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Block   Listen
noun
Block  n.  
1.
A piece of wood more or less bulky; a solid mass of wood, stone, etc., usually with one or more plane, or approximately plane, faces; as, a block on which a butcher chops his meat; a block by which to mount a horse; children's playing blocks, etc. "Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning." "All her labor was but as a block Left in the quarry."
2.
The solid piece of wood on which condemned persons lay their necks when they are beheaded. "Noble heads which have been brought to the block."
3.
The wooden mold on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped. Hence: The pattern or shape of a hat. "He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block."
4.
A large or long building divided into separate houses or shops, or a number of houses or shops built in contact with each other so as to form one building; a row of houses or shops.
5.
A square, or portion of a city inclosed by streets, whether occupied by buildings or not. "The new city was laid out in rectangular blocks, each block containing thirty building lots. Such an average block, comprising 282 houses and covering nine acres of ground, exists in Oxford Street."
6.
A grooved pulley or sheave incased in a frame or shell which is provided with a hook, eye, or strap, by which it may be attached to an object. It is used to change the direction of motion, as in raising a heavy object that can not be conveniently reached, and also, when two or more such sheaves are compounded, to change the rate of motion, or to exert increased force; used especially in the rigging of ships, and in tackles.
7.
(Falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.
8.
Any obstruction, or cause of obstruction; a stop; a hindrance; an obstacle; also called blockage; as, a block in the way; a block in an artery; a block in a nerve; a block in a biochemical pathway.
9.
A piece of box or other wood for engravers' work.
10.
(Print.) A piece of hard wood (as mahogany or cherry) on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted to make it type high.
11.
A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt. (Obs.) "What a block art thou!"
12.
A section of a railroad where the block system is used. See Block system, below.
13.
In Australia, one of the large lots into which public land, when opened to settlers, is divided by the government surveyors.
14.
(Cricket)
(a)
The position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.
(b)
A block hole.
(c)
The popping crease. (R.)
15.
A number of individual items sold as a unit; as, a block of airline ticketes; a block of hotel rooms; a block of stock.
16.
The length of one side of a city block (5), traversed along any side; as, to walk three blocks ahead and turn left at the corner.
17.
A halt in a mental process, especially one due to stress, memory lapse, confusion, etc.; as, a writer's block; to have a block in remembering a name.
18.
(computers) A quantity of binary-encoded information transferred, or stored, as a unit to, from, or on a data storage device; as, to divide a disk into 512-byte blocks.
19.
(computers) A number of locations in a random-access memory allocated to storage of specific data; as, to allocate a block of 1024 bytes for the stack.
A block of shares (Stock Exchange), a large number of shares in a stock company, sold in a lump.
Block printing.
(a)
A mode of printing (common in China and Japan) from engraved boards by means of a sheet of paper laid on the linked surface and rubbed with a brush.
(b)
A method of printing cotton cloth and paper hangings with colors, by pressing them upon an engraved surface coated with coloring matter.
Block system on railways, a system by which the track is divided into sections of three or four miles, and trains are so run by the guidance of electric signals that no train enters a section or block before the preceding train has left it.
Back blocks, Australian pastoral country which is remote from the seacoast or from a river.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Block" Quotes from Famous Books



... only it shows how, as my poor father had nothing else to love, he loved me with the full tenderness of a most affectionate nature. He was a clergyman too, and a firm royalist; one of those devoted royalists, as regarded both God and king, who would submit, for their sakes, to the stake or the block with rapture at being thought worthy to make the sacrifice. Well, I was wild and wilful, and even then would rather steal a thing than gain it by lawful means: not that I would have stolen aught to keep it, for I was generous enough; but I loved the danger and excitement of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... youths liberty and honor if they would swear allegiance to himself. They refused peremptorily; and with a refinement of cruelty more like Richard of Gloucester than himself, Edward ordered one to the block, the other to perpetual imprisonment. They drew lots, and Edwin Stanley perished. Arthur, after an interval, succeeded in effecting his escape, and fled from England, lingered in Provence a few months, and then ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... ascending again to the hospice of Montanvert, I sat down by the side of Franz upon a block of granite, and looked again upon a scene the equal of which I never expect to see again. There was a far away look in Franz's eyes. Was he thinking of the little cottage far up the mountain, and of Annette watching by the bedside of his sick father? Perhaps so; in any case I was ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society

... scientific journal does not contain the ultimate results of the archaeologist's researches. It contains the researches themselves. The public, so to speak, has been listening to the pianist playing his morning scales, has been watching the artist mixing his colours, has been examining the unshaped block of marble and the chisels in the sculptor's studio. It must be confessed, of course, that the archaeologist has so enjoyed his researches that often the ultimate result has been overlooked by him. In the case ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... Dunois kept up their spirits with the expectation of this marvellous assistance. It was decided that the king should receive her. She had assigned to her for residence an apartment in the tower of the Coudray, a block of quarters adjoining the royal mansion, and she was committed to the charge of William Bellier, an officer of the king's household, whose wife was a woman of great piety and excellent fame. On the 9th of March, 1429, Joan was at last introduced into the king's ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... passages, low, narrow, reeking with a musty odor that nauseated the Judge; on narrow ledges where they had to hug the walls to keep from falling, and then into an open court with a stone floor, stained dark, in the center a huge oblong block of stone, surmounting a pyramid, appalling ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... great war, and was then much with an American friend—a very clever lawyer named George Bemis—whom I came to know very well at Rome.... I was myself a decided Northerner, but the 'right of revolution' was always rather a stumbling block." Talking with Mr. Lecky in 1895, not long after the judgment of the United States Supreme Court that the income tax was unconstitutional, he expressed the opinion that it was a grand decision, evidencing a high respect for private property, but in ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... external influence, to sensations. The monad has no windows. It bears germinally in itself all that it is to experience, and nothing is impressed on it from without. The intellect should not be compared to a blank tablet, but to a block of marble in whose veins the outlines of the statue are prefigured. Ideas can only arise from ideas, never from external impressions or movements of corporeal parts. Thus all ideas are innate ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... proud moments in Josiah's life, and yet when back of him he heard a whisper, "Chip of the old block," he couldn't repress the well nigh passionate yearning, "Oh, Lord, if she ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... of the Anti-Libanus, a quarter of an hour's walk from the town, to the south is a quarry, where the places are still visible from whence several of the large stones in the south wall of the castle were extracted; one large block is yet remaining, cut on three sides, ready to be transported to the building, but it must be done by other hands than those of the Metaweli. Two other blocks, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... Dealer has the other suits stopped but has not the Ace of Clubs, he can easily decide whether to go to two No-trumps, as he can estimate from the length of his Club holding whether he can establish the long Clubs or the adverse Ace will block the suit. When the latter is the case, he should not bid two No-trumps unless his own hand justify it, as the Third Hand has announced the ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... get solid particles, then spaces, and then solid particles, and spaces again, corresponding through all the bodies; whereas in the normal condition the bodies do not match in that way, and the spaces of one come against the solid parts of the other, and so you get a block. When sounds are used, the mystical sounds called mantras in Hinduism, the effect of those is to change the bodies from this condition to that, and so the forces from without can come into the man, and the forces in him may flow out to others. That is the value of it. You ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... to fifteen, with the average run of players. Oh, by the way, one more thing. That lead block up there—" The man motioned with his head toward a one-foot cube suspended by a thick cable. "It's rigged to drop every now and again. Averages five minutes. A warning light flashes first. You can take a chance; sometimes ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer

... the doctor, stopping at the third door in a block of factory houses, "and it's a sister-in-law of hers who wants to 'hire out.' I've a patient in the next row, and if you like, I'll leave you here a ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... career he discovered the true balance between singers and orchestra, and at once took his proper place among the great musicians of the world. Special attention must be directed to Verdi's use of local colour in 'Aida.' This is often a dangerous stumbling-block to musicians, but Verdi triumphed most where all the world had failed. In the scene of the consecration of Radames, he employs two genuine Oriental tunes with such consummate art that this scene is not only ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... order to delay its construction and prevent it becoming a rival to their own northerly route. Sir George Cartier, too, powerful in the Cabinet and salaried solicitor of the Grand Trunk, was a stumbling-block; he declared himself emphatically opposed to control by any 'sacree compagnie americaine.' But Sir Hugh, believing much in money and little in men, resolved to buy his way through. He soon started a backfire in Quebec ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... and was instantly whirled off with her label in her hand, to the dispensary. I could imagine that to the last day of her life, the old lady would talk of her interview with Cullingworth; and I could well understand how the village from which she came would send fresh recruits to block up ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... up our millions on the cowpath? I guess not. Do we erect our most princely business houses along the roads laid out by our bovine sister? I think not. Does the man who goes from the towpath to the White House take the short cut? I fancy not. He goes over the block pavement. He seeks the home of the noisy, clattering street before he lands in the shoes of Washington. The man who sticks to the cowpath may be able to drink milk, but ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs

... said to the executioner, "Is my hair well?" and took off his cloak and his George, giving his George to the Bishop, saying, "Remember." Then he put off his doublet, and being in his waistcoat, he put on his cloak again; then looking upon the block, he said to the executioner, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various

... He could hardly help it, for there was not another pedestrian in sight upon the whole length of the block, and the March sunshine was full upon her. As the car came on the girl who walked sedately to meet it found that her pulses had somehow curiously accelerated. So this was the route he took, not to ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... and winked solemnly, but did not move. His Mother instantly collared Pierre, and led him up a side street just in time to escape the clutches of a German officer who had seen him a block away, and came on the run after him. When, puffing and blowing, he at last reached the shop there was no one in sight except Madame Coudert behind her counter. The enraged officer pointed out the insult that ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... Newcastle in May 1878. He was so large that the window of the room in which the deceased lay and the brick-work to the level of the floor had to be taken out, in order that the coffin might be lowered with block and tackle three stories to the ground. On January 27, 1887, a Greek, although a Turkish subject, recently died of phthisis in Simferopol. He was 7 feet 8 inches in height and slept on three beds ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... undoubtedly possessed, held certain rigid and unwavering opinions. They were a part of her; without them she would not have been Marion—the Marion Philippa loved—and it was just her perfectly sane, normal outlook on life which made the stumbling-block, for it was not easy to her to take another person's point of view, or look, as it were, through ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... want," he said, fixing a rope to the severed rigging and going aloft with it. Having passed it through a block he told them to haul away. When the upper end had reached the masthead he lashed it there as ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston

... he had set up his fortunes in New York,) and sundry bright-eyed damsels of my acquaintance, were invited, and came accompanied by their sturdy parents. The last jar of jam and applesauce was stormed, the two fattest pullets in the yard brought to the block, choice mince and pumpkin pies were propounded, three dollars were expended upon a citron cake such as Cape Cod had never seen before, and no less than a dozen bottles of Captain Zeke Brewster's double ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... little afterwards, at the request of the Cardinal de San Dionigi (called the Cardinal Rovano), he carved from a block of marble that marvellous statue of our Lady, which is now in the church of the Madonna della Febbre;(27) although at first it was placed in the chapel of the King of France in the Church of Santa Petronilla, near to the Sacristy ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... added to the safety of the trains, but there should be a block system added to the stomachs of the dispatchers and all whose duties are so grave as the handling of human freight. There is no division so long that it cannot be doubled with less fatigue and better mental condition if the stomach be not on duty at the same time. In this I speak with the authority ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... music of the big band; her feet burned to dance; her waist ached for the sash of a manly arm. She knew that she could dance better than some of those stodgy old men and block-bodied old women. But she had no clothes ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... bade him; he set the chopping-block in front of the fire, and on it he laid the loin of a sheep, the loin also of a goat, and the chine of a fat hog. Automedon held the meat while Achilles chopped it; he then sliced the pieces and put them on spits while the son of Menoetius made the fire burn high. When the flame had died down, he ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... it do thee? In the evening wilt thou have me again: in thine own cave will I sit, patient and heavy like a block—and wait for thee!" ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... thus set herself forth as the depository and arbiter of knowledge; she was ever ready to resort to the civil power to compel obedience to her decisions. She thus took a course which determined her whole future career: she became a stumbling-block in the intellectual advancement of Europe for ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... and particularly France as she was previous to 1789, the contrast is striking.—Everywhere else the social edifice is a composition of many distinct structures—provinces, cities, seignories, churches, universities, and corporations. Each has begun by being a more or less isolated block of buildings where, on an enclosed area, a population has lived apart. Little by little the barriers have given way; either they have been broken in or have tumbled down of their own accord; passages have been made between one and the other and new additions have been put up; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... to his shoulder as he spoke, his brother and comrade did the same; a triple report followed, and the three heavy balls, aimed with deadly precision, struck a great block of red stone behind which the lion ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... in such a sea? What vessel bear the shock? "Ho! starboard port your helm-a-lee! Ho! reef the maintop-gallant-tree, With many a running block!" ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... melancholy, he retraced his steps, and seizing a cleaver (dreadful weapon!) vented his suicidal humour in chopping, with malignant fury, at his own block! ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... can I? I can't put up three thousand dollars in cash, and he says he won't take a check for fear I'll stop payment. I see his game, but I don't see how to block it." ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... Allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of the same Instance to illustrate the Force of Education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his Doctrine of Substantial Forms, when he tells us that a Statue lies hid in a Block of Marble; and that the Art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous Matter, and removes the Rubbish. The Figure is in the Stone, the Sculptor only finds it. What Sculpture is to a Block of Marble, Education is to a Human ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... is an inn called The Hunter's Lodge (more recently The Hare and Hounds), and opposite the house is a block of stone, over which hovers a gruesome mystery. It is said that in the dead of night the stone used to stir in its place, and roll heavily down into the valley, to drink at the source of the Sid, and, some say, to try to wash away its stain. Human blood has given it this power—the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... and dandles him as a mother her babe. This is a terrible temptation to put in the way of an historian, and few there be who are found able to resist it. How easy to keep back an ugly fact, sure to be a stumbling-block in the way of weak brethren! Carlyle is above suspicion in this respect. He knows no reticence. Nothing restrains him; not even the so-called proprieties of history. He may, after his boisterous fashion, pour scorn upon you for looking ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... of pipes—those known as Winchester pipes were highly popular—with maple blocks for cutting or shredding the tobacco upon, juniper wood charcoal fires, and silver tongs with which the hot charcoal could be lifted to light the customer's pipe. The maple block was in constant use in those days, when the many present forms of prepared tobacco and varied mixtures were unknown. In Middleton and Dekker's "Roaring Girl," 1611, the "mincing and shredding of tobacco" is mentioned; ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... be made in the following manner: Get the local monumental mason to supply you with two slabs of granite measuring about six feet by two feet and weighing about seven hundredweight each. Place the trousers on top of one block of granite, place the other block on top of the trousers and secure with a couple of book-straps. Finish off ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various

... running E. from the church is Gurney Street Farm, an old manor-house. It has a small chapel, with piscina, aumbry, niches, and carved roof; above is a chamber (probably for the priest), reached by stairs, each of which consists of a single block of oak, while behind is a room panelled in oak, with a window ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade

... new wood over the orifice of the cavity formed by the death and decay of the old wood. Such is presumed to be the explanation of a specimen of this kind in the possession of the writer, and taken from a cavity in an apparently solid block of rosewood; externally there were no marks to indicate the existence of a central space, but when the block was sawn up for the use of the cabinet-maker, this root-like structure was found in the centre and attached to one end of ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... Russians are sufficiently Asiatic in outlook and character to be able to enter into relations of equality and mutual understanding with Asiatics, in a way which seems quite impossible for the English-speaking nations. And an Asiatic block, if it could be formed, would be strong for defence and weak for attack, which would make for peace. Therefore, on the whole, such a result, if it came about, would probably be desirable In the interests of mankind ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... what is this? Just as he would raise his voice to chant the new destinies of man, a harsh, heartless, human bark, and therewith a low, despairing stifle of sobbing, came to his ear! It is the bark of the auctioneer, "Going! going!"—it is the sobbing of the slave on the auction-block! And this, too, O Poet, this, too, is America! So you are not secure of your grand believing imaginations yet, but must fight for them. The faith of your heart would perish, if it did not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... exclaimed at length; "bring the torch nearer, Raymond. See here. This is not one block of stone, as seems at first, but a mass of masonry so cunningly joined together as to look like one solid piece. See, here are the joints; I can feel them with my fingernail, though I can scarce see them with my eyes. Let us count the number of the stones used. Yes; ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... while the diatribe against the bishops was in full swing, whether Lady Moyne would succeed in moulding McNeice into a weapon for her hand. It seemed to me more probable at the moment that McNeice would in the end tumble her beautiful head from the block of a guillotine into the basket of ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... exploding close to our line of march, but the boys tramped along with that nonchalant air which they assume in times of danger. One immense shell struck an empty house less than a block away and sent the masonry flying in every direction. The cloud of brick dust shone like gold in the sun. A moment later, a fleshy peasant woman, wearing wooden shoes, turned out of an adjoining street and ran awkwardly toward the scene of the explosion. ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... bespoke my good lord Grahame; 'O man, I have lost the better block; I have lost my comfort and my joy, I have lost my key, I have ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... glaciers never had entered the valley; he did not even consider water erosion. At one time he held that the valley was simply a cleft or rent in the earth's crust. At another time he imagined it formed by the sudden dropping back of a large block in the course of the convulsions that resulted in the uplift of the Sierra Nevada. Galen Clark, following him, carried on his idea of an origin by force. Instead of the walls being cleft apart, however, he imagined the explosion of close-set domes of molten rock the riving power, but conceived ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... for Claudio, death for death!' Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and MEASURE still FOR MEASURE. Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested; 410 Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage. We do condemn thee to the very block Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... off the northern coast of Block Island about 1720, and reappeared at irregular intervals down to the year 1832, since which it has not been seen. A common impression of those seeing it for the first time was that it was a light on board of some ship, or a ship on fire when very bright. Arnold, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... tale reminds me of one of my earliest and most trying experiences in illustrating stories. I had made a very careful drawing to illustrate a startling episode in a novel by Mrs. Henry Wood. Naturally it was designed on a block, and represented the hero having just swallowed poison after committing a murder. The face in the drawing was everything, and I had taken the greatest pains to depict in the distorted features all the authoress desired—in fact, I was rather proud of it. The authoress ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... relieved against the white, with fantastic icicles and folds of snow depending from their eaves, or curled like coverlids from roof and window-sill, they are far more picturesque than in the summer. Colour, wherever it is found, whether in these cottages or in a block of serpentine by the roadside, or in the golden bulrush blades by the lake shore, takes more than double value. It is shed upon the landscape like a spiritual and transparent veil. Most beautiful of all ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... neglect common precautions. His first action was to send his youngest brother, Tirumala, the "Yeltumraj" or "Eeltumraaje" of Firishtah, to the front with 20,000 horse, 100,000 foot, and 500 elephants, to block the passage of the Krishna at all points. Next he despatched his second brother, Venkatadri, with another large army; and finally marched in person towards the point of attack with the whole power of the Vijayanagar empire. The ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... in hand, sorr? I'd 'a' broke the snow-shovel over the scandalous back av him if I'd heerd a worrd av it. He's aff to-day sparkin' the girls in the block beyant, but I'll wait for him to-night. Thank ye, sorr, for not tellin' Mac. It's his own poor sister's boy, an' like his own that was tuk from us at Apache, but Mac would kill him before he'd have him trainin' wid them Dutchmen and daygoes." (Mrs. McGrath did not ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... of Fort Mifflin was in front, that being the side from which vessels coming up the river must be repelled; but on the side toward Province Island it was defended by only a wet ditch. There was a block house at each of its angles, but they were not strong, and when the Americans saw the British take possession of Province Island and begin building batteries there, they felt that unless assistance should be sent to dislodge ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley

... the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles, Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a—"First, if you ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... indomitable energy and courage came to her assistance, and she produced an indescribable sensation. Her youth, beauty, and noble air won the hearts of all. One difficult phrase proved such a stumbling-block that, in the agitation of a first appearance, she failed to surmount it, and there was an apprehension that the lovely singer was about to fail. But in the grand aria, "Bel Raggio," she indicated ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris

... wanted to do business with the King. Such business must necessarily be connected with Megalia. A company for the development of that country could be founded without difficulty if a man of Donovan's enormous wealth took up a substantial block of shares. Gorman poured out all the information he had collected about Megalia. Donovan listened to him in silence. It was Miss ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham

... magnesia (one round teaspoon in a glass of cold water), or, one-half teaspoon of common baking soda in a glass of water, will afford immediate and temporary relief. Simply nibbling a little from a block of magnesia will often give instant relief. These alkalines effectively neutralize the mischievous acids which cause ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... talents by which Bewick made himself publicly known was a cut of an old hound, for which, in 1755, he received a premium from the Society of Arts. The block had been cut for an edition of Gay's fables; the complete work appeared in 1779; and immediately attracted general attention by the striking superiority of its embellishments, which were all from wood-cuts executed by Bewick and his younger brother John, who, when Beilby and he entered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various

... cabin, palm shadows are crawling slowly to and fro in the white glare, like shapes of tarantulas. Inside, the heat is augmented by the tiny charcoal furnace which glows beside a ridiculous little anvil set into a wooden block buried level with the soil. Through a rear door come odors of unknown known flowers and the cool brilliant green of banana leaves.... A minute of waiting in the hot silence;— then, noiselessly as a phantom, the nude-limbed smith enters by ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... being the weaker, cannot attempt to block all the ports where divisions of the enemy lie, without defeating his aim by being in inferior force before each. This would be to neglect the fundamental principles of war. If he correctly decide not to do ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... struggle; others, of whom the most powerful chiefs had been gained, joined the missions. Where there was no church, they contented themselves with erecting a great cross of red wood, close to which they constructed a casa fuerte, or block-house, the walls of which were formed of large beams resting horizontally upon each other. This house had two stories; in the upper story two cannon of small calibre were placed; and two soldiers lived ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... Universe, faith in the ecstatic moment of vision into the things that are unseen by the physical eye. Self-reliance, as Emerson's son has pointed out, means really God-reliance; the Over-Soul—always a stumbling-block to Philistines—means that high spiritual life into which all men may enter and in which they share the life of Deity. Emerson is stern enough in expounding the laws of compensation that run through the universe, but to him the chief law is the law ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... economical than formerly. If I finally settle here, I don't doubt I shall be able to secure a particular day every year for a concert, of which I have already given several. That malicious demon, however, bad health, has been a stumbling-block in my path; my hearing during the last three years has become gradually worse. The chief cause of this infirmity proceeds from the state of my digestive organs, which, as you know, were formerly bad enough, but have latterly become much worse, ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... commemorates it always draws full houses at the people's theatre, Malibran; and the often-copied picture, by a painter of the time, representing Lustrissime and Lustrissimi in hoops and bag-wigs on the ice, never fails to block up the street before the shop- window in which it is exposed. The King of Denmark was then the guest of the Republic, and as the unprecedented cold defeated all the plans arranged for his diversion, the pleasure-loving ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... associates, Gallic and Italian. Whereupon we burst the Bononia Gate of Faventia, flocked into the town, sacked some of the shops, left a score of corpses in the market-place and some in the streets near it, set fire to a block of buildings, and burst out of the Ariminum Gate, tumultuous and excited, but without so much as trying the outer doors ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... then saw through his glass The Inlet, and the Bay, But floes of ice, as green as grass, And icebergs block'd ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray

... wore," she writes. "I remember one night when my husband and I were living in the same block of flats he came in to ask me to go and sit with Frances who wasn't very well, while he went down to the House to dine with Hugh Law—Gilbert was very correctly dressed except for the fact that he had on one boot and one slipper! I pointed it out to him, and he said: 'Do you ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... man's voice, with a familiar little cackling laugh in it, "sa-a-ay, girl, the policeman on th' beat's got me spotted for a suspicious character. I been hoofin' it up an' down this block like a distracted mamma waitin' for her daughter t' come ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... of the old block. [After a pause.] If I'd known what was up, I wouldn't have suggested asking ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair

... a negro woman which I examined in Alabama, which had only a slight translucency at Firmness, while the rest of the upper surface of the skull was so abnormally thick that in lifting it one was reminded of the weight of a block of wood. She had, in a fit of temper, murdered her own child in the field, chopping it ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... near to it, there were sixteen or seventeen creatures, whether men or women I could not tell, for they make no distinction by their habits, either of body or head; these lay all flat on the ground, round this formidable block of shapeless wood. I saw no motion among them any more than if they had been logs of wood, like their idol; at first I really thought they had been so; but when I came a little nearer, they started up ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... Pentecost that for the first time God's great mystery began to be understood by the disciples. The mystery of God has been a stumbling block to both Jews and Christians so-called; but in God's due time he will make known to all the secret of his mystery and then all rightly exercised by this will rejoice with ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... and with the most unassuming grace received my burden. As she unfolded the lace from its silken cover a cry of delight escaped her, and shaking out its gossamer folds she threw it over her head. With all the care I could use I had laid bare the block of ice, which shone like silver in the moonbeams, and now with a sudden blow of my dagger I cleft the ice, and lifted out the wreath, placing it as I did so on the ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... she would not answer his letters she would perhaps not wholly close her ears to his spoken eloquence. She replied that her stepdaughter was close at hand and that she could only give him five minutes; whereupon he took out his watch and sat down upon a broken block. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... who, in different ages and countries, have justly suffered ignominious death on the wheel, the block, or the gallows, were men of "extraordinary character," of singular acuteness, of the most decided spirit. To acknowledge this fact is not to applaud their conduct, or admire ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... watching the forecastle-hatch, from which came a deliciously sweet chorus, and I knew why it sounded so pleasant—it was because the men were so far away in the bows, for the Burgh Castle grew longer and longer, till the bowsprit seemed as if it were miles away, but with every rope and block as distinctly seen as if it ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... night comes, list[1] thy deeds; make plain the way 'Twixt heaven and thee; block it not with delays; But perfect all before thou sleep'st; then say 'There's one sun more strung on my bead of days.' What's good score up for joy; the bad, well scanned, Wash off with tears, and get ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... found him sitting on a block facing the sun, lying against his shield, which was supported by the side of the house. The body was in a terrible state of decomposition. It was swollen to three times its living girth. Great blisters had collected under the epidermis, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox

... them, sometimes cut them up in pieces that would go into the kettle, and boiled them. Occasionally, when evening approached, they paddled to the shore near a village, and Luka, whose Tartar face was in keeping with his dress, went boldly in and purchased tobacco, tea, and flour, and a large block of salt, occasionally bringing off a joint of meat, for which the price was only four kopecks, or about a penny a pound; five kopecks being worth about three halfpence according to the rate of exchange. A hundred ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... power, and corresponds in the most perfect truth with what we see to be the labouring passion. When we view it in front we are astonished that the mouth does not speak. No observer ever thinks that the head is a block of stone. But the whole group is masterly on the most refined principles of science. It was intended to be seen at an elevated point, as well as at a distant one. All its forms, therefore, are grand without the minutiae of parts; its effects are striking and ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt

... grew bad, "And, yet unfleeced by funding block-heads, "Happy John Bull not only had, "But danced to, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... also seems to have the power of combining with a number of other bodies, under the influence of the loose mode of chemical combination spoken of as residual affinity, is carbon; so that a block of charcoal can absorb hundreds of times its own bulk ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... care to use the natural flowers in the graceful sprays or luxuriant clusters in which they grow. They usually stick them on the sharp spikes of some small palm or wind them on a little stick to make a cone or set the spikelets side by side in a flat block. They much prefer artificial stiffness to natural grace. In the hundreds of funeral ceremonies that I saw I never noticed the use of a single natural blossom. The flowers were all artificial, of silk, paper, or tissue. One reason, perhaps, of ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... once. The ground rose a little and was built up too before his group of huts, terraced roughly and faced with stone, with steps at one end. A big block of stone stood near the edge of it, so that standing behind one looked east over the town to the mountains, and it was there, after a little, that I offered the Holy Sacrifice each remaining day of my stay. There was ...
— The Priest's Tale - Pere Etienne - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • Robert Keable

... after I assumed command of my company, which had no captain, we were sent to garrison a part of a line of block-houses stretching along the Cumberland River below Nashville, then occupied by a portion of the command ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... holding the middle of the rope up to the light, so that we could get a better view of it. "Not very many hours ago this rope was running through a block, and that block ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... the townspeople set aside two lots in the block of the original town survey bounded by Fairfax Street, Cameron Street and King Street.[14] By ordinance, all buildings in the town had to face the street and have chimneys of brick or stone, rather than wood, to prevent fires.[15] The building erected as the new courthouse ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... company. The host and hostess stood in the doorway, to see them depart. The landlord proffered a stirrup-cup to the elder guest, while the landlady offered Peveril a glass from her own peculiar bottle. For this purpose, she mounted on the horse-block, with flask and glass in hand; so that it was easy for the departing guest, although on horse-back, to return the courtesy in the most approved manner, namely, by throwing his arm over his landlady's shoulder, and saluting ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... but I have no doubt she will find strength to bear any fresh burden which Providence may see fit to put upon her. Though our circumstances are comfortable, we are not surrounded by the luxuries which so often prove a stumbling-block to weaker brethren. I trust you may be happy in our humble home, and that you may find some opportunity of usefulness in this new state of life to ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... form of a fountain for the courtyard of the Colmar Museum. There may be a few others. Last, but by no means least, there is the great Lion of Belfort, his best work. This is about 91 by 52 feet in dimensions, and is carved from a block of reddish Vosges stone. It is intended to commemorate the defence of Belfort against the German army in 1870, an episode of heroic interest. The immense animal is represented as wounded but still ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... II. Near by is Lordington House, erected by the father of Cardinal Pole and said to be haunted by the ghost of that Countess of Salisbury who, when an old woman upwards of seventy, was beheaded by the order of Henry VIII, and caused the headman much trouble by refusing to place her head upon the block; an illustration by Cruickshank depicts the executioner chasing the Countess ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... do not come within the scope of that Act, not by any means. If a married woman about to become a mother falls or rolls down the stairs, when climbing to her home in the seventh heaven of Block-land, if she sustains long injuries, who compensates her? If the child is born a monstrosity, though not an idiot, who compensates for that? If the poor must be located near the sky, how is it that "lifts" cannot be provided for them? Who can tell the amount of maimed child, ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... declaring that their joints were consolidating. When she walked her movements were not equally distributed over her whole person, as they are in other women, producing those graceful undulations which are so attractive. She moved, so to speak, in a single block, seeming to advance at each step like the statue of the Commendatore. When she felt in good humour she was apt, like other old maids, to tell of the chances she had had to marry, and of her fortunate discovery in time of the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... the mother Cat smelt a wonderful smell that came from the East River at the end of the alley. A new smell always needs investigating, and when it is attractive as well as new, there is but one course open. It led Pussy to the docks a block away, and then out on a wharf, away from any cover but the night. A sudden noise, a growl and a rush, were the first notice she had that she was cut off by her old enemy, the Wharf Dog. There was only one escape. She leaped from the wharf to the ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... came down to the stream to hearten and cheer the men, promising each of them a pension of a thousand francs and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The first who went down into the Beresina had his leg taken off by a block of ice, and the man himself was washed away; but you will better understand the difficulty of the task when you hear the end of the story. Of the forty-two volunteers, Gondrin is the only one alive to-day. Thirty-nine of them lost their lives in the Beresina, and the ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... set his brave face westwards, following the long trail across the Roman Empire—the hero-scout of Christ. Nothing could stop him—not scourgings nor stonings, prison nor robbers, blizzards nor sand-storms. He went on and on till at last, as a prisoner in Rome, he laid his head on the block of the executioner and was slain. These are the brave words that we hear from him as he came ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews

... one, as you know, split clean in two by Denmark, most of it lying east of that and looking on the Baltic, which is practically an inland sea, with its entrance blocked by Danish islands. It was to evade that block that William built the ship canal from Kiel to the Elbe, but that could be easily smashed in war-time. Far the most important bit of coast-line is that which lies west of Denmark and looks on the North Sea. It's there ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... young 'un," said Marble. "I didn't know your mother when she was of your age, but I can see that one cat-block is not more like another than you are like what she was at your age; keep that likeness up, my dear, and then your father will be as happy and fortunate in his darter as he has been in his wife. Well, nobody desarves his luck better than Miles—Providential ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... pick out my goods until I see them; but then perhaps the vest you have on is for sale? Are you the show-block?" ...
— Three People • Pansy

... a ferry-boat that was large enough to hold four wagons and some saddle-horses. The boat was run by a cable stretched taut up stream fifteen or twenty feet from the boat. A line from the bow and stern of the boat connected it with a single block which ran on the cable. When ready to start, the bow-line was hauled taut, the stern line slacked off to the proper angle, when, the current passing against the side of the boat, it was propelled across very rapidly. The river here was rapid, the water cold ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole

... the car another block. There was doubt growing in his mind. On a sudden impulse he pulled the car over to the curb and stopped the motor. Getting out, he started walking rapidly. There would be three miles of walking before he reached observation, but it would be ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham

... simpler plan consists in driving two nails into a block at such a distance apart that an iron rod (six-inch nail, poker, bolt, etc.) will just pass between. On heating the rod the increase in ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... that the Articles left a great deal of formal Roman language untouched; but to work this out in dry, bald, technical logic, on the face of it, narrow in scope, often merely ingenious, was even a greater stumbling-block. It was, undoubtedly, a great miscalculation, such as men of keen and far-reaching genius sometimes make. They mistake the strength and set of the tide; they imagine that minds round them are going as fast as their own. We can see, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... fact that the Riverbeds were to have the lion's share of the honors of the occasion, and the further fact that resentment in the ranks of the Hilltops ran strong and deep, and doubly so since the outwitting of their leader, no attempt was made to block the program, or to interfere, in any way, with the success ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... annual sessions of the legislature with alternate sittings in the two capitals. There were still other Federalists who accepted the proposed change in government as inevitable, and who wisely forebore to block it, preferring to use all their influence toward saving as much as possible of the old institutions under new forms. And in this resolve they were encouraged by the high character of the men that all parties chose as ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... to have much objection to the doctrine of evolution in itself; it is the denial of teleology that he regards as the fatal element of Mr. Darwin's theory. "According to us," he says, "the true stumbling-block of Mr. Darwin's theory, the perilous and slippery point, is the passage from artificial to natural selection; it is when he wants to establish that a blind and designless nature has been able to obtain, by the occurrence of circumstances, the same results which man obtains by thoughtful ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... golden furbelows. Like some wretch a-quivering of the palsy I heard the learned doctors wrangling over my medicine, which they must needs hold my nose to make me swallow. For all their biases and twistings I knew full well they could carve no sprig of fashion from so rough a block as I. Certes, I must now have a squire to fasten this new harness well upon me, for by my word, I knew not one garment from the other by sight of it. Jerome went off into fits of laughter seeing me trying to struggle into things I could not ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... the stupid block of a journalist,—for I do think him a stupid block, in spite of his cleverness,—and I realized then that I had forgotten for a moment all about Lucretia. I could not see her from my new position, so I amused myself by imagining how she was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... into that shadowy past, Where, in the dusty spaces, void and vast, The graves of those whom thou hast murdered lie. The slave-pen, through whose door Thy victims pass no more, Is there, and there shall the grim block remain At which the slave was sold; while at thy feet Scourges and engines of restraint and pain Moulder and rust by thine eternal seat. There, mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes, Dwell thou, a warning ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... the sofa, and flitted to him like a wraith. Arrived where he stood yet motionless, she fell upon her knees and clasped his. He was far too bewildered now to ask himself what husbands did in such circumstances, and stood like a block. ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... extraterrestrial conditions, because that would end the colonies' dependence on Marscorp for supplies. As it is, the colonies literally can't live without Marscorp. Marscorp controls enough senators and delegates in the World Congress to block other important projects if the Earth government refuses to co-operate with it, so the government—that is to say, Marscorp—put a ban on the experiments by Hennessey and ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... external circumstance. The comic is therefore accidental: it remains, so to speak, in superficial contact with the person. How is it to penetrate within? The necessary conditions will be fulfilled when mechanical rigidity no longer requires for its manifestation a stumbling-block which either the hazard of circumstance or human knavery has set in its way, but extracts by natural processes, from its own store, an inexhaustible series of opportunities for externally revealing its presence. Suppose, then, we imagine a mind always thinking of what ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... glaze of the porcelain ones. Hence, where silver cannot be had, iron vessels are preferable to tinned copper ones; or those made of tinned iron-plates in the common tin-shops, which are said to be covered with pure or block tin. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... thy fingers tight, for as long as thou dost conceal it, it will conceal thee. When the men inside have held counsel together, they will come to fetch thee to thy death, and they will be much grieved not to find thee. I will stand on the horse block yonder and thou canst see me though I cannot see thee. Therefore draw near and place thy hand on my shoulder and follow ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... you say so!" volunteered Frank. "Mack—you've got to block 'em off until I toe that ball! They mustn't get through ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman



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