This time I smiled in good earnest at his fantastic fashion of self-introduction, observing which the blue gentleman swayed me backwards and forwards several times with his right hand, and I felt that if I had been an oak of the forest he would have swayed me just as easily, while he said with a kind of approbative chuckle: 'That's right -- a very good lad; that's right -- a very smart lad.' ❋ Unknown (1898)
These terms are neither approbative nor disapprobative in themselves. ❋ Unknown (2009)
A more concise, equally accurate but less approbative way of putting this would be simply that he "smokes." ❋ Unknown (2009)
Will he strike his ebony wood staff angrily on the floor, frightening him by the incoherent violence of his exclamations; or will he squat down with a good-humoured smile, and, rubbing his hands gently over his stomach with a familiar gesture, expectorate copiously into the brass siri-vessel, giving vent to a low, approbative murmur? ❋ Unknown (2006)
And the approbative shouts of his half-intoxicated auditors filled his simple soul with delight and pride. ❋ Unknown (2006)
The new president of the university arose and eyed him with a peculiarly approbative and grateful gaze. ❋ Unknown (2004)
If the first, then they cannot intend any but those moral powers who are said to be of God, in respect of his approbative and preceptive will. ❋ The Reformed Presbytery (N/A)
God is to be overthrown, then providence must be expressive of God's approbative ordination, equally as his revealed will is. ❋ The Reformed Presbytery (N/A)
Never had he been more critical, more approbative. ❋ James De Mille (N/A)
My present had the usual effect; Pompey became approbative and talkative: ❋ Various (N/A)
If then this distinction is denied, and the providential will of God asserted to be declarative of his preceptive, and so of his approbative will; it remains to be manifested, where and how it has been appointed of God for such an end, an end that is by the Spirit of God denied unto it: _Eccl. _ ix, 1, 2, 4. ❋ The Reformed Presbytery (N/A)
If otherwise, it is vaguely approbative, with the implication, as to the work approved, of some pleasing archæological reconstruction. ❋ Thomas Stearns (1920)
Raymer watched her as she drove away, noted her skilful handling of the fiery Kentuckian and her straight seat in the flying cutter, and the smile which a day or two earlier might have been mildly satirical was now openly approbative. ❋ Francis Lynde (1893)
Had one been able to explode a ton of dynamite when Mr. Fischer ended it would have been accepted by the audience as not more than a fitting amount of approbative noise. ❋ Henry Edward Krehbiel (1888)
South, native or foreign-born, are not responsible for the perils which are now threatening the work that has once received the approbative fiat, 'It is finished!' ❋ Unknown (1879)
Mathias is dominated by paternal love and characterised by a half-defiant, ever-vigilant, and often self-approbative pride of intellect, in being able to guard and keep a terrible and dangerous secret. ❋ William Winter (1876)
Now every instinct-impulse is either positive or negative, hence conscience is either approbative or disapprobative; as disapprobative it is religious aversion, — an instinctive impulse toward the counterworking of the sin (hence stings of conscience); as approbative it is the religious appetite. ❋ 1819-1870 (1873)