Literary notes about Successive (AI summary)
The word “successive” is employed in literature to evoke a sense of ordered progression or repeated sequence across time, events, and processes. Authors have used it to convey consecutive occurrences in various contexts—from historical episodes and military maneuvers, as seen in successive charges in battle ([1], [2]), to natural and geological sequences, such as layers of rock formation and evolutionary generations ([3], [4], [5]). It also describes ongoing periods in everyday or statistical events, like repeated daily routines ([6]) or sequential random draws ([7]), while in academic and descriptive works it can denote ordered lists, as in the progressive cataloging of teachers ([8]). Thus, “successive” effectively underscores the continuity or accumulation of elements, whether they be moments in time, artistic expressions, or scientific phenomena.
- During that time six successive charges were made, which were six times gallantly repulsed, each time with fearful loss to the enemy.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - These successive contractions of the enemy's line encouraged us and discouraged him, but were doubtless justified by sound reasons.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. Sherman - The horizontal lines may represent successive geological formations, and all the forms beneath the uppermost line may be considered as extinct.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Lake Ontario's ancient floor here lifted up high and dry in the air, exhibits, stratum super stratum, the deposits of successive periods long ago.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - So it is with hybrids, for their offspring in successive generations are eminently liable to vary, as every experimentalist has observed.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier every successive day of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise?
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau - If among 90 numbers the number 27 has not turned up for a long time its appearance becomes more probable with every successive drawing.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - To each of these parts (as well as to Book x. of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa ) a successive list ( vaṃça ) of teachers is attached.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell