Word Finder - wont

definition

One's habitual way of doing things; custom, habit, practice.

example

He awoke at the crack of dawn, as was his wont.

Having secretly become a Christian, Sebastian was wont to encourage those of his brethren who in the hour of trial seemed wavering in their profession.

The outside world was wont to regard him as a mystic; and the mystical, or sacramental, view of life enters, it is true, very largely into his teaching.

Vieta is wont to be called the father of modern algebra.

The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners with the strict formality of his house.

But that wont even compare with the thrill of running out on the Molineux turf wearing old gold and black.

The character of Arthur as a romantic hero is, in reality, very different from that which, mainly through the popularity of Tennyson's Idylls, English people are wont to suppose.

By them a written law has been substituted for that unwritten law which nations had been wont to construe with a latitude more or less corresponding to their power.

The clergy, now Roman officials, vested in the robes of the civil dignitaries, took their seats in the apse of the basilica where the magistrates were wont to sit, in front of them the holy table, facing the congregation.

These sudden appearances of vast bodies of lemmings, and their singular habit of persistently pursuing the same onward course of migration, have given rise to various speculations, from the ancient belief of the Norwegian peasants, shared by Olaus Magnus, that they fall down from the clouds, to the hypothesis that they are acting in obedience to an instinct inherited from ancient times, and still seeking the congenial home in the submerged Atlantis, to which their ancestors of the Miocene period were wont to resort when driven from their ordinary dwelling-places by crowding or scarcity of food.

In the time of Isaak Walton there stood by it a shady arbour to which the angler was wont to resort.

This, too, the Royal Horticultural Society was once wont to do, with valuable results, as in the case of David Douglas's remarkable expedition to North America in 1823-1824.

James had failed, practically, even in his effort (1427-1428) to anglicize parliament, by introducing the representative system; two " wise men " were to be chosen by each sheriffdom, and two Houses were to take the place of the one House in which all Estates were wont to meet.

For his tutor and guardian young Theseus had one Cannidas, to whom, down to Plutarch's time, the Athenians were wont to sacrifice a black ram on the eve of the festival of Theseus.

He painted with unceasing diligence, treating none but sacred subjects; he never retouched or altered his work, probably with a religious feeling that such as divine providence allowed the thing to come, such it should remain He was wont to say that he who illustrates the acts of Christ should be with Christ.

There are, moreover, numerous passages in the sacred books of the East, especially those of the Buddhists, which warn the student against the assumption that "magical" performances of any kind are to be regarded as proving the truth of the performer's teaching; and indeed it must be owned in justice to the theosophists that similar warnings are to be found scattered throughout their writings; while even Madame Blavatsky herself was wont to expatiate on the folly of accepting her "phenomena" as the mark of spiritual truth.

From remote antiquity Russian merchants were wont to meet in summer with those from the East at different places on the Volga, between the mouths of the Oka and the Kama - the fair changing its site with the increasing or decreasing power of the nationalities which struggled for the possession of the middle Volga.

On such matters as the compensation in cases of homicide, it is evident that there were no rules, but merely a feeling, created by use and wont, that the relatives of the slain man should be willing to accept payment.

But he is essentially modern in the vividness of his self-portraiture, and in what we are wont to call realism.

Mahmud appears to have been unable to effect the reforms he desired in the mode of educating his children, so that his son received no better education than that given, according to use and wont, to Turkish princes in the harem.

The ancient and the modern eras met together on the Capitol at Petrarch's coronation, and a new stadium for the human spirit, that which we are wont to style Renaissance, was opened.

Confucius was wont to say that he who was not acquainted with the Shih was not fit to be conversed with, and that the study of it would produce a mind without a single depraved thought.

These promises he observed more faithfully than Norman kings were wont to do; if the pledge was not redeemed in every detail, he yet kept England free from anarchy, abandoned the arbitrary and unjust taxation of his brother, and set up a government that worked by rule and order, not by the fits and starts of tyrannical caprice.

The landowners found thousands of the crofts on which their villeins had been wont to dwell vacant, and could not fill them with new tenants.

Up to this moment the civil war had been conducted like a great faction fight; the barons and their livened retainers had been wont to seek some convenient heath or hill and there to fight out their quarrel with the minimum of damage to the countryside.

For, in their joy at being quit of taxation, men forgot that they were losing the lever by which their fathers had been wont to move the crown to constitutional concessions.

In battle he was wont to bid his followers spare the commons in the pursuit, and to smite only the knights and nobles.

Previous to 1852, when they were forbidden by imperial decree, they were wont in winter to move south across the Russian frontiers.

Bishop Jon's Table-Talk (1325-1339) is also worth noticing; it contains many popular stories which the good bishop, who had studied at Bologna and Paris, was wont to tell to his friends.

Both chiefs and nobles were forced to respect the king's representative, but Bellingham was not wont to flatter those in power, and his administration found little favour in England.

Within this, it is said, Rashi was wont to teach.

When it is posited as we are wont to posit the things we see and taste and handle.

The most common and consistent tradition connects Homer with the valley of Smyrna and the banks of the Meles; his figure was one of the stock types on Smyrnaean coins, one class of which was called Homerian; the epithet "Melesigenes" was applied to him; the cave where he was wont to compose his poems was shown near the source of the river; his temple, the Homereum, stood on its banks.

This meaning of the word has now become fixed in the English language by use and wont.

Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, to- night he asked a boon.

But at various times of the year I'm wont to grow feverish.

Don't try to tape the eye straight after applying gel or drops as these make the eyelid greasy and the tape wont stick.

Im a very neutral person and no matter what comments are given it wont turn into an arguement, like the other griffin.

Without doing the assigned homework, they wont understand the subject properly and when it comes to exams their revision will suffer.

It wont take long however before it is joined by the others, and the display will carry on well into the autumn.

The vet still wont examine him without us giving a little dog sedative.

However if she hits a fence she has a major sulk & wont go within 10 yards of another fence.

Which is practically unheard of due to the fact that they wont have anything left to play for the encore.

My local butcher wont buy veal as it is being exported live to the EU and then imported as carcass.

Speeches of dying men are wont to be received with much veneration and reverence, especially the charge of dying friends.

Natalie is an amazing jazz vocalist - once you've heard her sing you wont forget her in a hurry!

At the lowest computation 37 genera seem to be peculiar to it, though it is certain that species of several are regularly wont to wander beyond its limits in winter seeking a southern climate.

Hitherto he had been wont to pose as a disbeliever in the German menace, and an advocate of reductions in British armaments.

But never content to sink into the mere trader, he sought to introduce among those he met on the "road" a higher tone of conversation than usually marks the commercial room, and there were many of his associates who, when he had attained eminence, recalled the discussions on political economy and kindred topics with which he was wont to enliven and elevate the travellers' table.

They averred that the sum and substance of their "fault" was that they had been accustomed to meet on a fixed day before daylight to sing in turns a hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by a solemn oath (sacramento) to abstain from theft or robbery, and from adultery, perjury and dishonesty; after which they were wont to separate and to meet again for a common meal.

He was wont to mention the following as the two incidents in his life which had afforded him the greatest pleasure, - that a stranger, whom he had met as a travelling companion in his youth, made to his declaration "I am Daniel Bernoulli" the incredulous and mocking reply, "And I am Isaac Newton"; and that, while entertaining Kdnig and other guests, he solved without rising from table a problem which that mathematician had submitted as difficult and lengthy.