How To Use Torpid In A Sentence

One of the "brightest minds" in his class, he was one of the laziest; one of the quickest and most agile when aroused, he was one of the torpids as a rule: One of the kind who should have "gone in for honors," as the faculty said, he came nearer going out for devilment. Found in the Philippines The Story of a Woman's Letters
It was an impressive performance, especially when its two largest components, Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland, both had a torpid year. The performance put the Irish market ahead of many of its peers.
That activity has sent a formerly torpid property market soaring, with office rents, according to one study, more than doubling from 1996 to mid-1999.
It spends most of its life buried deep in the soil in a shriveled, torpid state.
a mind grown torpid in old age

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He was aswim in darkness, a thick, torpid presence that pressed up against him, obstructing sight and sound. Masked
This was a useful camouflage, as they were both cool, torpid, and temporarily unable to fly after their probably nightlong tryst.
He led a strange torpid life in the week, doing nothing in the kitchen of the rectory, in a state of great sordidness. TESTIMONIES
In front of him the torpid lizards stirred in their cage on the picture box.
We fade, lose heart, become torpid, languish, then the sap rises again, and we are passionate.
In that case the link in catenation, that is, the first of the associate train, is rendered torpid by defect of excitement of its usual quantity of the sensorial power of association, and from there being no accumulation of the sensorial power of irritation to increase its associability, and thus to contribute to actuate it by overbalancing the defect of the excitement of its association. Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life
He makes a hummingbird look positively torpid.
David, perhaps you could say more about this than I can, but I think in the most extreme case it leads to the animal becoming completely torpid.
With its obvious punk references - London Calling is the name of a famous Clash song - the piece situates itself within the groundswell of populist resentment that is currently challenging the torpid inertia of the times.
The occurrence of torpor varied with both season and sex: it was observed only in breeding season birds, and only female todies became torpid.
The Academy Awards ceremony this year was a largely boring and torpid affair, dominated by the deeply misguided self-satisfaction of nearly all involved.
If you really do not want a clutch pedal, there is no better transmission than this: none of the surge-pause-jerk of a regular robotised manual such as Alfa Romeo's Selespeed, none of the stodge and torpidity a regular automatic can suffer.
When he was home he resisted the armchair and the torpid brooding. THE INNOCENT
Dead moths had been glued to tree trunks, or moths released in desired positions during daylight, when they are torpid and remain where they land.
Joe's journey, configured as an immersion into the blues, the heart of jazz, manifests itself as a depression, solitary and torpid, a metaphorical cave within which he has interred himself.
But the comedy is slack, the song lyrics feeble, the pace torpid.
The difference between scrophulous tumours, and those before described, consists in this; that in those either glands of different kinds were diseased, or the mouths only of the lymphatic glands were become torpid; whereas in scrophula the conglobate glands themselves become tumid, and generally suppurate after a great length of time, when they acquire new sensibility. Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life
Didn't you see him on the bank when you torpids made your bump the other night? Tom Brown at Oxford
All the members called him Sloth, which perfectly reflected his sluggish and torpid personality.
Several nights and hours of the same, torpid information pouring out of tired talking teacher types did not suggest deep emotional or entertainment value.
His stolid instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests revolt against the ruler: his mental torpidity, founded upon physical indolence, renders immediate action and all manner of exertion distasteful: his conscious weakness shows itself in overweening arrogance and intolerance. The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night
The fire of course revives the torpid scorpion, which then menaces Margaret but is eventually subdued when they manage to throw it into a pot of boiling water.
They may survive the winter, when fewer insects are available, by becoming torpid.
At its first appearance it was warmly praised, in the Champion, probably either by Fielding, or by Ralph, who succeeded to him in a share of that paper; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, when it came into his hand, found his attention so powerfully arrested, that he read it through without changing his posture, as he perceived by the torpidness of one of his arms that had rested on a chimney-piece by which he was standing. Lives of the English Poets
It spends most of its life buried deep in the soil in a shriveled, torpid state.
Etymology: Latin exstirpatus, past participle of exstirpare, from ex - + stirp -, stirps trunk, root -- more at TORPID What we can get in Mexico
As the discerning stare of the procuress suggests, the eagerness of the suitor is by no means matched by his torpid purchase.
We heard of the snakes of Australia, which workmen dug up in torpid writhing knots, in the cold weather ... of native corrobories which one old informant told us he had often attended, where he procured native women or "gins" as they called them, for a mere drink of whiskey or gin Tramping on Life An Autobiographical Narrative
Hence the stomach continues torpid in respect to its motions, but accumulates its power of association; which is not excited into action by the defective motions of the spleen; this accumulation of the sensorial power of association now by its superabundance actuates the next link of associate motions, which consists of the heart and arteries, into greater energy of action than natural, and thus causes fever with strong pulse; which, as it was supposed to be most frequently excited by increase of irritation, is called irritative fever or synocha. Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life
Here, even the air was torpid, heavy with sediment, thickened with sludge. THE CALLIGRAPHER
His feeding frenzy exhausted, he was torpid, unable to pay attention to the rat in her maze.
In the evening, if you stand on the Roman bridge, you can watch men wading the torpid cressy river, carrying pans.
Despite the enthusiastic overtures which the dawn of a new season brings, Clark admits he will quickly lose his appetite if matches descend into torpidity.
If you have a sudden loss of cabin pressure at 20 000 feet, passengers will become torpid and then lose consciousness.
Strangely torpid, Gubby lay in Trudi's arms, his laughter gone. RUSHING TO PARADISE
The night had been cool and comfortable, dry and dewless; but the Shaykhs were torpid after the feast, and the escort and quarrymen had been demoralized by a week of sweet The Land of Midian
Sometimes the stomach is torpid along with the pained membrane of the head; and then sickness and inappetency attends either as a cause or consequence. Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life
No 'jargon ridden pleonasm' here, as Martin's friend Evan might observe, and no turgid torpidity either. WalesOnline - Home
If, two thousand years ago, we had been permitted to watch the slow settling of the slime of those turbid rivers into the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we have understood the purpose with which those islands were shaped out of the void, and the torpid waters enclosed with their desolate walls of sand! The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 04
But watching this torpid, listless movie is like Scuba-diving in treacle.
the fervent heat...merely communicated a genial warmth to their half-torpid systems
The torpidity of this sick animated humaness is a figuration of the total energic flow of this world-body in which life-and-death are its metabolic (anabolic and katabolic) currents.
I replied, "Such disclosures and revelation are not granted from heaven; since in proportion as a man knows things to come, in the same proportion his reason and understanding, together with his wisdom and prudence, fall into an indolence of inexertion, grow torpid, and decay. The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love
Not precisely a joyless life nor a life lived in negation of God; only a torpid, base life of mostly unmurmuring content, unfit in the main for such a being as man in such a world as this.
At the moment the wound is purulent, the infection is torpid and the flesh around the wound is gangrenous. Work Camp 10049 GW
It is hard to avoid the impression that his torpid pace was deliberate, and that he was interested in tiring his sitters so that he could record their fatigue and psychological distress.
The snake could have been in a torpid state and just revived in the parking lot. THE SECRET OF THE FORGOTTEN CITY
In under 30 minutes, we get a novel's worth of detail about her life: her beloved but torpid husband, her ability to compartmentalize infidelity, the long shadow her father casts.
So, too, I said I would treat a negative disease, such as amaurosis or torpidity of liver, with the negative pole, placing the positive pole on either some healthy or morbidly positive part. A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication
If you have a sudden loss of cabin pressure at 20 000 feet, passengers will become torpid and then lose consciousness.
The naturalist says they are mostly torpid; yet evidently that little pocket-faced depredator, the chipmunk, was not carrying buckwheat for so many days to his hole for nothing; -- was he anticipating a state of torpidity, or the demands of a very active appetite? The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866
Brain waves, absent when the animal is deeply torpid, return spontaneously.
My thesaurus lists all these unattractive equivalents: indolent, somnolent, lumpish, torpid, lax, good-for-nothing… and so on.
The snake could have been in a torpid state and just revived in the parking lot. THE SECRET OF THE FORGOTTEN CITY
During torpids once a boat has bumped another they must stop racing (as you can bump only one boat per round).
Yet the field of Italian economic history is anything but torpid.
And during the middle of winter when they meant to be torpid or hibernating, if they're woken up it can cause them basically to starve to death, because they burn up all their energy stores.
There is no better transmission than this: none of the surge-pause-jerk of a regular robotised manual, none of the stodge and torpidity a regular automatic can suffer.
The secret pride of our heroine and every gentler feeling of her bosom were roused from their recent state of torpidness by the idea that the very appearance she wished on all occasions to avoid, had now become so conspicuous, as to require the encouraging support of the individual from whose observation it particularly behoved her to conceal every reprehensible bias in his favour, or every circumstance that even bore the semblance of such Stella of the North, or the Foundling of the Ship
The cloathing about the head should be warmer during sleep than in the day; because at that time people are more liable to take cold; that is, the membranous parts of it are more liable to become torpid. Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life
Such is the oscitancy of man, that he lies torpid for ages under these aggressions, until, at last, some signal abusethe violation of Lucrece, the death of Virginia, the oppression of William Tellshakes him from his slumber. II. At the Prosecution of Johnson for Libel
A black sky stretched out above me and cold stars gazed down with torpid light that dulled and burned a stark yellow.
His now torpid brain couldn't remember his former master well, but he knew enough to recognize him as the cause of his current level of frustration and pain.
If you have a sudden loss of cabin pressure at 20 000 feet, passengers will become torpid and then lose consciousness.
Sheep were torpid, and even with binoculars, there wasn't a walker moving anywhere.
Does a bookseller misdirect a parcel, he exclaims, 'My malison on all Blockheadisms and Torpid Infidelities of which this world is full.' Obiter Dicta
Their lives are an endless chain of moments of torpidity, but the pain of these soulless beings is so visibly real it is impossible to be bored.
Whatever it is, they like it that way, and bleary-eyed and torpid they fin, in just enough slow motion to keep themselves in accurate alignment.
The history of the Bank provides ample testimony to its propensity for torpidity.
An all pervasive sense of intolerable torpidity hangs heavy in the air.
Strangely torpid, Gubby lay in Trudi's arms, his laughter gone. RUSHING TO PARADISE
I know I'm handsome, but that is no reason for you to stand there in torpidity.
If, after your frustrating rush-hour road-rage journey to the gym, you're still a bit torpid, keep your wits by reminding yourself that it's all in your mind.
If you have a sudden loss of cabin pressure at 20 000 feet, passengers will become torpid and then lose consciousness.
The clergy here are, it may be said, admirable, composed of good and saintly priests; but they vegetate, torpid with inaction; they neither read nor work; their joints become ankylose; they die of weariness in this provincial spot. The Cathedral
The writing is torpid, the characters unfocused, the situations barely credible.
One day I saw a striped snake run into the water and he lay on the bottom more than a quarter of an hour, perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state.
Above me, far out from the cliff, a wide-winged Thomas Hawk circles above the lagoon on rising thermals and scans the shifting bluekelp beds with its infrared vision, seeking out harpseals or torpids. Prayers To Broken Stones
When he was home he resisted the armchair and the torpid brooding. THE INNOCENT
The occurrence of torpor varied with both season and sex: it was observed only in breeding season birds, and only female todies became torpid.
Was it as painful an effort to Hardy, he wondered, as to him to go on speaking, as if nothing had happened, when they met at the boats, as they did now again almost daily (for Diogenes was bent on training some of the torpids for next year), and yet never to look one another in the face; to live together as usual during part of every day, and yet to feel all the time that a great wall had risen between them, more hopelessly dividing them for the time than thousands of miles of ocean or continent? Tom Brown at Oxford
It's about two estranged college band members (one of whom is supposedly dead) dealing with the rigours of their torpid adult existence.
Only Tony shared the experience of finding a large and torpid shark in 17m in the lee of Portland Bill some 15 years ago, but without him to remind me, I might well have forgotten all about it.
I doubt if I ever told you that in the old days, when experimenting with the animals, I found that my will -- or brain-power, if you prefer the term -- worked torpidly for a while after meals, although, as you know, I was never what they call a hearty feeder. Foe-Farrell
My thesaurus lists all these unattractive equivalents indolent, somnolent, lumpish, torpid, slack, lax, good-for-nothing… and so on.
-- To what cause are we to impute this frigid silence -- this torpid indifference -- this cold inanimated conduct of the otherwise warm and generous Americans? The Journal of Negro History, Volume 1, January 1916
It is no easy matter to get a crew to back her an inch just now, particularly as there are in her two men who have never rowed a race before, except in the torpids, and one who has never rowed a race in his life. The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book
Sweeping lawsuits like the ones brought by Lowry have long been a favorite tool for shaking up torpid child welfare bureaucracies.
It spends most of its life buried deep in the soil in a shriveled, torpid state.
Imagine one of these torpid reptiles trying to hide its awkward shell from a school of minnows: The turtle crouches warily behind a tuft of vegetation.
The torpids, being filled with the refuse of the rowing men -- generally awkward or very young oarsmen -- find some difficulty in the act of tossing -- no safe operation for an unsteady crew. Tom Brown at Oxford
Energy requirements when euthermic and torpid, as well as the frequency of arousals, vary strongly with ambient temperature.
The ability of the egg to survive with suspended incubation and for the chick to become torpid are important for survival, since the adults spend a lot of time away from the nest looking for food that can be hard to find.
torpid frogs
Later on, the caffeine seems to wear off, and torpid ballads take over as the singer ventures repeatedly into a strained falsetto.
We fade, lose heart, become torpid, languish, then the sap rises again, and we are passionate.
All the members called him Sloth, which perfectly reflected his sluggish and torpid personality.
Here, even the air was torpid, heavy with sediment, thickened with sludge. THE CALLIGRAPHER
Its authors have discovered that the "rectal nerve-tissues" are hungry, torpid, anemic, and to overcome the "atony" they must be "_Fed! Intestinal Ills Chronic Constipation, Indigestion, Autogenetic Poisons, Diarrhea, Piles, Etc. Also Auto-Infection, Auto-Intoxication, Anemia, Emaciation, Etc. Due to Proctitis and Colitis
Nearing Chinnavaikal, we see two cows on the shore, one lying torpid in the sun, one nosing around desultorily.
The common Greek tortoise, hawked on barrows about the streets of London and bought by a confiding British public under the mistaken impression that its chief fare consists of slugs and cockroaches (it is really far more likely to feed upon its purchaser's choicest seakale and asparagus), buries itself in the ground at the first approach of winter, and snoozes away five months of the year in a most comfortable and dignified torpidity. Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
Dogfish resting on the rocks are surprisingly alert, twitching away almost as soon as we notice them, with none of their usual torpid behaviour.
Then the boats passed up one by one; and, as each came opposite to the St. Ambrose boat, the crews tossed their oars and cheered, and the St. Ambrose crew tossed their oars and cheered in return; and the whole ceremony went off in triumph, notwithstanding the casualty which occurred to one of the torpids. Tom Brown at Oxford
And so, with ‘You and I’, ends a torpid album, that at times reminds me of nothing so much as an extended Monty Python skit.
He's big and torpid in red flannel, red spiderlines diffracted across his nose and cheeks. Be My Huckleberry
I should write about what I've seen: expensive women in summer pearls, their blonde faces tanned the shade of their husbands' Church-brand shoes; lacquered restaurants where men, even in this torpid weather, wear black tie and prissily fold their hands so they won't spill their drinks; and in the neatly gardened streets of quiet clapboard houses, rabbits nibbling by moonlight, their usual terror muted by the town's mock-innocence. New Jersey Moon

How To Use Torpid In A Sentence

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