Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Coil   Listen
verb
Coil  v. i.  To wind itself cylindrically or spirally; to form a coil; to wind; often with about or around. "You can see his flery serpents... Coiting, playing in the water."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Coil" Quotes from Famous Books



... freezing point to the boiling point. This is equivalent to boiling about seven gallons of ice-water every twenty-four hours. Differently expressed, the body gives off each hour the same amount of heat as a foot and a half of two-inch steam coil. This is the same amount of heat which would be produced by burning about two-thirds of a pound ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... the Maid was troubled, as she looked into the dark water which had closed over the head of Glasdale and his men. She had seized upon a coil of rope; she stood ready to fling it towards them when they rose; but encased as they were in their heavy mail, there was no rising for them. Long did she gaze into the black, bloodstained water; but she gazed in vain; and when she raised her eyes, I saw that ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... He was drawing a coil of new rope from under the seat. "This is luck! Lighter must have meant to picket his horses. Did I tell you he was starting to drive these bays through to the fair at North Yakima? And here is a hatchet—he ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... had dropped in a safe coil on the rug at Mary's feet, "are you prepared for the very biggest thing in all the world to happen? Can you stand the most astonishing kind of news?" and she managed to secure Mary's hand to give ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... hole was enlarged, and Robert passed from the arms of his sister to those of Lady Helena. Round his body was rolled a long coil ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... Protestants; then all Protestants were excluded from holding any civil or military office; then he issued a decree that all the children, without exception, should be educated by Catholic priests, and that every individual should attend Catholic worship. Thus coil by coil he wound around his subjects the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... of carefully selected materials. The amplifiers consisted of iron core transformers comprising several stages of radio frequency. The variometers were wound of 22-gauge wire. Loose couplers were used instead of the ordinary tuning coil. The switch arms, pivoting shafts and attachments for same, the contact points and binding posts were home-made. A potentiometer puzzled them most, both the making and the application, but they mastered this rather intricate mechanism, as they ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... for example, the body of a serpent, consisting of two wires neatly twisted together, is held in the hand of a grotesque figure. The hand consists of four fingers made by doubling together two short pieces of wire. The coil has been laid across the hand and pressed down into it until half buried, and the ends of the fingers are drawn up around it without any indication of hammer strokes. Indeed, the effect is just such as would have been produced if the artist had worked in wax. Again, ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... friends, bound for the gangway. A torch-basket of pine-knots blazing under the bow covered flood and land with crimson light and inky shadows. The engines had stopped. The boat swept the shore. A single stage-plank lay thrust half out from her forward quarter. A sailor stood on its free end with a coil of small line. The crouching earthwork and its fierce guns glided toward them. Knots of idle cannoneers stood along its crest. A few came down to the water's edge, to whom Anna and Hilary, still paired alone, were a compelling sight. They lifted their smart red caps. Charlie ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... cross Trafalgar Square on a day of demonstration than to invade these haunts of sleeping sea-birds. The nests sank, and the eggs burst under footing; wings beat in our faces, beaks menaced our eyes, our minds were confounded with the screeching, and the coil spread over the island and mounted high into ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... is," exclaimed the dentist. His eyes searched the ground swiftly until he saw what he expected he should see—the round thick coil, the slowly waving clover-shaped head and erect whirring ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... back simply, after the fashion doubtless designed by earth's beauties, since it is the despair of plain women. The yellow curls, sacrificing their individual distinction, had magnanimously contributed to the perfection of the exquisite golden coil at the back of her shapely head. No one would have looked twice at the plain little lawn, but it proved superior to some more pretentious gowns in that it set off the charms of the wearer, instead of distracting attention from ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... properly the coil of a rope; it then came to mean a bend, and so a corner or bay. The same phrase occurs in the 'Voyage of Maledune', v.: "and flung them in bight ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... fore and aft? quoth Panurge. Oh ho! all is well, the storm is over. I beseech ye, be so kind as to let me be the first that is sent on shore; for I would by all means a little untruss a point. Shall I help you still? Here, let me see, I will coil this rope; I have plenty of courage, and of fear as little as may be. Give it me yonder, honest tar. No, no, I have not a bit of fear. Indeed, that same decumane wave that took us fore and aft somewhat altered my pulse. Down with your sails; well said. How ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... young missionary was relieved to hear her say so. There was a moment's embarrassed silence and then Brownleigh began to search in his pocket, as he saw the golden coil of hair beginning to slip loose from its ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the organ in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and sad Jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and then shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far below its ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... again, and found Julia sitting on the couch by the side of her mother, and he at once acknowledged to himself that he had seldom seen a fairer woman. She was tall, and her figure was full and well proportioned. Her glossy hair was wound in a coil at the back of her head, her neck and arms were bare, and she wore a garment of light green silk, and embroidered with gold stripes along the bottom, reaching down to her knees, while beneath it a petticoat of Tyrian purple reached ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... appurtenances of his craft. He sat like a sallow mummy among them, like a half-man made of tailor's patches, flanked by piles of docketed letters and Records closed, bastioned by deed-boxes blazoned with the indication of their offices—MacGibbon's Mortification, Dunderave Estate, Coil's Trust, and so on; he sat with a shrieking quill among these things, and MacTaggart entering to him felt like thanking God that he had never been compelled to a life like this in a stinking mortuary, with ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... hurry had sent a high color to her cheeks, the curves of which were refined to the most exquisite subtlety by the loss of flesh so deplored by Dr. Melton. She was used, by this time, to dressing in a hurry, but her fingers trembled a little, and she tried three times before she could coil her dark silky hair smoothly. She was frowning a little with the fixity of her concentration as she turned to snatch up her long gloves and she did not hear Mrs. Sandworth's question ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... my eyes,' said Jones, drowsily. He sat up, however, and the next minute exclaimed loudly: 'Hallo! who has been here? Thieves! my lantern is gone and the coil of new rope! I'm ruined, I tell you! I shall never get ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... stem branched into a most luxuriant variety of forms. The typical form was closely coiled like a nautilus. In others the coil was more or less open, or even erected into a spiral. Some were hook-shaped, and there were members of the order in which the shell was straight, and yet retained all the internal structures of its ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... reptile cling with a single coil round the figtree's branch, while chill blood dripped and splashed among the intertwined and snake-like roots. A sudden tug brought the body down a squirming mass. With rough-shod heel, I fulfilled the letter of the law, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could see none, for though the great ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... has found what it wanted, and, having done so, began at once to coil its pink thread-like stem on that of the furze. Now it had gained its footing, and threw out a great many more fine stems in all directions, after the fashion of strawberry runners, rooting as it grew. There are thousands of little dodder plants sucking the life out of the furze. I have ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley

... Coil after coil, the hundred and fifty feet of seine came down out of the loft as the bear rolled and pitched and tumbled. The more he tore and threshed, the more meshes there were to enwrap ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... folded her scribbled papers and thrust her pencil into the coil of red braids encircling her head. Algernon Swinburne, ever since his foolish mother had christened him for the poet, had, by turns, amused and wearied his fellow-citizens. While Catherine had lived apart, she had been spared his lengthy visits, ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.—The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,—these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity,—expensive races,—race living at the expense of race.—Let us not deny it up and down. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... qualified at Mesilla, came back to Lincoln, and demanded of Copeland the warrants in his possession. He had, on his part, twelve warrants for the arrest of members of the McSween gang. Little lacked now to add confusion in this bloody coil. The country was split into two factions. Each had a sheriff as a figurehead! What and ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... over I threw myself on a chair; my heart beat wildly: "Oh, heaven!" I murmured, "how can it be possible? Oh, superb monster! Oh! beautiful reptile! How you writhe, how you coil in and out, sweet adder, with supple and spotted skin! Thy cousin the serpent has taught thee to coil about the tree of life holding between thy lips the apple of temptation. Oh! Melusina! Melusina! The hearts of men are thine. You know it well, enchantress, with your soft languor ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... coil of foam on the blackness to mark where the smack had gone down, and, as he cleared his eyes, he saw the cloudy shape of the steamer far away. "Harry, boy!" he sang out, but Harry must have been hit by a spar, and Jack Brown was left alone on that bleak, black waste ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman

... young trapper supply himself with a small, sharp hatchet, and a stout, keen edged jack-knife,—these being the only tools required. He should also provide himself with a coil of fine brass "sucker wire," or a quantity of horse-hair nooses (which will be described further on), a small ball of tough twine and a pocket full of bait, such as apples, corn, oats and the like, of course depending upon the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... cauliflower, and place it in salt and water for about one hour; then put it into cold water with a pinch of salt; bring to the boil, and then rinse the cauliflower and put it again into boiling water which is seasoned with salt, to cook till tender. When cooked, cut it in pieces and dish up in a coil; pour parsley sauce over, and garnish it round with braised carrots or a macedoine of vegetables, and place the cut up stalks of cauliflower in the centre. Serve for a luncheon ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier

... the spot where he could reach easily a small coil of rope. He kept the rifle pressing Buck's shoulders until he had shifted the knife into one hand, leaned, and laid its blade against ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... seen that famous trickster, we have learned that the Charleses, the Alexanders, even the Robert Houdins, were children compared with the magical wonder-worker of the past generation. The fame of Comus was enormous, and his gains proportionate; and when he had shuffled off this mortal coil it was found he had left to his descendants a very ample—indeed, for France, a very large fortune. Of the descendants in a right line, his grandson, Ledru Rollin, was his favorite, and to him the old man left the bulk of his fortune, which, during the minority of Ledru Rollin, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various

... punctually), is very welcome to do so. The "Heroes of Waterloo," Wellington and Blucher, No. 7, are represented by a couple of boots known by those distinguished names. 8, "True to the Core," is a rosy-cheeked apple. 9 is a coil of watch spring. 10, "Tears, Idle Tears," on which the exhibitor feelingly expatiates as a noble example of the imaginative in art, is an onion. The space dedicated to No. 11 is occupied by the numbered ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger

... hath twined with serpent coil Around my heart its fatal fold; And though my struggling bosom toil, To heave the monster from its hold— It will not from its victim part. By day or night, in down or dell, Where'er I roam, still, ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... appears, no probable chance of his recovery. Sir Omicron Pie is, I believe, at present with him. At any rate the medical men here have declared that one or two days more must limit the tether of his mortal coil. I sincerely trust that his soul may wing its flight to that haven where it may forever be at rest and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... that." And opening a box that lay near her she pulled out a short coil of stout rope with an iron ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... senses his head was resting on a coil of rope. In his ears was the steady throb of an engine, and in his eyes the glare of a lantern. The lantern was held by a pleasant-faced youth in a golf cap who was smiling sympathetically. David rose on his elbow and gazed wildly about him. He was in the bow of the ocean-going ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis

... than four or five yards from him. All around her was a golden cloud of sand; it seemed to have been stirred up by her startled movement on seeing him. For a moment she was still, resting thus close, and he could see distinctly that around her white shoulders there was a coil of what seemed like glistening rounded scales. He could not decide whether the brightness in her eye was that of laughing ease or of startled excitement. Then she turned and darted away from him, and having put about forty feet between ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... that accompanied their path. Nor was this all; for when Will was yet a child a disastrous war arose over a great part of the world. The newspapers were full of defeats and victories, the earth rang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and for miles around the coil of battle terrified good people from their labours in the field. Of all this, nothing was heard for a long time in the valley; but at last one of the commanders pushed an army over the pass by forced marches, and for three ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... in that place o' Scotland's Isle, That bears the name o' auld King Coil, Upon a bonnie day in June, When wearin' through the afternoon, Twa dogs, that werena thrang at hame, [busy] Forgather'd ance upon a ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... every exertion to arrest the motion of the capstan-bars. In this dilemma Mr. Rolfe, who had charge of the capstan, with great presence of mind, called the visitors on shore to his assistance; and handing out the spare coil of the 12-inch line into the field at the back of the capstan, it was carried with great rapidity up the field, and a crowd of people, men, women, and children, holding on to this huge cable, arresting the progress of the tube, which was at length brought safely against the butt and veered ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... start of his species by having had the earliest habit of thinking on the matter? I confess I never hear a man of note talk fluently about it without a curious glance at his proportions, to see whether there may be ground to conjecture that he may have more of "mortal coil" than others, in anaxyridical concealment. I do not feel sure that even a paternal love for his theory would induce him, in the case I am supposing, to exhibit himself at ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... overcome. Her attitude, like certain tones of her voice, had in it something masculine: the knees apart in the ample wrapper, the clasped hands hanging between them, her body leaning forward, with drooping head. I stared at the heavy black coil of twisted hair. It was enormous, crowning the bowed head with a crushing and disdained glory. The escaped wisps hung straight down. And suddenly I perceived that the girl was trembling from head to foot, as though ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... scrambling after him. His first thought was to try and rescue the two men who had been carried off by the receding wave. Looking round to see who was missing, he discovered that one of them was a British seaman, the other a Frenchman. He sprang back to the boat to secure a coil of rope which had been thrown into her, and calling on his companions to hold on to one end, he fastened the other round his waist, intending to plunge in, and hoping to seize hold of the poor fellows, who could be seen struggling frantically in the hissing ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... fiercely shooting out, Devouring all they coil themselves about, The flaming furies, mounting high and higher, Wrap the frail structure in a cloak of fire. Strong arms are battling with the stubborn foe In vain attempts their power to overthrow; With mocking glee they ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... dominated "navy-blue," and the linen collar and cuffs were scarcely whiter than the round throat and wrists they encircled. The burnished auburn hair clinging in soft waves to her brow, was twisted into a heavy coil, which the long walk had shaken down till it rested almost on her neck; and though her heart beat furiously, the pale calm face might have been marble, save for the scarlet lines of her beautiful mouth, and the steady glow of the dilated pupils in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... was then of the spears and the armies and of the silken banners that were raised up in the gusty wind of the morning. And as to the banners, Finn's banner, the Dealb-Greine, the Sun-Shape, had the likeness of the sun on it; and Coil's banner was the Fulang Duaraidh, that was the first and last to move in a battle; and Faolan's banner was the Coinneal Catha, the Candle of Battle; and Oisin's banner was the Donn Nimhe, the Dark Deadly One; and Caoilte's was the Lamh Dearg, the Red Hand; and Osgar's was ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... the Captain sang out; "all of yer better take hold ... one of yer coil up that rope ... now! all together! ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... most likely to occur. These stations are each provided with a ladder of sufficient length to reach from the pier to the water at low tide, with hooks at one end, by means of which it is attached firmly to the pier; a boat hook fastened to a long pole; a life preserver or float, and a coil of rope. These are merely deposited in a conspicuous place. In case of accident, any one may use them for the purpose of rescuing a person in danger of drowning, but at other times it is punishable by law to interfere with ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... cross-line fence a few minutes later, the two free rangers starting under escort to repair the damage done to a despised fence-man's barrier. One of them carried a wire-stretcher, the chain of it wound round his saddle-horn, the other a coil of barbed wire and such tools as were required. After they had proceeded a little way, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... Department is proceeding with the conversion of 10-inch smoothbore guns into 8-inch rifles by lining the former with tubes of forged steel or of coil wrought iron. Fifty guns will be thus converted within the year. This, however, does not obviate the necessity of providing means for the construction of guns of the highest power both for the purposes of coast defense and for the armament ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur

... including women and girls, who feed and attend the screw and nail-making machines. Notwithstanding the really complicated workings of the machines, the making of a screw seems to a casual visitor but a simple thing. From a coil of wire a piece is cut of the right length by one machine, which roughly forms a head and passes it on to another, in which the blank has its head nicely shaped, shaved, and "nicked" by a revolving saw. It than passes ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... little gown. She was pretty in a daringly demure fashion, like a wicked little Puritan, or a poverty-stricken Cleo de Merode, with her smooth brown hair parted in the middle, drawn severely down over her ears, framing the lovely oval of her face and ending in a simple coil at the neck. Some serpent's wisdom had told Sophy to eschew puffs. But I think her prettiness could have triumphed even ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... "Sommers was a very witty man," he says, "and fond of experimenting. We worked on a self-adjusting telegraph relay, which would have been very valuable if we could have got it. I soon became the possessor of a second-hand Ruhmkorff induction coil, which, although it would only give a small spark, would twist the arms and clutch the hands of a man so that he could not let go of the apparatus. One day we went down to the round-house of the Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad and connected up the long wash-tank ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... the most satisfactory way will be to use hot water. If the size of the house will not justify the purchase of a small heater—a second-hand one may often be had at a very reasonable figure—a substitute may be had by inserting a hot-water coil in a stove or in the house furnace. In one of the diagrams is shown an arrangement of pipes for heating a house 21 x 50 feet, and in another piping for lean-to described in the preceding chapter. With the small pipe sufficient for such a house as that illustrated in the latter ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... kind of tension which gave it life, such as Medusa's hair must have known as the serpent-life entered into it. There is—or was—in Florence a statue of Medusa, seated, in her fingers a strand of her hair, which is beginning to coil and bend and twist before her horror-stricken eyes; and this statue flashed before Jasmine's eyes as she looked at the loose ends of gold falling beyond the blue ribbon with which she had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... return. Now we must do something. Get your rifle and lariat and hatchet. Stick the handle of the hatchet inside your trousers so that it will not be so evident, or better yet, we can do it just before we get to town. Then, too, we can coil our riatas over one shoulder, and slip our coats on over them. In that way we won't attract so much attention. The rifles won't appear to be out of place, for it would be only natural that we should take them, seeing we are supposed to be campers who will have to ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... amazing calm. "My first idea was merely to build something that would reduce the necessary supervisory force to one or two humans. But, when I had almost completed my second experimental model, I found that I was out of the copper filaments necessary to wind a certain coil. I didn't want to wait till I could obtain more from the stores, and remembered that on the inside of the door to the Death Bath there was some fine screening that could be dispensed with. I used the wire from that. Whether the secret of life as well as of death ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... "dry land terrapin," the common toad, and some salamanders burrow into the dry earth, usually going deep enough to escape frost; while snakes seek some crevice in the rocks or hole in the ground where they coil themselves together, oftentimes in vast numbers, and prepare for their winter's sleep. In an open winter this hibernation is often interrupted, the animal emerging from its retreat and seeking its usual summer haunts as though spring had come again. Thus I have, on one occasion, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... of that evening is destined to live as long as the body of James Conlan inhabits this mortal coil. When he gave the servant his hat and stick and the footman his card, and heard that powdered monstrosity bawl "Mr. James Conlan" to a room filled with shimmering gowns and glistening shirt-fronts, Jim's flesh went cold. But the ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild

... language. It was a pair of very colourless urchins that fled down the lane from this remarkable experience! But I recall with a more doubtful sentiment, compounded out of fear and exultation, the coil of equinoctial tempests; trumpeting squalls, scouring flaws of rain; the boats with their reefed lugsails scudding for the harbour mouth, where danger lay, for it was hard to make when the wind had any east in it; the wives ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... its deep mysterious caves she sunk to sleep with fishes, While a few bubbles rose from her and burst as if in mockery of human wishes. 'Up with your helm; brace round; haul out your bowlines; Clear up the deck; keep her full; coil down your tow-lines!' The ship was on her course, and not a word said to remind us Of the melancholy fact that we had left one of our number behind us. 'Shocking affair!' I remarked to Madame's partner, who looked solemn ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... mysterious manner, had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward extremity of the deck certain blue figures lounging about seemed to be quite a long way off, indeed in another world. Here and there on the deck were circles of yellow or white rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as Audrey could coil her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the deck-house and they gazed within. The sight of the interior drew out of the ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation: "What a darling!" And at the words she saw that Mr. Gilman, for all his assumed ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... By countless morns impearled; Her broad roots coil beneath the sea, Her branches sweep the world; Her seeds, by careless winds conveyed, Clothe the remotest strand With forests from her scatterings made, New nations fostered in her shade, And linking land ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... hair in a close coil and wound her skirts tightly about her, looking everywhere for a footing. She saw a deep cranny which had been hollowed out by some torrent of water—it cut sharply through the rock like a path,—she could risk that perhaps, she thought,—and yet her brain reeled—she ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... light, with the dew heavy on the willows and the river line a coil of mist, Shalah woke me for the road. We breakfasted off fried bacon, some of which I saved for the journey, for the Indian was content with one meal a day. As we left the stockade I noted the row of Meebaw scalps hanging, grim and bloody, from the poles. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... pursu'd the chace; But found himself left far behind, Both out of heart and out of wind: Griev'd to behold his Bear pursu'd So basely by a multitude; 180 And like to fall, not by the prowess, But numbers of his coward foes. He rag'd, and kept as heavy a coil as Stout HERCULES for loss of HYLAS; Forcing the vallies to repeat 185 The accents of his sad regret. He beat his breast, and tore his hair, For loss of his dear Crony Bear; That Eccho, from the hollow ground, His doleful wailings ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... unable to lift a steer's tail out, once it was imbedded in the sand. And when we had released a tail by burrowing around it to arm's length and freed it, it would sink of its own weight in a minute's time until it would have to be burrowed out again. To avoid this we had to coil up the tails and tie them with a soft ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams

... peculiarly pungent, tar-like odor. A set of steps stood at one side of the room, in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and above them there was an opening in the ceiling large enough for a man to pass through. At the foot of the steps a long coil of rope ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 't would not have done to displeasure him, and since I was to be debtor to Lord Clowes, another fifty pounds was not worth balking at. More still I'll have to ask from him, I fear, ere we are safe out of this wretched coil." ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... or victory Was his device, "and there was no mistake," Except his last; and then he did but die, A blunder which the wisest men will make. Aloft, where mighty floods the mountains break, To stand, the target of the thousand eyes, And down into the coil and water-quake, To leap, like Maia's offspring, from the skies— For this all vulgar flights he ventured ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... through the shock of hair that hangs about his head—like the mane of a wild beast. Then shivers—until the cot shakes—with unutterable terror. Then, with uplifted fist, fights back the devils, or clutches the serpents that seem winding him in their coil. Then asks for water, which is instantly consumed by his cracked lips. Going his round some morning, the surgeon finds ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... peasants, who can still fancy a good man's soul to issue from his mouth at death like a little white cloud." [165] It is kept up, too, in Lancashire, where a well-known witch died a few years since; "but before she could 'shuffle off this mortal coil' she must needs TRANSFER HER FAMILIAR SPIRIT to some trusty successor. An intimate acquaintance from a neighbouring township was consequently sent for in all haste, and on her arrival was immediately closeted with her dying friend. What ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... offers the only opening to get aboard unobserved," I replied, loosening as I spoke the slender rope coil from about my waist. "Nor would it be any trick if the light were a trifle better. As it is, I may miss a throw or two in getting firm hold. It would prove risky business attempting to pass across a line insecure at one end. Lie down now, pere, and keep ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... until within a few rods of him, when, taking from beneath his tunic his lasso, which he always carried with him, he cut a circle with it in the air, then giving it a throw, it quickly descended, girdling the strange being in its fold. With an unearthly yell, he attempted to free himself from its coil. Unfortunately it did not confine either arm, as the chief hoped it would, and the creature finding it could neither break the stout hide nor gnaw it off, sprang with ferocity at his captor, who had just succeeded in fastening ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... descend by a hole close to the tallest of those three pines yonder,' she said as she seized a small coil of rope and led the way. Having fastened the rope around the trunk of the ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... resemblance at all." His crusty manner implied that Agatha, or somebody, was to blame for all the coil of trouble, and should be made ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... inquisitively, and seems to you to be a suspicious character, I authorize you to make him prisoner and bring him over with you. Knock him down if he attempt resistance. You may as well take a pair of handcuffs with you and a short coil of rope. The object of the rope is, that if you capture any one on your way to the village you had better handcuff him, gag him, and tie him up securely to a tree or some other object at a distance from the road, and pick him up as you come back. I need hardly say that you are not to go into any ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... peering out over the dusky roofs of the city, damning with silent oaths the coil in which he found himself inextricably involved. History was repeating itself. Like father, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... second dinosaur watched the dying struggles of its mate; then, obedient to a terrified shout from its keepers, wheeled about to join in a frantic rout of the spearmen, who, casting aside shield, spear and brass coil, fled for dear life in the direction of those invisible passages ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... march pine oil snake prose parch wild moil baste those starch mild coil haste froze larch tile foil taste force lark slide soil paste porch stark glide toil bunch broth prism spent boy hunch cloth sixth fence coy lunch froth stint hence hoy punch moth smith pence joy plump botch whist thence toy stump stock ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... no longer had his eyes fixed on him, was busy unwinding a coil of rope which he had picked up, and seemed to pay no further ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... East. The ship in which he set sail for Goa had the Governor on board, with a reinforcement of a thousand men for the garrison of the place. Though a cabin was placed at his disposal, Xavier slept on deck throughout the voyage with his head on a coil of ropes, messing with the sailors. By ministering to their wants, inventing innocent sports for their amusement, and attending them in their sickness, he wholly won their hearts, and they regarded ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... yon immense 190 Serpent, which rears his dripping mane and vasty Head, ten times higher than the haughtiest cedar, Forth from the abyss, looking as he could coil Himself around the orbs we lately looked on— Is he not of the kind which basked beneath The ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... crawl and tumble about the valleys like a brood of dragons; now creeping along the ledges of the rock with sinuous self-adjustment to its turns and twists; now launching out into the deep, repelled by battling winds, or driven onward in a coil of twisted and contorted serpent curls. In the midst of summer these wet seasons often end in a heavy fall of snow. You wake some morning to see the meadows which last night were gay with July flowers huddled ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... a coil of small rope. He cut it into two-fathom lengths, giving one to Raoul and, retaining one for himself, distributed the remainder among the women with the advice to pick out a tree ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... symbolic designs. The serpent, no longer chosen for its motion alone, will be expressed in art in that form best suited to the meaning of the symbol present in the mind of the artist. Realism is never the aim of religious art. The zigzag line, the coil, the spiral, the circle and the straight line, are all geometrical radicals of various serpentine forms. Any one of these may be displayed with fanciful embellishments and artistic aids. Or the artist, proceeding by synecdoche, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... tundra others—but there were a few items common to every emergency, and those were now at Raf's fingertips. The blast bombs, sealed into their pexilod cases, guaranteed to stop all the attackers that Terran explorers had so far met on and off worlds, a coil of rope hardly thicker than a strand of knitting yarn but of inconceivable toughness and flexibility, an aid kit with endurance drugs and pep pills which could keep a man on his feet and going long after food and water failed. He had put them all in ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... latter, she ran out with joy to greet them, and sought to throw her arms about their necks. But Kay, snatching a billet out of the pile, placed the log between her two hands, and she squeezed it so that it became a twisted coil. ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... name was Gilson, opened a small square door in the wall of the corridor, and dragged forth a coil of hose. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... superintend the letter A. In May he was dangerously ill; on the 26th he had the joy of learning that his efforts to vindicate the memory of the unfortunate Count Lally were crowned with success. It was Voltaire's last triumph; four days later, unshriven and unhouseled, he expired. Seldom had such a coil of electrical energy been lodged within a human brain. His desire for intellectual activity was a consuming passion. His love of influence, his love of glory were boundless. Subject to spasms of intensest rage, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... were all foreign. I sailed as freighter and trader principally to China, Australia, and Japan, and among the Spice Islands. Mine was not the sort of life to make one long to coil up one's ropes on land, the customs and ways of which I had finally almost forgotten. And so when times for freighters got bad, as at last they did, and I tried to quit the sea, what was there for an old sailor to ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... Morse sounder somewhere about? If there were, that would account for the whole difficulty. Springing up, he began to search the room and after following the wires, sure enough, he traced them to a relay with a high resistance coil in the circuit. Feverishly he cut this out and rushed back to his telephone. Plainly over the wire came Bell's voice, 'Ahoy! Ahoy!' For a few seconds both of them were too delighted to say much ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... to the back of the room and brought a long coil of rope. Making a running noose in one end, he released several loops from the big coil and held them loosely in ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson

... to watch our descent; and as the cage held only one at a time, the engineer descended first; and when he had gained the ledge at which he had before halted, the cage rearose for me. I soon gained his side. We had provided ourselves with a strong coil ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... illumined suddenly by a white flame, whether from the leaping of some inner emotion or from the sinking firelight which blazed up fitfully Miss Saidie could not tell. As she turned her head with an impatient movement her black hair slipped its heavy coil and spread in a shadowy mass upon ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... hold of the coil of sennit, and tossing back one end over an empty water-cask. "Make fast there, Snowey! I dare say we can lay alongside safe enough till daylight! After that we'll splice together in ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... is a sensitive dead-beat D'Arsonval. The period of complete swing of the coil under experimental conditions is about 11 seconds. A current of 10^{-9} ampere produces a deflection of 1 mm. at a distance of 1 metre. For a quick and accurate method of obtaining the records, I devised the following form of response recorder. The curves are obtained ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... his head slightly; he still looked white and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and showed Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... eyes were remarkably lustrous and expressive, her black hair waved back from her brown face into a great braided coil, her features were not pretty so much as noble. Her figure, with its limber curves, was pliant and graceful in any position or emergency—the result of years in the saddle. Her feet and hands were small, the latter being firm but ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... the center of an agitated group of staff-members, trying to communicate by words and gestures, while the children tried not to show disturbance at their vehemence. A cosmic-particle specialist told Soames the trouble. Among the children's possessions there was a coil of thread-fine copper wire. Somebody had snipped off a bit of it for test, and discovered that the wire was superconductive. A superconductor is a material which has no electrical resistance whatever. In current Earth science tin and mercury and a few alloys could be made into superconductors ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster



Words linked to "Coil" :   prophylactic device, gyre, corolla, tickler coil, forge, ringlet, astatic coils, roll, solenoid, mold, wrap, birth control device, loop, helix, uncoil, primary coil, choke coil, curl, turn, induction coil, calyx, wind, condenser, moving-coil galvanometer, scroll, reactor, head, whorl, Tesla coil, work, coil spring, mould, tubing, preventative, preventive, secondary winding, spark coil, hank, primary winding, secondary coil, transformer, rotor coil, contraceptive, twine, choking coil, shape, form, tube, armature, contraceptive device, hand-build, ignition coil, structure, gyrate, spiral, handbuild, volute, curlicue, choke, stator coil, secondary, field winding, field coil, primary



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org