely present a retread, turning in arguably his finest portrayal to date.
Then we have Iris and Hermes, the servants and messengers of Zeus; and next Hephaestus's smithy, which is stocked with all manner of cunning contrivances. Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 01
Through the insidious contrivance called inflation, they could effectively transfer a portion of the oil fortune into their coffers.
Although it has a superficial sheen, the film is mired in structural errors, weak plot contrivances and flimsy characterisation.
The word ‘artillery’ at this time still referred to any mechanical contrivances and members of the group were primarily archers at first.
We shall find this cheap contrivance useful when 'hydraulicking' the auriferous clays of the Gold Coast. To the Gold Coast for Gold A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Volume I
As Gunderson alliteratively put it, there were other better explanations of a more pronounced class identification in this period than ‘Nash's cumbersome contrivance of class consciousness arising in poverty.’
A contrivance is some abstract contortion that is said to describe reality, except that the contrivance comes with a felt emotionality that may invite deeper revelation, or the emotionality may come off as deceptive. Ambiguity Tolerance
I am in my contrivances and pretences to blind my gaoleress, and to take off the jealousy of her principals on my going down so often into the garden and poultry-yard. Clarissa Harlowe
Because of the setting, a rich assortment of characters is able to move in and out without clumsy contrivance. Times, Sunday Times
And when cuteness and contrivance get too much, as in the film's ending, the radiant Thompson can be counted on to put a tart spin on sentiment.
Radio stations need you glued to the seat long enough to hear about the latest contrivance you have to own or the drug you have to take or the movie you have to see.
A most important contrivance belonging to a whaler is the crow's-nest, which I may describe as a sentry-box at the mast-head. Peter the Whaler
And any reader who had imagined that her helter-skelter style was actually the product of careful contrivance will here be disabused.
And then it ends in sexy hilarity with some clever contrivance I haven't thought of yet.
Unconventional contrivances and machina arcana include a range of desktop siege weapons including miniature trebuchets, ballistae, and mangonels.
She wants to destroy and simplify; but it isn't the simplicity of the ascetic, which is of the spirit, but the simplicity of the madman that grinds down all the contrivances of civilization to a featureless monotony. Greenmantle
When the level of narrative contrivance is such that anything can happen or be forgotten in the space of a week, then nothing matters. MIND MELD: If We Ran Battlestar Galactica
One contrivance, the brainchild of cashier Tench Francis, was to set up a system of pulleys by which clerks would raise and lower boxes of silver from the loan office to the vault below, a procedure calculated to “dazzle the public eye by the same piece of coin multiplied by a thousand reflectors.” Robert Morris
They imagine or meditate, that is, they contrive means to suppress the rising interests of Christ's kingdom and are very confident of the success of their contrivances; they promise themselves that they shall run down religion and carry the day. Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume III (Job to Song of Solomon)
His workshop was full of mechanical contrivances.
The overall storyline is slight, and relies on at least one significant contrivance, but the movie offers enough in the way of small pleasures to be worth a recommendation, provided you enjoy this kind of low-key drama.
The parliaments were not wholly free from faction, I admit; but this evil was exterior and accidental, and not so much the vice of their constitution itself as it must be in your new contrivance of sexennial elective judicatories. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)
The parliaments were not wholly free from faction, I admit; but this evil was exterior and accidental, and not so much the vice of their constitution itself, as it must be in your new contrivance of sexennial elective judicatories. Paras. 325-349
His workshop was full of mechanical contrivances.
They wear simple clothes and shun modern contrivances.
These so-called exigent letters, which were often used when no emergency actually existed, were an extralegal contrivance that violated ECPA, bureau policy, and guidelines issued by the attorney general. Reason Magazine
The wonderful art and contrivance wherewith it is adjusted to those ends and purposes for which it was apparently designed, the vast extent, number, and variety of objects that are at once with so much ease and quickness and pleasure suggested by it: all these afford subject for much and pleasing speculation, and may, if anything, give us some glimmering analogous prenotion of things which are placed beyond the certain discovery and comprehension of our present state. A Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
The journal worried that the ‘necessity for courage and strategy may be in some degree superseded by mechanical and chemical contrivances.’
His father, having found out the contrivance by which he raised money for this kind of revelry adopted, in his own imagination, a wiser course. Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3)
Moreover, as Eddington shows, the question whether the optical contrivance 'sorts out' from the chaotic light a particular periodicity, or whether it 'impresses' this on the light, becomes just Man or Matter
If a contrivance could be devised to enable us to convert at will the wheels of the steam-carriage into magnets, we should be enabled to ascend and descend acclivities with great facility.
Although the Down East accents of the lyrics are a Hammerstein contrivance, the setting is harshly realistic in ways we tend to forget, perhaps because we usually think of Maine as a scenic travel destination. Out of Our Dreams
Properly speaking, therefore, the feathered choralist does not have a voice, but only a wind instrument; albeit a marvelous contrivance it is. Our Bird Comrades
He erected some contrivance for storing rain water.
Sometimes their attendants screened them from the sun by holding up a shield (as is still done in Southern Africa), or by some other contrivance; but the chariot of the king or of a princess, was often furnished with a large parasol; and the flabella borne behind the king, which belonged exclusively to royalty, answered the same purpose. Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life
A big part of it has to do with lame plot contrivances that slow the movie down rather than speeding it up.
The film is spoilt by unrealistic contrivances of plot.
She tried to look severe, but a broad grin enveloped her face when she saw my new contrivance. Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences
These Dickensian references merely underline a streak of contrivance in the plot. Times, Sunday Times
All mechanical contrivance is habit materialised; it is continued action without any effort of will, except in the beginning. Zoe: The History of Two Lives
Looking back at the early operations of the trade, and considering that steel pens were made by hand at the beginning of the present century, we can scarcely understand why the idea of cheapening the production by the application of labor-saving contrivances did not occur to those inventive geniuses, the proprietors of Soho. The Story of the Invention of Steel Pens With a Description of the Manufacturing Process by Which They Are Produced
The story is told with a complete absence of contrivance.
It would have been nice to know if there really was such a thing in the areas that Britain colonized or if it was merely a fictional contrivance of the writer.
But there is really nothing of contrivance about it.
It consisted of its two well-marked tables of solid bone, corresponding in their dermal character, the outer to the cuticle, the inner to the true skin, and the intermediate cellular layer to the _rete mucosum_; but bearing an unmistakable analogy also, as a mechanical contrivance, to the two plates and the _diploe_ of the human skull. The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland
his testimony was just a contrivance to throw us off the track
Examinations are a contrivance to see how a student tackles new problems.
This is what engineers call a weir, a handy contrivance for measuring the flow of small streams. Electricity for the farm Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water wheel or farm engine
And amnesia is the most cliche plot contrivance of the modern era. Heroes Season 2 Officially Sucks
(which undesignedness is gathered from their latency, their minuteness, their obliquity, the suitableness of the circumstances in which they consist to the places in which those circumstances occur, and the circuitous references by which they are traced out) demonstrates that they have not been produced by meditation, or by any fraudulent contrivance. Evidence of Christianity
They work, they may even work admirably well, but there is no sense that these contrivances are the result of an omnipotent designer.
It's where I find ideas coming to mind in an uncluttered, unhurried way, without pressure or contrivance.
I think what you call the makeshift contrivances at dear Helstone were a charming part of the life there. ' North and South
Particularly annoying among the record's contrivances is its frivolous use of drum machines, which skip and stutter when the songs call for simple beats.
But her work is very much about contrivance and artificiality.
The ipecacuanha contrivance convinces me that she loves me. Clarissa Harlowe
In the earlier times it seems to have been personal vril that supplied the motive power -- whether used in conjunction with any mechanical contrivance matters not much -- but in the later days this was replaced by a force which, though generated in what is to us an unknown manner, operated nevertheless through definite mechanical arrangements. The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria
The first American furnaces were blown by the ordinary leather bellows, or by a contrivance they had which was called a "blowing tub," or by a very ancient machine known as a _ "trompe" _ in which water running through a wooden pipe was very ingeniously made to furnish air to a furnace. Steam, Steel and Electricity
At all events the term adaptation includes the idea of utility, and obviously useless contrivances could hardly be brought under the same head. Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation
This "absurdly simple contrivance" almost instantly transformed southern agriculture. The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877
It takes staggeringly good writing, assured direction, and note-perfect performances to pull off this kind of thing without leaving the audience laughing in disbelief at the tired contrivance of it all.
French makers of opera are franker, for they seek to glorify impudicity in the persons of its greatest historical representatives by lavishing upon the subject the most gorgeous pictures, the most ingenious theatrical contrivances, and the most sensuous music at their command. Chapters of Opera Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the lyric drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time
His testimony was just a contrivance to throw us off the track.
There has been a good balance of comic contrivance with soap-opera storylines.
And we acknowledge that this thought and contrivance may well become him who liveth at the greatest rate of assurance that God affordeth to any here below; yea, that such thoughts and endeavours do naturally and genuinely flow from the assurance of the love of God we also grant. The Doctrine of the Saints�� Perseverance Explained and Confirmed
Its segments are separable to the extent of 2°, and through the contrivance of cylindrical slides (originally suggested by Bessel) perfect definition is preserved in all positions, giving a range of accurate measurement just six times that with a filar micrometer. Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887
The Republican criminal class of the current generation has not slithered, cheated, bribed and whored its way to power without the active support and contrivance of the establishment media, which Digby has rightly described as a courtier class. Firedoglake » Late Nite FDL: “Personnel is Policy:” It’s Time for Regime Change
Successful navigation was almost entirely due to the skill of the crew as opposed to any man-made contrivance.
But, nevertheless, I should be desirous to know (if thou wilt proceed) by what gradations, arts, and contrivances thou effectest thy ingrateful purpose. Clarissa Harlowe
This "absurdly simple contrivance" almost instantly transformed southern agriculture. The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877
A later order was given to wear a camel-like "hump" at the base of the vertebral column, which was called the "bustle" -- a contrivance calculated to unnerve the wearer, not to speak of the looker-on; yet the American woman adopted it, distorted her body, and aped the gait of the kangaroo, the form being called the As A Chinaman Saw Us Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home
But if you have still enough of human feeling (or, as my husband would call it, '"Minerva Press" tendency') about you, to feel yourself commoved by such phenomena, it may interest you to know that, on opening your letter the other day, and beholding the little 'feminine contrivance' inside, I suddenly and unaccountably fell a-crying, as if I had gained a loss. Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle
It seems a contrivance, a gimmick designed to get attention, which it does.
Parts seemed unnecessarily padded, and there was a lot of contrivance in dialogue.
Documentary began to be deserted in favour of contrivance and artifice.
But the essence of the film - a meditation on gender differences and the fluidity of sexuality merged with a romance - is the film-makers' contrivance.
All of them had various handy contrivances devised by their owner which saved toil.
His lyrics are incisive and true without self-consciousness or contrivance, yet tackle subject matter as diverse as socio-political commentary to lovelorn heartbreak as skilfully as the best in the genre.
It's a flimsy effort, but oddly, to me, so much more real than anything I've put on this here digital contrivance.
The "simplicity of the ascetic" is usurped by "the simplicity of the madman that grinds down all the contrivances of civilisation". Archive 2005-08-01
Fox clearly believes that most of us would be better off with fewer mechanical contrivances in our lives, and she applauds and admires those who have gone cold turkey on technology.
What else would you call a contrivance that can take you to cities where ancient civilizations once flourished? SERPENT
the plot contained too many improbable contrivances to be believable
He saw that steam was up in the boiler which operated the "go-devil," although the contrivance itself was stationary. The Iron Trail
They wear simple clothes and shun modern contrivances.
There is, therefore, a constant eastward breeze in the air of the outer galleries, and an upflow during the lunar day up the shafts, complicated, of course, very greatly by the varying shape of the galleries, and the ingenious contrivances of the Selenite mind. First Men in the Moon
The contrivance in Utricularia and Dionaea, and in fact in Drosera too, seems fully as great and complex as in Orchids, but there is not the same motive force. Alfred Russel Wallace Letters and Reminiscences
One of the most ingenious and economical of these contrivances, whereby, with a subtlety of argument worthy of the great trafficker in indulgences, Tetzel, who so raised Martin Luther's ire, they manage cheaply to transmit funds to heaven, is the paper dollar, strings of which are sold in the shops, looking exceedingly like goodly bunches of the silvery onion. The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Pastors on Patrol" reminds me of Hell's Grannies and "Irish Send Fast Filly to Feature in Festival" is too lyrical to be anything but an alliterate contrivance. Archive 2008-09-01
Half of me scoffed at the contrivance - the other half was curious to know more.
His carefully-constructed contrivance was about to unravel.
Take a movie with good action, and replace all the dumb-ass plot contrivances with smart and believable twists.
Further plot contrivances abound, including a gunshot wound that Michael simply shrugs off, all the priest's suspicions about Angela inexplicably dropped, and an illogical and ham-fisted final twist.
The name vernier, now commonly applied to a small movable scale attached to a sextant, barometer, or other graduated instrument, was given by Lalande who showed that the previous name nonius, after Peter Nunez, belonged more properly to a different contrivance. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Tournely-Zwirner
This contrivance has aesthetic consequences or is associated with aesthetic shortcomings.
At the foot of each mast there is a contrivance for securing ropes, called the fife-rail. Outward Bound Or, Young America Afloat
A master at work, he commands the screen with an effortless ease and a complete lack of artifice or contrivance.
At Midvale and elsewhere, he would invent machines and other contrivances, a number of which he patented.
The floor was beaten earth; the bed was of straw, hides or a rude contrivance of cords tied on posts.
The usual contrivance for raising water from the Nile for watering the crops was the _shadoof_, or pole and bucket, so common still in Egypt, and even the water-wheel appears to have been employed in more recent times. Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life
It is this that enables him to captivate the reader without recourse to melodrama, to luxuriate in language without falling into self-indulgence, and to weave the novel's numerous threads together without a hint of jarring contrivance.
The contrivance which strands the cast at this ominous place is a massive thunderstorm, which floods out both directions of the lone highway.
This contrivance is far simpler than a dip-candle, the arachis is broken off as it chars, and, when the lamp dims, turning it upside down causes a fresh flow of oil. Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo
Music with a tendency towards contrivance and lack of substance.
Another visitor who arrived just before the Bigelow party took one look at the flimsy contrivance and declined to descend.
He erected some contrivance for storing rain water.
Years ago Friedman was on one of the Sunday morning TV news shows, and I always thought there was an air of contrivance about him, something unformed, immature.
They wear simple clothes and shun modern contrivances.
Indeed, the handshake has permeated our culture, our etiquette, our daily lives, to become perhaps our most important non-verbal communicative contrivance.
I not only never devoted a kreutzer to my own private pleasure, but that I could never, in spite of all my contrivances and care, have managed to live free from debt without the especial favour of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845.
To prevent this the workmen have a contrivance which they call bedding the tree, which is thus executed. Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Being Selections from the Chief American Writers
Surfaces were cluttered with an assortment of electronic equipment, and mechanical contrivances in varied states of readiness.
And this accession of revenue will accrue to the individual benefit of the contriver, so long as the contrivance can be confined to his own knowledge…
That "I suppose" is unconvincing; it is a too obvious contrivance. Ford Madox Ford
She was a round-bowed contrivance, with a spring aft which gave a kind of mulish, kick-up look to the run of her. The Honour of the Flag
Lying and unfaithfull; w'd doe things on purpose in contradiction and vexation to her mistress; lye out of the house anights and have contrivances w'th fellows that have been stealing from o'r estate and gett drink out of ye cellar for them; saucy and impudent, as when we have taken her to task for her wickedness she has gone away to complain of cruell usage. Customs and Fashions in Old New England
It's so well done, in fact, that it takes you about 10 minutes to go blind to the whole contrivance.
Sir Thomas had indeed proposed to her at the ball, an event which reflected great credit on her mama's sagacity, if not upon her skill in contrivance; I rather incline to the belief that she had first laid her plans, and then predicted their success. Agnes Grey
The first scene is ‘imagination, guesswork, contrivance’; the second is an accurate excerpt from her writing.
Obviously, Schools First doesn't want to highlight this fact, but the campaign's attempt to cojoin the Times logo with its words is a contrivance that makes it difficult for supporters to make a case for the levy. The Seattle Times
While lyric poetry in English has not been without its private contrivances or tropes of conquest, for the most part its ontology has been one of engagement.
But for a straightforward and practical English girl like herself it was nothing more than a maddening, pointless contrivance that reflected an attitude that was at once phony, deceitful and manipulative.
Neither contrivance serves much purpose story-wise, other than to advance time and create tension during commercial breaks.
Where Paley compared the design of the eye with the design of the telescope, Darwin explained how such contrivances arose by natural selection, without the intervention of a divine contriver.
How pleasing to myself, to look back upon the happy days I gave her; though mine would doubtless have been unmixedly so, could I have determined to lay aside my contrivances, and to be as sincere all the time, as she deserved that I should be! Clarissa Harlowe
Those of my mother readers who have electric lights in their home, will find the photophore to be a source of great comfort and convenience; for this simple contrivance is usually able to banish colic in a few moments. The Mother and Her Child
Her loom is indeed an heirloom, and the simple contrivance is often elaborately carved, it being the pastime of lovers of successive generations to make fresh carving on the fair one's loom. Insulinde: Experiences of a Naturalist's Wife in the Eastern Archipelago
And any reader who had imagined that her helter-skelter style was actually the product of careful contrivance will here be disabused.
Rachel's investigation is a follow-the-dots exercise in coincidence and contrivance, like a gothic version of bad Agatha Christie.
Jupiter in person, was the incubus of Alcmena and Semele; Thetis in person, the succubus of Peleus, and Venus of Anchises, without having recourse to the various contrivances of our extraordinary demonism. A Philosophical Dictionary
Whereas once the texture of paint, the curve of line, the density of color was the meaning I gave to my life, I now see it all as an interruption of blank space, a contrivance of personality, an obscuration of peace. 4 o' clock
This investigation has shewn that three of the words applied to the preservation of books, namely, _nidus_, _forulus_, and _loculamentum_, may be rendered by the English "pigeon-hole"; and that _pegma_ and _pluteus_ mean contrivances of wood which may be rendered by the English "shelving. The Care of Books
Coincidence and contrivance have played a significant role in your work.
What I was principally leading to, was to tell you how ingenious I am in my contrivances and pretences to blind my gaoleress, and to take off the jealousy of her principals on my going down so often into the garden and poultry-yard. Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2
We seated ourselves some distance from a table on which was a huge, plain, oblong contrivance that reminded me of the diagram of a parallelopiped which had caused so much trouble in my solid geometry at college. The Silent Bullet
Although many connect the word with a quiet life of withdrawal, I need a word to designate those times when we sense that a life is being lived well, that a conviction is held honestly, without contrivance.
The life of this contrivance is short when used in open stopes, owing to the dangers of bombardment from blasting. Principles of Mining Valuation, Organization and Administration
It was a bunch of people who got together to try to nut out a problem, or to think about a problem, and I think to say what they came up with is a contrivance merely to serve the interests of organ donation is unfair.
One has waited in vain for a comparable exhibition there, only to be disappointed by a scattering of shallow displays, rich in contrivance and sparse in substance.
Without the stellar writing that fueled the books/radio show/etc., you're left with an empty shell of banal surreality, which is unforgivable given that this series has -- built right in -- the greatest plot contrivance in the history of storytelling: the Infinite Improbability Drive. May 2nd, 2005
Among the safety appliances which are to be found in the Mining Section of the Inventions Exhibition is a model of an ingenious contrivance for the prevention of overwinding, the joint patent of Mr. W.T. Lewis, Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885
Music with a tendency towards contrivance and lack of substance.
But possession breeds use as every apprentice office equipment salesman knows full well, and the contrivance that was unwanted yesterday becomes indispensable today.
A developmentally challenged Italian teenager goes to Berlin with the father he's never met (the film's sole contrivance - wouldn't his guardians come along?) for medical tests.
When interference is called for, if the callus is not yet firmly consolidated, it may be possible, under an anæsthetic, to bend the bone into position or to re-break it, either with the hands or by means of a strong mechanical contrivance known as an osteoclast. Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition.
Implements less developed belong to a separate order of sound-producing contrivances, namely plectra, and may be described as permitting strumming by striking in place of twanging or twitching the strings. The Violin Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators
Moreover, the English bathtub, then as now, was a puny and inconvenient contrivance — little more, in fact, than a glorified dishpan — and filling and emptying it required the attendance of a servant. Is H.L. Mencken Alive and Well at the NYT? « Isegoria
Unconventional contrivances and machina arcana include a range of desktop siege weapons including miniature trebuchets, ballistae, and mangonels.
By this contrivance the double ascidium assumes a terminal position. Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation
But ultimately all that action, superbly choreographed and balletic, is only a contrivance and nothing more.
They rarely consist of more than one or two hide-covered chairs, a rickety table, and two or three long benches placed against the wall, with a _tinaja_ or jar for water in the corner, and possibly a clay oven or rude contrivance for cooking under the back corridor. The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 33, July, 1860
his skillful contrivance of answers to every problem
To the extent that our present structures - while the product essentially of John Hume's contrivance - were put into place by Americans, I think it is proper that we Americans take another hit for this situation.
The paper was a will, or, as I heard long after, a thing called a codicil -- a contrivance what you add to a will. The Torch and Other Tales
Another visitor who arrived just before the Bigelow party took one look at the flimsy contrivance and declined to descend.
They have the stalk inserted in the middle of the blade, a contrivance produced by the connation of the two basal lobes. Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation
Also, I'm not trying to sound snooty or anything, but I have a graduate degree in playwriting, so I probably spend way too much time analyzing things like character, plot development, symbolism and other imagery, plot contrivances, etc., to the extent that I realize I probably attribute things to an author that even the author may not have intended. Sound Off: The Happening - What Did You Think? « FirstShowing.net
Its pulsing inventiveness charges the most absurd contrivances with life, just as opera should.
The next person that addressed himself to the chief was a gentleman of a very mathematical turn, who valued himself upon the improvements he had made in several domestic machines, and now presented the plan of a new contrivance for cutting cabbages, in such a manner as would secure the stock against the rotting rain, and enable it to produce a plenteous aftercrop of delicious sprouts. The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle
Lily and her younger, single sister, Judy, find themselves awkwardly back on equal footing, and, in the series' one contrivance, Lily's best friend, Naomi, also happens to be good friends with Karen.
A ridiculous series of plot contrivances moves the film along.
It is a giant, overwrought contrivance, a vehicle for communicating the filmmakers' murky and unappealing musings about society and human beings.
Remarkably, after so much contrivance, the overall esthetic is relaxed and spontaneous, largely because he intercedes with a few gestural strokes of white paint here and there to unify the varied linear elements and textures.
It seems a contrivance, a gimmick designed to get attention, which it does.
He begins with the Zen garden, ‘quintessentially a place for meditation, the perfect union of nature and contrivance’.
A master at work, he commands the screen with an effortless ease and a complete lack of artifice or contrivance.
Within its limits the image blends two main features of Darwin's world, its astonishingly evolved, beautiful, sexual and reproductive contrivances and its deathliness.
Our experience of the employment of electro-magnetism as a motory power is, however, too recent to enable us to foresee the ultimate results of contrivances to apply it; and, therefore, those who have devoted themselves to solve the problem of its application should not be discouraged, inasmuch as it would undoubtedly be a most important achievement to supersede the steam-engine, and thus escape the danger of railroads, even at double their expense. Familiar Letters on Chemistry
And, as an added insult, the resolution relies upon a difficult-to-swallow contrivance.
My logical brain oftentimes has a hard time accepting that, thus such contrivances (which suit the author in the storytelling but not me with immersion) tend to break the mood. REVIEW: Coraline by Neil Gaiman
A cheerful use of the needle is acquired in dressing these innocents; much thought, contrivance, arrangement, and prelusive affection are brought into play; and the natural avidity with which a little girl, left to her own choice, seizes, caresses, loves a doll, seems to indicate the suitableness of the amusement. Autobiography and Other Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert, Formerly Ann Taylor
This, perhaps, would have been nearly the state of the question, if nothing had been before us but an unorganized, unmechanized substance, without mark or indication of contrivance.
I have read somewhere, of the northern nations, wearing a contrivance of wood, to screen the sight, from the reflection of sunbeams from the snow, which, unobstructed, is injurious to the sight. Anecdotes and Observations, Reflections and Critical Remarks
Such tongue in cheek contrivances are, no doubt, designed to be appealing, yet they eventually serve to diminish the enjoyment of proceedings, and merely highlight the fact that the film is too long for its own good.
A ridiculous series of plot contrivances moves the film along.
It was an obvious contrivance and the previous nine episodes were a trap to lure us into another series. Times, Sunday Times
Curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth.
But nature, by means of a curious contrivance, has rendered it impossible for men to remain eternally apart.
A man who buys a television set thereby gives evidence to the effect that he thinks that the possession of this contrivance will increase his well-being and make him more content than he was without it.
Here the water of the Tigris is raised by a contrivance, which makes use of a high kind of derrick, leathern hose, and a rope which is pulled by a horse. The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10 Prince Otto Von Bismarck, Count Helmuth Von Moltke, Ferdinand Lassalle
It's a surprisingly open statement from a man with the mien of a detached observer, but the band were always about contradictions: irony and sincerity, artful contrivance and warmth, jittery neurosis and celebratory groove.
The minds which made the machines, which organized factories and solved the problems of supply and distribution - and did so under high competitive pressure - received an indelible training in practical contrivance.
But this exercise reeks of contrivance and even desperation.
The term 'robot' came into popular use after 1923 to delineate either mechanical contrivances so ingenious as to be almost human, or workers whom repetitive work was reducing to machines.
The contrivance is seen to hold a function, and it is recognized by its inherent design. Ambiguity Tolerance
While occasionally succumbing to contrivances, Hilary Brougher's second feature (her first is The Sticky Fingers of Time, an ultra-low budget sci-fier from 10 years ago) is all movie, but more intriguing is how it tells a distinctly (sometimes wrenching) feminine tale without making it only relative to Oprah watchers and talk-show bingers. GreenCine Daily: Weekend shorts.
Perhaps the idea of a self is a modern, bourgeois contrivance. Times, Sunday Times

How To Use Contrivance In A Sentence

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