to dispense with

• “He was accused of sometimes smiling during religious services no doubt during a reverie, of being a firm friend of that outrageous Hume, of not holding Sunday classes on Christian evidences, of petitioning the Senatus Academicus for permission to dispense with prayers on the opening of class, and of delivering prayers that smacked of a certain “natural religion.””

  Simon & Schuster: The Worldly Philosophers

• “Thence with Balty to Hales's by coach, it being the seventh day from my making my late oathes, and by them I am at liberty to dispense with any of my oathes every seventh day after I had for the six days before going performed all my vowes.”

  The Diary of Samuel Pepys, May/Jun 1666

• “One Sabbath, on account of the absence of the interpreter, the teacher was obliged to dispense with the usual exercises; he left, and Cingue assembled his companions and conducted the service himself.”

  A history of the Amistad captives : being a circumstantial account of the capture of the Spanish schooner Amistad, by the Africans on board; their voyage, and capture near Long Island, New York : with biographical sketches of each of the surviving Africans; also, an account of the trials had on their case, before the district and circuit courts of the United States, for the District of Connecticut

• “He would have preferred to dispense with one of his wives.”

  Fictionaut: Destiny Narrowly Avoided

• “I had just received a letter from Jack Kean—“a man with a mustache”—saying he would like to get together, and he urged me to dispense with my engagement.”

  Simon & Schuster: Kitchen Privileges

• “Later they are composed with the whole text, so as to dispense with searching for it; they have thus become Evangeliaria.”

  The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI

• “Mrs. Bradley, longing to dispense with some of the conversation and get to work, had a sudden uneasy recollection of an hour she had spent playing chess whilst Ulrica Doyle was supposed to be packing a suitcase.”

  St Peter's Finger

• “If courtesy to Caesar, if provinces given up here and there to Antonys and Metelluses, if flattery lavished on Pompey could avail anything, he could not afford to dispense with such aids.”

  The Life of Cicero

• “It is then mere superstition; 98 and, in view of the danger of this degeneracy, many robust minds, such as the members of the Society of Friends, prefer to dispense with its aid altogether.”

  Bygone Beliefs

• “Caddell objected that one of our common clients, Steve Pajcic, who was running for governor in Florida, was his friend and might want to dispense with us.”

  Simon & Schuster: No Excuses

Show 10 more examples...