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Catapult   Listen
noun
Catapult  n.  
1.
(Mil. Antiq.) An engine somewhat resembling a massive crossbow, used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for throwing stones, arrows, spears, etc.
2.
A forked stick with elastic band for throwing small stones, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Catapult" Quotes from Famous Books



... them. And the order to charge came. So, right into the German guns, in the face of those terrible Prussian Guards, our lads went "over the top" with a great shout, and poured like a flame, like a catapult, across the space between them—No-Man's Land, they called it then—it was only thirty-five yards—to the German trench. So fast they rushed, and so unexpected was their coming, with no curtain of artillery to shield ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... children: had they but died out with their need! Here and there a monk, fresh from his Desert-Laura, hurtles through the eclipse-light of history like the stone from a catapult,—rules a church with iron rods, organizes, denounces, intrigues, executes, keeps an unarmed soldiery to do his behests, and hurls ecclesiastic thunders at kings and emperors with the grand audacity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... arrow-straight and swift. The revolver cracked. It spat fire a second time, a third. The tiger-man, head low, his whole splendid body vibrant with energy, hurled himself across the road as though he had been flung from a catapult. A streak of fire ripped through his shoulder. Another shot boomed almost simultaneously. He thudded hard into the fat paunch of the gunman. They went ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... shown all the devices which a year of experience has suggested to the quick brains of our Allies. It is ground upon which one cannot talk with freedom. Every form of bomb, catapult, and trench mortar was ready to hand. Every method of cross-fire had been thought out to an exact degree. There was something, however, about their disposition of a machine gun which disturbed the Commandant. He called for the officer of the gun. His thin lips got thinner ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... airliner, of course. I was still on the Staten Bridge when I heard the roar of the catapult and the Soviet rocket Baikal hummed over us like a tracer bullet with a long tail ...
— The Worlds of If • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... entered school before he got "mixed up" in one of the many college rushes of those days. In that particular rush Taft went crashing through the sophomores like a catapult. One, a man of his own weight, leaped in front of him. Then Taft let forth a joyous roar and charged! He grappled with the other Ajax, lifted him bodily, and heaved him over his head. No wonder he got the nickname of ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... construction of the catapult may be found in almost any junk pile, and the only work required, outside of what can be done at home, is to have a few threads cut on the pieces of pipe. The fittings can be procured ready to attach, except for drilling a hole for ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... looks quite sharp-pointed enough to deserve its name of the "Needle of the South." The side toward the Glacier des Bossons is exceedingly steep, and when the snows are melting the peak becomes a perfect catapult, volleys of ice and stones being discharged from its lofty precipices. The falling rocks, dropping, as some of them do, from ledge to ledge half a mile, acquire the velocity of cannon shots. Nobody ever lingers on this part of the route, and we had no desire to pause, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... two and some bread-and-jam and some chicken and cake and toffee and things in a handkerchief, and climb on to the porch with Grumper's longest fishing-rod, you might be able to relieve the besieged garrison a lot. If the silly Haddock were any good he could fire sweets up with a catapult." ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... as if hurled from a catapult—not at the snake, but over its head, soaring above it a distance of fully two feet. He struck the side of the circular prison with a thud, rebounded instantly and landed on the neck of the great serpent before ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... fitting—and in this the child quite acquiesces—that as he approaches the reverend period of nine or say ten years, he should still be the unabashed and proclaimed possessor of a hoop and a Noah's Ark. The child will quite see the reasonableness of this, and, the goal of his ambition being now a catapult, a pistol, or even a sword-stick, will be satisfied that the titular ownership should lapse to his juniors, so far below him in their kilted or petticoated incompetence. After all, the things are still there, and if relapses of spirit occur, on wet afternoons, one can still ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... made the acquaintance of the Catapult. This machine resembled a large "shanghai" fixed to timber, one end of which rested on the parapet whilst the other—in the trench—was packed in a manner to give the required elevation. A cricket ball or jam tin bomb was placed in the pouch and the rubbers were then strained ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... up the street localized itself. A woman picked up her skirts and flew wildly into a store. A man went over the park fence almost as though he had been shot out of a catapult. Came the crack of a revolver. Some one shouted explanation. ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... climbed the narrow stair that led up to one of the two square towers that flanked the main gate, but, being come thither, he paused to behold Giles, who chancing to be captain of the watch, sat upon a pile of great stones beside a powerful mangonel or catapult and stared him dolefully upon the lightening east: full oft sighed he, and therewith shook despondent head and even thus fell he to soft and doleful singing, groaning to himself 'twixt each verse, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... herself carried along with such velocity that the breath left her body, her knees gave way and she fell down in a limp little bundle. Julia Crosby instantly let go her hand and the impetus of the rush shot her like a catapult far over the ice into the midst of a crowd ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... I say, let's go gently and attend to things one by one: after I've attended to this, then I'll attend to that: I'll train my catapult on the old fellow for the two hundred first. If I shatter the tower and outworks with the said catapult, the next minute I'll plunge straight through the gate into the ancient and time-worn town; in case I capture it, you two can carry off gold to your lady friends by the basketful, ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... further slope of the rise, yet in position to meet a sally, we would discover the royal tent not unwisely pitched, if, as I surmise, this gate is indeed his point of main attack. And besides here are none of the old-time machines as elsewhere along our front; not a catapult, or bricole, or bible—as some, with wicked facetiousness, have named a certain invention for casting huge stones; nor have we yet heard the report of a cannon, or arquebus, or bombard, although we ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... clear sky, came a bolt of common-sense to Tim, and he realized he had been a fond and foolish jay. And that was why, when he had finished prep that evening, he exchanged a copy, bound in calf, of Victor the Valiant for two oranges and a catapult. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... Moorish Scaevola, with a fate very different from that of his Roman prototype, was pierced with a hundred wounds by the attendants, who rushed to the spot, alarmed by the cries of the marchioness, and his mangled remains were soon after discharged from a catapult into the city; a foolish bravado, which the besieged requited by slaying a Galician gentleman, and sending his corpse astride upon a mule through the gates of the town into the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... nature of his popularity, was not too overcome by his recent operation to accept promptly the presents his brothers offered, and did so with a sweetly wan and patient smile which kindled a noble rivalry in the matter of gifts. Patsey, now very repentant, brought his catapult, Bugsey his alleys, his loveliest "pure," and the recumbent lamb set in a ball of clear glass; Tommy surrendered his pair of knobbies. Their mother, watching the procession leaving the gate, was moved almost to tears by these ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... of the agent, being himself. But what he is doing a man may be ignorant, as men in speaking say a thing escaped them unawares; or as Aeschylus did with respect to the Mysteries, that he was not aware that it was unlawful to speak of them; or as in the case of that catapult accident the other day the man said he discharged it merely to display its operation. Or a person might suppose a son to be an enemy, as Merope did; or that the spear really pointed was rounded off; or that the stone ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... taken the fight out of most horses, has only steadied the Axeine; and, as we watch him striding through the deep ground, casting the dirt behind him like a catapult we think and say, "The race is ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... this way first!" and, drawing his head down and folding his arms about it, he dashed forward for the center of my company, like a great stone hurled from a catapult. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... it. Stoughton, Michigan, presented itself as a ramshackled, filthy wooden town of bar-rooms, eating-rooms, pool-rooms, and unspeakable hotels. The joys and excitements he had known over such deals as the buying and selling of the Catapult, the Peppermint, and the Etna mines were as flat now as the lees of yesternight's feast. "I'm not in love with her," he kept saying, doggedly, to himself; and yet the thought of leaving Olivia Guion and her interests to this intrusive stranger, merely ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... tempting morsel—(pig's liver, and none too fresh at that)—her crouching body thrown well back upon the haunches, her tail, enlarged to double the usual size, waving sinuously from side to side in leisurely calculation of distance and chances. Suddenly she launched her supple body into space like a catapult, caught the meat between her claws, swung in the air for a victorious half-second—and then, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... through, shoulder to shoulder, singing one of their rousing ditties. Some people who had been standing on their hired rolling chairs had narrow escapes from being flung upon the shoulders of those in front. Some did not escape—Mary for instance, who landed between us as if shot from a catapult. ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth

... incredulously, for the voice rumbled heavily an octave below his own bass. Either the look of the stocky catapult, as he launched himself on the fleeing servant, or the invidious servility of the innkeeper, sobered the landlord, and he ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... indiscriminately at his companions. 'Get me a catapult, lower boy, I say! Stones, peashooter, anything. Look ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... of the prison grounds amongst little patches of highly-cultivated market gardens and clumps of palms, and these long pumps like the ancient catapult with bronze men sweating at them pulling down the long arm of the balanced yard to let the bucket down the well, then tipping the water out into gutters of mud to irrigate. They do it pretty much the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... knife from his pocket, he carefully cut the ropes wound about her. Alberdina bounded out of the chair like a big, fleshy catapult. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes

... company of boys are playing, an appeal to a senior bystander is always conclusive. Games between experts are watched with interest by quite a number of lookers-on, of every age. The Indian method of shooting a marble is to use the middle finger of the right hand as a sort of catapult. The marble is held with the left hand against this finger, and bending it back, it is suddenly let go. The effect of this is to volley the marble with great force and accuracy. The English boy's method is tame by comparison. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... opening like a catapult. At that instant the keeper had straightened up and the baboon hit him squarely in the face. There could be but one result. The keeper tumbled over ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... have a catapult if you like," said Hector, with lordly disdain. "It doesn't matter to me, and it certainly won't matter to any one or anything else. You'll never hit anything—girls never do. They can't throw a ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth

... felt something of the inert helplessness of the lesser animal, crouching, as if fascinated by the cruel, claw-armed tyrant, waiting to make its spring. And he knew that at any moment this beast might come at him as if discharged from a catapult. But all the same the brain grew more and more acute in its endeavours to find him a way of escape. If he had only had a short bayonet fixed at the end of his gun, that he might hold it ready with the butt upon the ground, and the point at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that the lion might ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... kill the partridges which Middleton is going to send over in the next ten minutes," he said, "you could shoot anything of the sort that comes along in East Africa, with a catapult. If you will stand just a few paces there to the left, Henry, Terniloff by the gate, Stillwell up by the left-hand corner, Mangan next, Eddy next, and I shall be just beyond towards the oak clump. Will ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... his piebald beard would hardly please this centre of bliss, that rose in which lies our wealth, our substance, our loves, and our fortune. Do you know that it is a living flower, which should be fondled thus, and not used like a trombone, or as if it were a catapult of war? Now this was the gentle ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... was, in a measure, for something strange, he never bargained for what happened. It was as if he had been fired from some catapult of the ancient Romans. Through the air he hurtled, like some great flying animal, covering fifty feet from ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... fat or jade, moved about in torpedo fashion; but his movements were apparently never out of the eyes of his enemy, for by degrees small portions of his body began to disappear, snapped off by the relentless claws of his pursuer. The lobster would leap like a catapult to where the squid was apparently idly dreaming, and the squid, very alert, would dart away, shooting out at the same time a cloud of ink, behind which it would disappear. It was not always completely successful, however. Small portions of its body or its tail were frequently ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... engrossed by the sheep which were now wandering up the valley; then suddenly, as if she felt his presence rather than saw it, her dark eyes flashed round upon him and she pulled up the big horse on its haunches with a suddenness which ought to have sent her from the saddle like a stone from a catapult; but she sat back as firm as a rock and gazed at him steadily, with a calmness which fascinated Stafford and kept him staring back at her as if ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... was intent on giving him that last kick of which he had spoken. He saw Gualtier's start, and he himself sprang after him with fearful force. Coming up to him, he administered to him one single blow with his foot, so tremendous that it was like the stroke of a catapult, and sent the unhappy wretch ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... in its breath so strongly that it draws the birds into its mouth too. Marcus Regulus, the consul of the Roman army was attacked, with his army, by such an animal and almost defeated. And this animal, being killed by a catapult, measured 123 feet, that is 64 1/2 braccia and its head was high above all the trees in a ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... into a worm. It did not so much scrape the sky as soar into it, and when she timidly murmured the words "editorial offices" she was shot up to the top in an elevator as in a perpendicularly directed catapult. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... disperse quickly over the country, so that each member may have his place in the sun without injuring his neighbour; and these apparatus, these methods vie in ingenuity with the elm's samara, the dandelion-plume and the catapult of the squirting cucumber. ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... but it was a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me a shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet so tremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward as from a catapult. I struck the door of the state-room which had formerly been Mugridge's, splintering and smashing the panels with the impact of my body. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty dragging myself clear of the wrecked ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... Tony, who had been down at the side of the gorse, at once jumped into it, knowing the passage through. Lord Rufford, who for the last five or six minutes had sat perfectly still on his horse, started down the hill as though he had been thrown from a catapult. There was a little hand-gate through which it was expedient to pass, and in a minute a score of men were jostling for the way, among whom were the two Botseys, our friend Runciman, and Larry Twentyman, with Kate Masters on ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... himself forward like a missile from a catapult. His right fist grazed Percy's cheek. Roused from his policy of inaction, Percy shot in a stinging blow that found its mark under Jabe's right ear and sent him staggering. The fight was now ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... they were in the thick of the timber, searching the small trees and saplings for Y-forks to serve as catapult handles. In half an hour they returned with a dozen of varying ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis

... three coloured marbles in disgust. For them he had bartered away a catapult, and now his heart was heavy ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner

... movement; it was a purely accidental coincidence, no doubt, but I saw That Boy put his hand in his pocket and pull out his popgun, and begin loading it. It cannot be that our Scheherezade, who looks so quiet and proper at the table, can make use of That Boy and his catapult to control the course of conversation and change it to suit herself! She certainly looks innocent enough; but what does a blush prove, and what does its absence prove, on one of these innocent faces? There is nothing in all this world that can lie and cheat like ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... they not met with a sudden check by the pony putting his foot into a badger-hole. The result was frightful to witness, though trifling in result. The pony went heels over head upon the plain like a rolling wheel, and its rider shot into the air like a stone from a catapult. Describing a magnificent curve, and coming down head foremost, Tolly would then and there have ended his career if he had not fortunately dropped into a thick bush, which broke his fall instead of his neck, and saved him. Indeed, excepting several ugly scratches, ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... red therefrom As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram With spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam, Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb, Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb, Born to break down with catapult and ram Man's builded towers of promise, and with breath And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death: O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain, And by that child mismothered,—dog, by all Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal, With what curse ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... our Irish servant Michael standing near one of the friars. At this point in the conversation the Irishman plucked me by the sleeve, pointed to a friar, and whispered a word in my ear. Like a stone from a catapult I sprang on the friar indicated, threw him to the ground, and drew from under his black cassock ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... sea had a leaden gloomy look—there was a swell also, and the ship rolled so much from side to side, that, as I looked up and saw the mastheads forming arches in the sky, I could not help fancying that I should be sent off when I got up there like a stone from a sling, or an ancient catapult, right into the water. The idea made me hold on very tight, let me tell you; yet, as it would never do to give it up, on I went with my teeth pretty closely clenched, and my eyes fixed on the top, which seemed to ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... Archie could see its fiery, glaring eyes distended with a gaze that seemed to pierce the woven wall, as, with the soft white fur of its under parts brushing the earth, it gathered itself up ready to dash like some living catapult clean through the frail ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... to hold on and resist the grinding shock, but Roy did not fare so well. Like a projectile from a catapult the shock flung him far. He came grinding down into the sand on one shoulder, ploughing a little furrow. Then he lay very still, while Peggy wondered vaguely if she ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... did heave—vigorously and together, so that the fierce man went out from their grasp like a huge stone from a Roman catapult. There was a hideous yell, and, after a brief but suggestive pause, an ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... breath I gave; You can be all things other; you cannot be a slave. You shall be tired and tolerant of fancies as they fade, But if men doubt the Charter, ye shall call on the Crusade— Trumpet and torch and catapult, cannon and bow and blade, Because it was My challenge to all the ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton

... ready for this and the distance between himself and the guard was well calculated. He launched himself like a catapult-dart against the slim figure, and was fortunate enough to seize the gun. Frank was an adept at the Japanese ju-jitsu game, and, much to the astonishment of the Filipino, he soon found himself, minus his gun, dropping to the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... clamber, ramp, scramble, escalade[obs3], surmount; shin, shinny, shinney; scale, scale the heights. [cause to go up] raise, elevate &c. 307. go aloft, fly aloft; tower, soar, take off; spring up, pop up, jump up, catapult upwards, explode upwards; hover, spire, plane, swim, float, surge; leap &c. 309. Adj. rising &c. v. scandent|, buoyant; supernatant, superfluitant|; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... upon a rescue. The chauffeur who had brought round the motor surrendered his place to Molly, whom Jack had taught to drive the new car, and I was given the seat of honour beside her. By this time the streets were comparatively clear of traffic, and we shot away as if we had been propelled from a catapult, Molly contriving to combine a rippling flow of words with intricate tricks of steering, in an extraordinary fashion which I would defy any male expert to imitate without committing suicide ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... ducked down, avoiding a blow struck at him with a knife, seized the uppermost of the two enemies by the waistbelt, flung him up to the full extent of his reach, and then turning himself as it were into a human catapult, he hurled the fellow at another of his companions and caught him just as he was climbing over ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... throw of my house they are building another house. I am glad they are building it, and I am glad it is within a stone's throw; quite well within it, with a good catapult. Nevertheless, I have not yet cast the first stone at the new house—not being, strictly speaking, guiltless myself in the matter of new houses. And, indeed, in such cases there is a strong protest to be made. The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... and walked toward the jet-boat catapult deck. Tom returned to the radar bridge and ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell

... harpings and speech of the angels; and I have made formations of battle with Arithmetic that have put the hosts of heaven to the rout. But, Rhetoric and Dialectic, that have been born out of the light star and out of the amorous star, you have been my spearman and my catapult! Oh! my swift horseman! Oh! my keen darting arguments, it is because of you that I have overthrown the hosts of foolishness! [An ANGEL, in a dress the color of embers, and carrying a blossoming apple bough in his hand and with a gilded halo about his head, stands ...
— The Hour Glass • W.B.Yeats

... behind the large table, which they raised by main force; whilst the two others, arming themselves each with a trestle, and using it like a great sledge-hammer, knocked down at a blow eight sailors upon whose heads they had brought their monstrous catapult in play. The floor was already strewn with wounded, and the room filled with cries and dust, when D'Artagnan, satisfied with the test, advanced, sword in hand, and striking with the pommel every head that came in his way, he uttered a vigorous hola! which put an instantaneous end to the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... catapult, so sure of aim, In cold neglect, alas! reposes, And even "tip-cat's" cherished game No longer threatens eyes and noses; Thy tube of tin (projecting peas) At length has ceased from irritating; But how much worse than all of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various

... and extended them awkwardly, coming with a rush. Mr. Pike suddenly squatted and leaned forward, balancing on his finger-tips, until number two was about to fall upon him and crush him, and then he arose with that rigid right shoulder aimed as a catapult. There was a sound as when the air-brake is disconnected, and number two curled over limply on the ground and made faces in an effort ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade

... twenty seconds, or at most half a minute, when, without indication to the eyes watching the front, there came a roaring crash and a huge rumbling, through and far above which, rose a multitudinous shriek of terror, dismay, and agony, and a number of men and women issued as if shot from a catapult. Then a few came straggling out, and then—no more. The roof ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... it, slaughtered the inhabitants without mercy, and captured the unfortunate prince Vinayaka Deva.[41] The Sultan "commanded a pile of wood to be lighted before the citadel, and putting Nagdeo in an engine (catapult), had him shot from the walls into the flames, in which he was consumed." After a few days' rest the Sultan retired, but was followed and harassed by large bodies of Hindus and completely routed. Only 1500 men returned to Kulbarga, and the Sultan himself received a ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... rueful grimace and a laugh of amusement at his own failure, the boy was just turning to retrace his steps, when suddenly the bush rustled at his side, and a brown body leapt into the air as if it had been shot from a catapult. ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... bustle of getting in the packets, exploring the rooms, exclaiming at the beautiful view from the balcony, and Bertie's sudden discovery that it was a glorious place to test the powers of a pea-shooter or catapult, he forgot all about Uncle Clair's words and Aunt Amy's sorrowful smile; and even Eddie thawed a little, and agreed that a beautiful full-rigged ship, with the bright sun shining on her snow-white sails, was a pretty-enough picture to ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... to his internal machinery. Don't you know you can't catapult through a man's tummy with a young pine tree and not injure his ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... of the discovery, Fred concentrated all his energies in one effort, and bounded forward like a catapult. The distance was precisely what it should have been, and, as he threw out his hands, he struck the Indian squarely in the back with the whole momentum of the body. In fact, the daring boy nearly overdid the matter. He not only came near driving the Apache to the other side ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... hours Under the changing centuries of heaven, It stood upon the solemn altar block, By every Gentile who had heard abhorred— The holy light of Israel of the Lord; Until that Titus and the legions came And battered the walls with catapult and fire, And bore the priests and candlestick away, And, as memorial of fulfilled desire, Bade carve upon the arch that bears his name The stone procession ye may see today Beyond the Forum on the Sacred Way, Lifting the golden candlestick ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... overstepped—fouling the put—and sent the shot away at a tangent. Fosgill had turned his head to speak to the measurer and never saw his danger. Tanner let out a shout of warning, and others echoed it. But it was Patsy who acted. He threw himself like a little catapult at Fosgill and sent him staggering across the turf. Then Patsy and the ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... a second or two was he subjected to this torture. Suddenly Ziffak ran toward the Xingu and then let go of the ankles. The black, limp object went spinning far out in the air, as if driven from some enormous catapult. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... troubles. Or a misguided frog, pursued perhaps by some enemy on land, would dive in and swim by with long, webbed toes. At this sight the master of the pool would dart from his lair like a bolt from a catapult. Frogs were much to his taste. And once in a long time even a wood-mouse, hard pressed and panic-stricken, would leap in to swim across to the meadow shore. The first time this occurred the trout had risen slowly, and followed ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... warned him was right. He must jump overboard and take his chance in the river, for it was too late now to slow down and put his motor in reverse. In the impending crash that was only a matter of seconds, The Laird would undoubtedly catapult from the stern sheets into the water—and if he should drift in under the logs, knew the river would eventually give up his body somewhere out in the Bight of Tyee. On the other hand, should he ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... way to school, while Lucy insisted on sliding along all the gutters and dragging Harry after her. She bought a catapult at the toy-shop and a pennyworth of tintacks at the oil-shop, both on credit, and as Lucy had never asked for credit ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... was simply a colossal magnet. Under the influence of that magnet the iron bands of the Halbrane's boat had been torn out and projected as though by the action of a catapult. This was the occult force that had irresistibly attracted everything made of iron on the Paracuta. And the boat itself would have shared the fate of the Halbrane's boat had a single bit of that metal been employed in ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... eyes and their sweet, pensive expression as they searched the middle distance he seemed like a young angel. How was the watcher to know that the thought behind that far-off gaze was simply a speculation as to whether the bird on the cedar tree was or was not within range of his catapult? Certainly Maud had no such suspicion. She worked hopefully day by day to rouse Albert to an appreciation of the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... sleepy one!" muttered the boy, and reaching up his hands he turned them into a catapult, seizing the pillow by both ends, and drawing it upwards from beneath his head, when without rising he hurled it across at Singh, striking him ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... man to send messages nor to depend upon telephones. He was as direct as a catapult, and was just as regardful of ceremony. The fact that it was his and everybody else's dinner hour did not hold him back an instant from having himself driven to the Foote residence and demanding instant ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... blue-eyed wife, especially when she begins, gnashing her teeth, her neck swollen, brandishing her vast and snowy arms, and kicking with her heels at the same time, to deliver her fisticuffs, like bolts from the twisted strings of a catapult. The voices of many are threatening and formidable. They are quick to anger, but quickly appeased. All are clean in their persons; nor among them is ever seen any man or woman, as elsewhere, squalid in ragged garments. At all ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Roman catapult with a modern trench mortar seems absurd. Yet the only basic difference is the kind of energy that sends the projectile ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... accident—I shouldn't value it. I am prouder to have climbed up to where I am just by sheer natural merit than I would be to ride the very sun in the zenith and have to reflect that I was nothing but a poor little accident, and got shot up there out of somebody else's catapult. To me, merit is everything—in fact, the only thing. All else ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... The catapult is also a first-rate weapon in a skilful hand for procuring small birds. I must confess I cannot use it as well as some young friends of mine, who knock over nearly every sitting bird they aim at, and even now and then ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... that the opposite end pointed to the fall. On it went, with even greater rapidity than at first; then balancing for an instant on the brink, the end to which he held was lifted up high in the air, and he was sent from it as from a catapult, far out into the calm water below the caldron! I never expected again to see him, but he rose uninjured to the surface; and being a good swimmer, struck out boldly till he was picked up by one of several canoes which put off instantly to his assistance. ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston

... "We use one of our regular drivers—the best is called the 'celestial catapult.' Ph[oe]bus sells 'em at the Caddie House for five hundred dollars apiece. If you strike a ball fair and square with the 'celestial catapult,' and neither pull nor slice, it can't help ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... terrene creatures, all gathered in ordered ranks, embattled for His service—was a comparatively new name in Israel,[T] and brought with it thoughts of irresistible might in earth and heaven. It crashes like a catapult against the ancient gates; and at that proclamation of the omnipotent name of the God who dwells with men, they grate back on their brazen hinges, and the ark of the ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... is, first, that it is alive, and second, that it is on the march. It is the Church Militant; it is the only fighting architecture. All its spires are spears at rest; and all its stones are stones asleep in a catapult. In that instant of illusion, I could hear the arches clash like swords as they crossed each other. The mighty and numberless columns seemed to go swinging by like the huge feet of imperial elephants. The graven foliage wreathed and blew like banners going into battle; the silence ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... heard with the snarling and roaring and tumult the crushing of great jaws and the thud of bodies. Hauck was rising, his face blanched with a strange terror. He was half up when a gaunt, lithe body shot at him like a stone flung from a catapult and Baree's inch-long fangs sank into his thick throat and tore his head half from his body in one savage, snarling snap of the jaws. David raised himself and through the horror of what he saw the Girl ran to him—unharmed—and ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... misgivings but just then Sami came and I forgot all about them. I don't believe I have ever seen any child so frightened as that little Indian! He simply fell through the bushes behind the chicken house and shot, like a small, brown catapult, into Desire's arms. His round face was actually grey with fear. And he huddled in her big apron shivering, for all the world ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... repeat the chorus, further off key than before. One line was all they were suffered to torture. A catapult of boy, bedclothes and pillows bounded from the floor and sent Frank spinning into the bed, while Jerry barely saved himself from a spill on ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... he had devised a catapult which literally flung objects to the surface of that incredible world. Insects, birds, and at last a cat had made the journey unharmed, and he had built a steel globe in which to attempt the journey in person. His daughter Evelyn had demanded to accompany him, ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... kicks won't do," said I, "let us see what virtue there is in stones;" and suiting the action to the word, I showered him with fragments of granite, as from a catapult. At every concussion he jumped and kicked, but kept his nose in the same relative position. I redoubled the logical admonition; he jumped the more perceptibly; finally, after an unusually affecting appeal from ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... few weeks of hard practice like this and you boys, unless I miss my guess, ought to be able to put old Chester on the gridiron map where she belongs. Now let's go back to the tackle job again, and the dummy. Some of you, I'm sorry to say, try to hurl yourselves through the air like a catapult, when the rules of the game say plainly that a tackle is only fair and square so long as one foot remains ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... me. What would have happened next I can't tell, except that I was in a mood to fight for our car till the death, even if knives flashed out; and I think I was gasping "Police! Police!" but at that instant Mr. Jack Dane hurled himself like a catapult from the hotel. He dashed the weedy youths out of his way like ninepins, jumped to his seat, and the car and the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... one entitled "The Use of Sarum," one glance at which was sufficient both for the colonel and the schoolboy. They could not see the use of Sarum at all. The contents of the boy's pockets naturally made a larger heap, and included marbles, a ball of string, an electric torch, a magnet, a small catapult, and, of course, a large pocketknife, almost to be described as a small tool box, a complex apparatus on which he seemed disposed to linger, pointing out that it included a pair of nippers, a tool for punching holes in wood, and, above all, an instrument for taking stones ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... remember? That's where you killed your first rabbit ... with a catapult! Ah, even in those days you promised to be a good shot ... the best at Saint-Elophe, as I live!... But I was forgetting: you have given up your gun! A fellow of your build! Why, sport, my boy, is the great ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc

... great battle-field in Europe she had not trod upon. She knew them so well that she could people each field with the familiar bright regiments, bayonets and sabers, pikes and broadswords, axes and crossbowmen, matchlock and catapult, rifles and cannon. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... tea-things; to sweep the hearth; and to alter the position of two pictures. By the time all this was accomplished she had regained her wonted calm and was airing some rather strong views on the subject of two little boys who lived with a catapult next door ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... fruit) endocarp, pit, nut, putamen. Associated Words: petrify, petrifaction, lithology, lithography, lithic, lapidary, lithoglypher, lithoglyptic, litholatry, lapidescence, lapidescent, lapidify, lapillation, lapidification, lapidific, lapilli, catapult, quarry, petrography, lapidist, petrology, geology, lithogenesis, lithification, wimble, Niobe, petrescence, petrescent, petrifactive, petrologist, concrete, lapidarian, lapidarious, fossil, schist, scapple, lichen, regolith, monadnock, saxatile, saxicoline, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... shouting after her). Dearest HEDDA, not those dangerous things, eh? Why, they have never once been known to shoot straight yet! Don't! Have a catapult. For my sake, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various

... Some one interjects a whiskyfied interruption into the Professor's speech, who at once in stentorian tones orders that the disturber of the harmony of the evening shall be summarily consigned to the lunatic asylum. I see him ejected with something like the force of a stone from a catapult and have no reasonable doubt that he will spend the night an inmate of "Craig Duncan." The speeches over bargaining recommences moistened by toddy, which fluid appears to exercise an appreciable softening influence on the "dourness" of the market. Till long after ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... Norman of Torn and the little grim, gray, old man; and behind them, nine companies of knights, followed by the catapult detachment; then came the sumpter beasts. Horsan the Dane, with his company, formed the rear guard. Three hundred yards in advance of the column rode ten men to guard against surprise ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... he could locate the Hun machine from which that bomb had been shot downward like a projectile from a catapult, passing through a tube with a forward slant in the bottom of the big ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach

... not the price! It was the tool—a weird hybrid tool, part gun, part rake, part catapult, part curry-comb, fit apparently for almost any purpose, from the business of blunderbuss to the office of an apple-picker. Its handle, which any child could hold, was somewhat shorter and thicker than a hoe-handle, and had ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... of the ladder he stopped. From that spot he hurled his first rock. His was a young, powerful arm and the missile sped upward as if shot from a catapult. It struck the face of the cliff a short distance above the head of the climber and glanced off to go hurtling down ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... on the porch to find her Uncle Dick smoking a cigar and reading the paper in a warm corner. Like a stone from a catapult she flung herself ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson

... was this entrance-effect in the matter of composition, its dramatically graded light-and-shade was masterly. From the outer obscurity, shot forward as from a catapult by the pushing crowd, we were projected through a narrow portal into a dimly lighted passage more or less obstructed by fallen blocks of stone; and thence onward, suddenly, into the vast interior glaring with electric lamps: and in the abrupt culmination of light there flashed ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier

... by a system of gorging similar to that of the Strasburg geese. He listened with joy and warmth like a pot of butter, and with his two hands on his outstretched knees, or on those of his neighbors, he never stopped talking, hurling consonants into the air like a catapult and making them roll along. Occasionally he would have a fit of laughing which made him shake all over; he would throw back his head, open his mouth, snorting, gurgling, choking. His laughter would infect ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... Worpington Headlight that for three years he had been suffering from pains in the back—but that's another story. Incidentally Mahomet at present inhabits a sniper's post surrounded by a perfect thicket of barbed-wire, and I had a bright scheme for its removal. I got hold of a trench catapult, an ingenious contrivance of elastic that hurls a bomb some hundreds of yards, and placed in it a harpoon attached to a long coil of rope. The idea was that on release of the catapult the harpoon would be hurled in the air, the rope would neatly pay out, and then, as soon as the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... the footlights the beset man darted, and like a desperate swimmer plunging from a foundering bark into a stormy sea he leaped far out and projected himself, a living catapult, along the middle aisle. He struck the tall yellow woman as the irresistible force strikes the supposedly immovable object of the scientists' age-old riddle, but on his side was impetus and on hers surprise. She was bowled over flat and her hands, clutching as she went down, closed, but ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... forms an excellent example of the same device. Village children love to touch the long, ripe, brown capsules on the top with one timid finger, and then jump away, half laughing, half terrified, when the mild-looking little plant goes off suddenly with a small bang and shoots its grains like a catapult ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... said the scientist, with some pride, "is a modern catapult—an up-to-the-minute catapult which, had it been known to the ancients, would have enabled the hosts of Joshua, for instance, to batter down the walls of Jericho without the trouble of marching so many times around ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... night began to race by Tristram's ears as his horse leapt forward. The motion became easier, but the pace was terrifying to a desperate degree; for it seemed that he sat upon nothing, but was being whirled through the air as from a catapult at the heels of his father, who pounded furiously through the darkness a dozen yards ahead. For three minutes at least he felt at every stride an extreme uncertainty as to his chances of realighting in the saddle. It reminded him of cup-and-ball, and he reflected with envy that ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... of time the act was repeated, this time a tiny stone being brought to the surface, and, after a brief pause at the doorway, was jerked to a distance as from a catapult. I now concluded to try the power of this propelling force, and taking a small stone, about three-quarters of an inch in length and a quarter-inch in thickness, laid it over the mouth of the tunnel. A few minutes passed, when I noticed a slight motion in the stone, immediately ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... like a stone from a catapult. The merchant turned calmly and without haste, showing an aquiline face covered with wrinkles, tufted with white hairs, lit by eyes that shone with the cruel expressiveness of a falcon's. After a short colloquy in Arabic he raised himself from ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... down so suddenly that I was shot out of the apparatus as if it had been a catapult; it broke the pitcher, extinguished the lamp, and landed me in the middle of the kitchen at midnight, with no fire and the air not much above the zero point. The truth is, I had miscalculated the distance of the descent—instead of falling one foot, I had fallen five. My first ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... The fury of a thousand conflicts—and the exultation. For the glory of such moments it is well worth dying. One minute flying through the air—the old catapult tackle—and the next a crashing of bone and sinew. We rolled over, head on, and across the floor. Curses and execrations; the deep bass voice ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... and amid a roar from the spectators the five athletes sprang ahead as though released from a catapult. Elbows pressed against their sides, heads up, they made a thrilling picture, and the crowd cheered wildly. At first they kept well together, but they were setting a fast pace, and soon one of the men began to lag behind. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... heard a yell as from a man in terror. He looked back of him and saw the Frisco car coming down the grade as if shot from a monster catapult! ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... here was John home again, and Beatson - Old Beatson - did not care a rush. He recalled Old Beatson in the past - that merry and affectionate lad - and their joint adventures and mishaps, the window they had broken with a catapult in India Place, the escalade of the castle rock, and many another inestimable bond of friendship; and his hurt surprise grew deeper. Well, after all, it was only on a man's own family that he could count; blood was thicker than water, he remembered; ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... insupportable chagrin. His revolver was still in his hand. In the swift impulse of one at bay who finds himself released, he brought it up. There was murder, murder from behind, in the catlike quickness of his movement; but Jim Galway was equally quick. He threw his whole weight toward Leddy in a catapult leap, as he grasped Leddy's wrist and bore it down. Jack faced about in alert readiness. Seeing that Galway had the situation pat, he put up his hand in a kind of questioning, puzzled remonstrance; but Mary noticed ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... valor; but their valor was sullied by cruelty, and their emulation degenerated into envy and civil discord. In the siege of Nice, the arts and engines of antiquity were employed by the Latins; the mine and the battering-ram, the tortoise, and the belfrey or movable turret, artificial fire, and the catapult and balist, the sling, and the crossbow for the casting of stones and darts. [81] In the space of seven weeks much labor and blood were expended, and some progress, especially by Count Raymond, was made on the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... William John was so full of romance that we could not trust him to black our boots. He and Primus had a scheme for seizing a lugger and becoming pirates, when Primus was to be captain, William John first lieutenant, and old Poppy a prisoner. To the crew was added a boy with a catapult, one Johnny Fox, who was another victim of the tyrant Poppy, and they practised walking the plank at Scrymgeour's window. The plank was pushed nearly half-way out at the window, and you walked up it until it toppled and you were flung into the quadrangle. Such was the romance of ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... points of flame, the hair on his neck and back stood up like bristles, and his great tail struck the door-casing resounding whacks, as he lashed it from side to side. Only a moment he stood there, and then the great striped body hurtled through the air as if shot from a catapult, and covering a good twenty feet in the spring it landed fair on Bombay, one of the largest tigers in the group. The aim was a true one and the sound of breaking bone mingled with a scream of pain from his victim, as Bombay sank under the weight of the blow, his cervical vertebrae crushed between ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... the stream in a frenzy, and struggled wildly with the current that swept their feet off the slimy limestone bottom, with the logs and trees dashing along like so many catapult-bolts, and with the horses and teams urged on by men more fear-stricken still. On the steep slope on the other side glimmered numbers of little fires where those who were lucky enough to get across were warming ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... were in a fair way to be a Royalist poet with a pension and the Cross of the Legion of Honor, he would be an optimist, and journalism offers starting-points by the hundred. Journalism is the giant catapult set in motion by pigmy hatreds. Have you any wish to marry after this? Vernou has none of the milk of human kindness in him, it is all turned to gall; and he is emphatically the Journalist, a tiger with two hands that ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... was prolific in unpleasant words and jeers, whenever the companions came within hearing—had results in the shape of reprisals. Vince was not going to see Mike Ladelle's ear bleeding from a cut produced by a forcibly propelled oyster-shell, without making an attack upon the young human catapult; and Mike's wrath naturally boiled over upon seeing a piece of rock pushed off the edge of the cliff, and fall within a foot of where Vince was lying on the sand at the foot. But the engagements which followed seemed to do no good, for Carnach junior was ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... smell of blood, the blow that had been dealt it, was crouching for a spring. The red-brown hair was bristling, the eyes were terrible. I was before it, but those glaring eyes had marked me not. It passed me like a bar from a catapult, and the man whose heel it had felt was full in its path. One of its forefeet sank in the velvet of the doublet; the claws of the other entered the flesh below the temple, and tore downwards and across. With a cry as awful as the panther's scream the Italian threw himself ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston



Words linked to "Catapult" :   mangonel, arbalist, propel, engine, launcher, cast, onager, device, impel, arbalest, hurtle, catapultic, trebuchet, ballista, plaything, catapultian, toy, sling, bricole



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