Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Fleece   Listen
verb
Fleece  v. t.  (past & past part. fleeced; pres. part. fleecing)  
1.
To deprive of a fleece, or natural covering of wool.
2.
To strip of money or other property unjustly, especially by trickery or fraud; to bring to straits by oppressions and exactions. "Whilst pope and prince shared the wool betwixt them, the people were finely fleeced."
3.
To spread over as with wool. (R.)






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 |





"Fleece" Quotes from Famous Books



... widow had one solitary Sheep. At shearing time, wishing to take his fleece and to avoid expense, she sheared him herself, but used the shears so unskillfully that with the fleece she sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, "Why do you hurt me so, Mistress? What weight can my blood add to the wool? If you want my flesh, there ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... American with his horseshoe, the haughty Englishman with his fan-beard open on his breast, the Spaniard with his black fleece reaching to the eyes, the Roman with that huge mustache which Italy copied from Victor Emmanuel, the Austrian with his whiskers and shaved chin, a Russian general whose lip seemed armed with two twisted lances, and a Frenchman with a dainty mustache, displayed ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... twelfth century when it was read by Benoit de Sainte More in the light of Celtic romance. Then it was discovered that Jason and Medea were no more, and no less, than the adventurer and the wizard's daughter, who might play their parts in a story of Wales or Brittany. The quest of the Golden Fleece and the labours of Jason are all reduced from the rhetoric of Ovid, from their classical dignity, to something like what their original shape may have been when the story that now is told in Argyll and Connaught of the King's Son of Ireland ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... home? You ran away to become an artist. You refused a professional position and ordinary morals; a decent occupation at so much a week. You wanted to go out and seek the Golden Fleece of Fame. Now, fight your battle; fight ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... motionless until the end of time; even the insects had disappeared. A burning, steady heat descended from the sun in a golden mist, and Jeanne walked her horse along, enjoying the stillness, and every now and then looking up at a tiny white cloud which hung like a snowy fleece in the midst of the bright blue sky. She went down into the valley leading to the sea, between the two great arches which are called the gates of Etretat, and ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... is disgusting," he said, frowning and cutting himself off a little bit. "In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece you horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely care to consume ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... that you are soon to obtain the greatest benefits through us alone of the gods? For this man is ready to do everything that you bid him. But you, while the man is astounded and evidently elated, having perceived it, will quickly fleece him to the best ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... a chapter was held at Valenciennes of the Golden Fleece. In 1540 the city entertained Charles V., the Dauphin, and the Duc d'Orleans. In 1549 a society called 'the principality of pleasure' gave a festival to 562 guests in the woolstaplers' hall. Each guest ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... went down under the blow. But his soft fleece had saved the boy from serious injury, if not from a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... length of the Angora fleece, which sometimes reaches eight inches, is due solely to the peculiar climate of the locality. The same goats taken elsewhere have not thriven. Even the Angora dogs and cats are remarkable for the extraordinary length of their fleecy covering. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... What human tie that does not knit thee to me? I love thee, Max.! What did thy father for thee, Which I too have not done, to the height of duty? Go hence, forsake me, serve thy emperor; He will reward thee with a pretty chain Of gold; with his ram's fleece will he reward thee; For that the friend, the father of thy youth, For that the holiest feeling of humanity, Was nothing ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... day, the struggle remained the same, the wind, the snow, the drifts, the white fleece flying on the breast of the gale even when there were no storm clouds above, blotting out the light of the sun and causing the great ball to be only a red, ugly, menacing thing in a field of dismal gray. Night after night the drifts swept, changing, deepening in spots where the ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... the fox, "you are too good a king To die for any trivial thing; Your simples are too nice. Eat sheep, and why not? Is it a sin? is it a vice? No, sire, you did them honor; And as for shepherds, I desire, That over us their false empire Should cease, and we have all we want Of sheep and fleece." So said the fox, flatterers applaud, The tiger, bear, and other powers they laud, Even for their most violent offence. All quarrelsome people, Down to the mastiffs, Were little saints. But when the donkey's turn came on, They heard him with many ifs. ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... spesati, he, whenever a vetturino arrives locks up all his decent chambers and says that they are engaged, in order to keep them for those travellers who may arrive in their own carriages and whom he can fleece ad libitum. A friend of mine and his lady, who were travelling in their own carriage, had, in order to avoid this extortion, engaged with a vetturino to conduct them from Naples to Rome with his horses, but their ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... reciting apt bits of poetry and other quotations adding to the pleasure of hearing his accounts rendered. He gave us modern versions of the Greek myths and hero legends, of Cadmus and Thebes, of Jason and the Golden Fleece, of the Trojan epic, ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears

... covered himself with ridicule at this game of private intrigue rather than real diplomatic negotiation; and, notwithstanding all the trouble he took, he obtained nothing by it, "the gratitude of Madame des Ursins excepted, who made Philip V. give him the Golden Fleece, the rank of grandee, the Walloon company of the bodyguard—everything, in ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... with which I hear Kinghood still spoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if governed nations were a personal property, and might be bought and sold, or otherwise acquired, as sheep, of whose flesh their king was to feed, and whose fleece he was to gather; as if Achilles' indignant epithet of base kings, "people-eating," were the constant and proper title of all monarchs; and enlargement of a king's dominion meant the same thing ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... and we were able to purchase further limited supplies of food, at an all but prohibitive price I might mention, because the rascally German speculators had paid heavily for the privilege of being able to fleece the British. When, at a later date, we received a weekly allowance of five shillings, the plight of everyone became eased materially, although, unfortunately, this sum went a very short way owing to the extortionate prices ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... they had finished cleaning and cooking, mending all their own and the men's clothes, which it was part of their duty to wash. This done, wool in what is called its 'raw state' was served out to them—that is, wool as it had been taken off the sheep's fleece—and they had to comb out all the tangles, and spin it into long skeins. Then the skeins were taken to the men, many of whom were weavers by trade, and by them it was woven into ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... of those argosies she sent out seeking the golden fleece returned to her? It's a fine point for speculation. If one only knew.... ah, but it's pitiful how much one doesn't, and can't, know in this hard and complex world! Or was it merely that she tired of them and wanted to be rid of them? Or ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... Imprudence is one of the chief characteristics of this genus of iniquity. "I would sooner owe you this than cheat you out of it:" this, in word or deed, is the highly spiritual consolation they offer those whom they fleece and then laugh at. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... unrivalled ability and exquisite taste. She wove her own robe and that of Hera, which last she is said to have embroidered very richly; she also gave Jason a cloak wrought by herself, when he set forth in quest of the Golden Fleece. Being on one occasion challenged to a contest in this accomplishment by a mortal maiden named Arachne, whom she had instructed in the art of weaving, she accepted the challenge and was completely vanquished by her pupil. Angry at her defeat, she struck the unfortunate ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... be of cotton or wool, should be grown upon the farm, and that it could not be sold in the raw state at a price which would make the growing of it profitable. In wool crops there are certain odds and ends of ragged, stained and torn locks, which would injure the appearance of the fleece, and are therefore thrown aside, and this waste is perfectly suitable for ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler

... to come for them in two years, and take them from her hands through the grating of her terrible prison. She spent the last quarter of an hour in tears, and mine were only restrained lest I should add to her grief. I cut off a piece of her fleece and a lock of her beautiful hair, promising her always to bear them next ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... inheritance, Philip and Juana were driven on English shores. Henry VII. treated them with all possible courtesy, and made Philip a Knight of the Garter, while Philip repaid the compliment by investing Prince Henry with the Order of the Golden Fleece.[61] But advantage was taken of Philip's plight to extort from him the surrender of the Earl of Suffolk, styled the White Rose, and a commercial treaty with the Netherlands, which the Flemings named the Malus Intercursus. Three months after his arrival ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... Solomon's Temple. On the evening previous, the air had been full of mist, which, as it grew colder, had settled on the trees of the Common, covering every little twig with a panoply of ice. A very light snow had fallen softly during the night, and sprinkled the ice with a feathery fleece. The trees, in this delicate white vesture, standing up against a dark blue sky, looked like the glorified spirits of trees. Here and there, the sun touched them, and dropped a shower of diamonds. Tulee gazed a moment in delighted ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... the California gold fields, washing soiled linen can hardly be regarded as satisfying a national instinct, or thumping through the long hours of the night upon an ironing table a soul-filling amusement. Much may be said of "the golden fleece," but these are no modern Argonauts. They are money-making as our friends the Jews, but no "high emprise" or "grand endeavor" fires their calm pulse, and much as has been written of the coolie system ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various

... had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth forgot her fancy. "Well," said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her teeth appearing with the word through the black fleece that protected her ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... Aaron was, in our sense, black; and he appears to have been a Negro. To mention nothing else, he is twice called 'coal-black'; his colour is compared with that of a raven and a swan's legs; his child is coal-black and thick-lipped; he himself has a 'fleece of woolly hair.' Yet he is 'Aaron the Moor,' just as Othello is 'Othello the Moor.' In the Battle of Alcazar (Dyce's Peele, p. 421) Muly the Moor is called 'the negro'; and Shakespeare himself in a single line uses 'negro' and 'Moor' of the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... L——round the "floor." There were about twenty-five shearers at work, and everything seemed to be very systematically and well arranged. Each shearer has a trap-door close to him, out of which he pushes his sheep as soon as the fleece is off, and there are little pens outside, so that the manager can notice whether the poor animal has been too much cut with the shears, or badly shorn in any other respect, and can tell exactly which shearer is to blame. Before ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... on some adventure, and find glory and renown for himself, and so return; and he sware that afterwards he would peaceably give up the kingdom. Now in the land of Colchis, which lieth to the east of the sea which men call the Hospitable Sea, there was kept a great treasure, even the fleece of a great ram, which had been sacrificed there in time past. A marvellous beast was this ram, for it had flown through the air to Colchis from the land of Greece; and its fleece was of pure gold. So Jason gathered together many valiant men, sons of gods and ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... procured by his labour from the neighbouring mosses. He also assisted his parishioners in haymaking and shearing their flocks,—in which latter art he was eminently dexterous. In return, the neighbours would present him with a haycock, or a fleece, as a ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... The servant lasses are all promised for the fleece-folding; and it's a poor house that won't keep one woman busy ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... if a vessel made of unbaked clay be put in the hole, and covered in the same way, it will be wet when uncovered, and already beginning to go to pieces from dampness, if the place contains water. If a fleece of wool is placed in the excavation, and water can be wrung out of it on the following day, it will show that the place has a supply. Further, if a lamp be trimmed, filled with oil, lighted, and put in that place and covered up, and ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... Splendid and serviceable house shoes were made from the products of the loom, the cobbler only putting on the soles. Good, warm, and tidy gloves were knit for the soldier from their home-raised fleece and with a single bone from the turkey wing. While the soldiers may have, at times, suffered for shoes and provisions, still they were fairly well clothed by the industry and patriotism of the women, and for blankets, the finest of beds were stripped to be sent voluntarily to the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... more resemble silk than woolen stuffs, and some of those made of the Alpaca fleece, are quite black, without having been dyed. It has been a matter of surprise to many, that they are not naturalized in this country, as the climate would not be an obstacle to success. The demand, however, for ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... thick fleece of the thousand-headed beast, the collective soul of the herd. He had hidden under it from fear and weariness. It is hot and stifling, a dirty feather-bed; but once wrapped in it, one cannot move to throw it off, or even wish to do so; ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... Innspruck, 1342, under furtherance of father Ludwig the Kaiser:—such a mouth as we can fancy, and a character corresponding to it. This, which seemed to the two Ludwigs a very conquest of the golden-fleece under conditions, proved the beginning of their worst ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... branch of frankincense Is Saba's sons' alone; why tell to thee Of balsams oozing from the perfumed wood, Or berries of acanthus ever green? Of Aethiop forests hoar with downy wool, Or how the Seres comb from off the leaves Their silky fleece? Of groves which India bears, Ocean's near neighbour, earth's remotest nook, Where not an arrow-shot can cleave the air Above their tree-tops? yet no laggards they, When girded with the quiver! Media yields The bitter juices and slow-lingering taste Of the blest citron-fruit, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... honor, love, and chivalry; which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility, contained nevertheless a certain mixture of frivolity and extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which was introduced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his passion for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the conquest of Constantinople from the Turks. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... seed on this boat is Jason," she said at last, without looking up, "and these little white seeds are his comrades. They're searching for The Golden Fleece. My hair is ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... sawed and sang and creaked, but it could not devour the seed cotton fast enough from the piles of the incoming fleece. ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... fast and sure: Let him but kiss the Christian cross, and sheathe the heathen sword, And hold the lands I cannot keep, a fief from Charles his lord." Forth went the pastors of the Church, the Shepherd's work to do, And wrap the golden fleece around ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and forty pounds a year; and, in 1755, the chancellor added Kirkby, of one hundred and ten. He complains that the repair of the house at Coningsby, and other expenses, took away the profit. In 1757 he published the Fleece, his greatest poetical work; of which I will not suppress a ludicrous story. Dodsley, the bookseller, was one day mentioning it to a critical visiter, with more expectation of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... might not with justice be said in Denmark, "Thorwaldsen has quite wasted his time in Rome." Doubting his genius just when it embraced him most affectionately; not expecting a victory, while he already stood on its open road, he modelled "Jason who has Gained the Golden Fleece." It was this that Thorwaldsen would have gained in the kingdom of arts, and which he now thought he must resign. The figure stood there in clay, many eyes looked carelessly on it, and—he broke it ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... and of her urgent desire that Helen should be with her. She could not hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the comments that might be made; but what were such considerations in a matter of life and death? She could not stop to make terms with Silas Peckham. She must go. He might fleece her, if he would; she would not complain,—not even to Bernard, who, she knew, would bring the Principal to terms, if she gave the least hint ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... couldn't have any desire to conceal themselves, cross over the square before the Church of St. Augustine, fare forth into the darker side passages, and move in the direction of the street of the Golden Fleece. ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... a fleece-lined coat, who had been waiting in the open for the messenger to depart, entered the tent and sat ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... of weight is used by the hill Manbo. The Christianized Manbo may have obtained some old scales of the type used by Bisyas for weighing abak fiber. These scales are steelyards, the construction of which permitted the Bisya trader to fleece his non-Christian customers of as much as 50 per cent of their abak fiber. The method of falsifying the balance was by loading the counterpoising weight with lead, and by filing the crosspiece that acts as fulcrum. Another method which might be ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... eastern skirt of the town. Dawson had enlisted to keep from starving, and, though she had no use for him as a husband, he would do to fetch and carry, and he dare not disobey. Twice when Doyle was battery officer of the day did this strangely-assorted pair of women entertain Lascelles at supper and fleece him out of what money he had. Then came Philippes with Lascelles in Mike's cab, as luck would have it, but they could not fleece Philippes. Old Lascelles was rapidly succumbing to Nita's fascinations when came ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... "looming large" through the haze Presents itself, right in your path, to your gaze, Inducing a dread Of a knock on the head, Or a sever'd carotid, to find that, instead Of one of those ruffians who murder and fleece men, It's your uncle, or one of the "Rural Policemen;"— Then the blood flows again Through artery and vein; You're delighted with what just before gave you pain; You laugh at your fears—and your friend in the fog Meets a welcome ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... That sprays us from yon trench of sky; A new amazing enemy We cannot silence though we try; A battery on radiant wings, That from yon gap of golden fleece Hurls at us hopes of such strange things As joy and ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service

... Dalrymple. Feb. 3.-Macpherson's fragments or Erse poetry. Mary Queen of Scots. Dyer's "Fleece." Pepys's collection ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... my fleece, three bags of it. I didn't mind them taking the first bag full, for I had plenty and it was so warm I thought Spring was coming. And it doesn't hurt to cut off my fleecy wool, any more than it hurts ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis

... will spin it into threads and make coats for the men and dresses for the women. For men are such strange creatures that no wool grows on them at all, and that is why they selfishly rob us of our fleece that they may cover ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum

... song. Akenside, by a felicitous conjunction of elements, which you could not have expected from other parts of his character, was entirely exempted from this defect, and not only warmly admired Pope, Young, Thomson, and Dyer, whose "Fleece" he corrected, but had kind words to spare for even such "small deer" as ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... skin changes about the neck like a fruit near to ripen, and the large arms, curving deeply, fall from the shoulder in superb indolences of movement, and the hair, varying from burnt-up black to blue, curls like a fleece adown the shoulders. She is large and strong, a fitting mother of man, supple in the joints as the young panther that has just bounded into the thickets; and her rich almond eyes, dark, and moon-like in their depth of ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... and sentimental reasons. The sound one is that we shall need their fleece unless,—why, goodness gracious, Adam, there is a baking-powder can of flax in the dresser, and I never thought till this moment that ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith

... she cried dramatically. "We have crossed the Rubicon and found the Golden Fleece! This is the place of all others for our Tea Club meeting, and it doesn't matter what the rest of the house may be like. Patty, you will kindly ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells

... gleaming Moon, in hoary light Shines out unveil'd, and on the cloud's dark fleece Rests;—but her strengthen'd beams appear to increase The wild disorder of this troubled Night. Redoubling Echos seem yet more to excite The roaring Winds and Waters!—Ah! why cease Resolves, that promis'd everlasting peace, And drew my steps to this incumbent height? I wish!—I shudder!—stretch ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... windows passes many a face fairer than that of the Ludovician Juno or the Venus of Medici. There is the Saxon blonde with the deep blue eye, whose glances return love for love, whose silken tresses rest upon her shoulders like a wealth of golden fleece, each thread of which looks like a ray of the morning sunbeam. There is the Latin brunette with the deep, black, piercing eye, whose jetty lashes rest like silken fringe upon the pearly texture of her dainty cheek, looking like raven's wings ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... While a part of this increase in value is due perhaps to a greater cost of production, a couple of illustrations will suffice to show that part of this increase in value has been due to increase in the individual merit of the animals. In 1850 sheep in this country produced 2.4 pounds of wool per fleece; in 1910 they produced 6.9 pounds per fleece. Thus, while in 50 years sheep have not quite doubled in numbers, the production of wool has increased more than five times. This is a striking example of the value of improvement in breeding, because the improvement ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... of Minos occurred the expedition of the Argonauts. Jason, the son of the king of Iolchos in Thessaly, was at the head of this expedition. Its object was to fetch the golden fleece, which was hung up in a grove sacred to Mars, in the kingdom of Colchis, at the eastern extremity of the Euxine sea. He enlisted in this enterprise all the most gallant spirits existing in the country, and among the rest ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... single little turret. It was part of a tower once, a tower that "sprang sublime," whence the king and his minions and his dames used to watch the "burning ring" of the chariot-races. . . . This is twilight: the "quiet-coloured eve" smiles as it leaves the "many-tinkling fleece"; all is tranquillity, the slopes and rills melt into one grey . . ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... spacious hall, connected with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel. The hall was celebrated for its size, harmonious proportions, and the richness of its decorations. It was the place where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece were held. Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arras, representing the life and achievements of Gideon the Midianite, and giving particular prominence to the miracle of the "fleece of wool," vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... taking their canoes for nothing; but they took good care not to give them, but made vague offers, which meant, "We want much higher pay for our dhows than Arabs generally get:" they showed such an intention to fleece me that I was glad to get out of their power, and save the few goods I had. I went a few miles, when two strangers I had allowed to embark (from being under obligations to their masters), worked against each other: so I had to let one ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... fleece on chin, sir? Needs Must she be fair: thou, wrapt in age's weeds, Whose blood, if time have touched it not and stilled, The sun's own fire must once have kindled,—thou Sing praise of soft-lipped women? doth not shame ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... found in all parts of the animal body. Especially rich in potash salts are the blood corpuscles, which contain about ten times the amount contained in the serum. It is found in especial abundance in the fleece of sheep, which may contain more potash than that in the whole body of the sheep. Animal urine also contains potash ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman

... to be noted—namely, that merchants' marks were entirely distinct from shop signs, such as that of the Golden Fleece, which, though serving the same purpose of aiding or enlightening the unlearned, were more pictorial in character. Dr. Barrington, in his "Lectures on Heraldry," defines merchants' marks as "various ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... such nominal blockade would not be respected by European powers; and reliant upon the kingship of cotton inducing early recognition, both believed that the ships of England and France—disregarding the impotent paper closure—would soon crowd southern wharves and exchange the royal fleece for the luxuries, no less than the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... remembers afterwards every detail about his looks and dress, and how he sat and walked. Unlike all other men he seemed to her. Tears run down her cheeks at the thought that he might succumb in his combat with the two terrible bulls he will have to tame before he can recover the Golden Fleece. Even in her dreams she suffers tortures, if she is able to sleep at all. She is distracted by conflicting desires. Should she give him the magic salve which would protect his body from harm, or let him die, and die with him? Should she give up her home, her family, her honor, for ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... time, was a grotesque negro cripple, in tow-cloth attire and an old coal-sifter of a tamborine in his hand, who, owing to something wrong about his legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of a Newfoundland dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured, honest black face rubbing against the upper part of people's thighs as he made shift to shuffle about, making music, such as it was, and raising a smile even from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his very deformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... shingles, and the sea-worn rocks Sucking the brine through bared and lapping locks Of bright, brown tangle; while the shelving ledges Poured back the swirling waters o'er their edges; And billows breaking on a precipice In spouts of spray, fell spreading like a fleece. ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... prison, at Cadiz. Thus perished the most gentlemanlike of filibusters, since the days when Jason sailed in the Argo to extend the blessing of Greek institutions over Colchis and to appropriate the Golden Fleece. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... and labours will greatly extend the pastoral interests of the Australian colonies, for I am disposed to think that the climate of the region through which he will pass, is too warm for the successful growth of wool. As I stated in the body of my work, the fleece on the sheep we took into the interior, ceased to grow at the Depot in lat. 29 degrees 40 minutes, as did our own hair and nails; but local circumstances may account for this effect upon the animal system, although it seems to me that the great ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... well-intentioned readers set him right on points of morality and law. When he was old, and ill, and ruined, there was yet no respite from the curse of correspondents. A year before his death he wrote dejectedly in his journal:—"A fleece of letters which must be answered, I suppose; all from persons—my zealous admirers, of course—who expect me to make up whatever losses have been their lot, raise them to a desirable rank, and stand their protector and patron. I must, they take it for ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... foibles, and he did not find that they were gratified when among his equals and superiors in station. Sensible men could not make him a companion, and the more dangerous stamp of men, when they could not fleece him, turned him into ridicule, so that ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to go, Jeannot, now; you are so late. I will come and see your mother to-morrow. And do not be cross, you dear big Jeannot. Days are too short to snip them up into little bits by bad temper; it is only a stupid sheep-shearer that spoils the fleece by snapping at it sharp and hard; that ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... interests in life. Hadleigh was Mr. Drummond's sheep-walk, where he shepherded his lambs, and looked after his black sheep and tried to wash them white, or, in default of that, at least to make out that their fleece was not so sable after all: so he now considered it his duty to leave off turning over the pages of a seductive-looking novel, and to ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... Leicester) with long staple wool (record length, 36".) and fleeces weighing up to 12 lbs. The Leicester fleece is softer, finer and better ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... vision keen! - Tripping along to me for love As in the flesh it used to move, Only its hat and plume above The evening fog-fleece seen. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... also made Maurice's acquaintance, loiters in this studio. The amiable Bohemian has not yet paid his bill to Pere Lebuffle, but he has cut his red fleece close to his head, and publishes every Sunday, in the journals, news full of grace and humor. Of course they will never pardon him at the Cafe de Seville; the "long-haired" ones have disowned this traitor ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... fixed a living brute, A rooted plant bears quadruped for fruit; It has a fleece, nor does it want for eyes, And from its brows two wooly horns arise. The rude and simple country people say It is an animal that sleeps by day And wakes at night, though rooted to the ground, To feed on grass within ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... We have laid waste our forests, impoverished our fields, and defiled our landscapes to stimulate increased activity in our clearing-houses. Like Jason of old, we have wandered far in quest of the golden fleece. We welcome the rainbow, not for its beauty but for the bag of gold at its end. We seek to scale the heights of Olympus by stairways of gold, fondly nursing the conceit that, once we have scaled these heights, we shall be equal to ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... them, which our country is entirely free from. Instead of those beautiful feathers with which we adorn our heads, they often buy up a monstrous bush of hair, which covers their heads, and falls down in a large fleece below the middle of their backs, with which they walk up and down the streets, and are as proud of it as if it ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... with cheerful patience that he attended to his three draughtsmen in the studio, or walked about the environs of the fortress during the fifty hours spent by her presumably tender missive on the road. A light fleece of snow fell during the second night of waiting, inverting the position of long-established lights and shades, and lowering to a dingy grey the approximately white walls of other weathers; he could trace the postman's ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... Thursday of July and lasts till the Saturday; and Argyllshire, Nairnshire, and High Aberdeenshire have gradually joined in. The plain-stones in front of the Caledonian Hotel have always been the scene of the bargains, which are most truly based on the broad stone of honour; not a sheep or fleece is to be seen and the buyer of the year before gets the first offer of the cast or clip. The previous proving and public character of the different flocks are the purchasers' guide far ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... one; there is the 'Cutlet and the Cabob'—a sentimental one; Timbuctoothen—a humorous one." Lord Carlisle's honesty, Lord Nugent's fun, Lord Lindsay's piety, failed to float their books. Miss Martineau, clear, frank, unemotional Curzon, fuddling the Levantine monks with rosoglio that he might fleece them of their treasured hereditary manuscripts, even Eliot Warburton's power, colouring, play of fancy, have yielded to the mobility of Time. Two alone out of the gallant company maintain their vogue to-day: Stanley's "Sinai and Palestine," as a Fifth Gospel, an inspired Scripture ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... unwelcome to the bailiff, surgeon, and solicitor, who, upon the supposition that the Count was a person of fortune, and would rather part with an immense sum than incur the ignominy of a jail, or involve himself in another disgraceful lawsuit, had resolved to fleece him to the utmost of their power. But, now the attorney finding him determined to set his fate at defiance, and to retort upon him a prosecution, which he had no design to undergo, began to repent heartily of the provocation he had given, and to think seriously on some method ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... famous sorceress of Colchis who married Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, and aided him in getting possession of the golden fleece. After being married ten years, Jason repudiated her for Glauc[^e]; and Medea, in revenge, sent the bride a poisoned robe, which killed both Glauc[^e] and her father. Medea then tore to pieces her two sons, and fled to Athens in a chariot drawn ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... was o'er her shoulders thrown; A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air; 'Twas simple russet, but it was her own; 'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair! 'Twas her own labour did the fleece prepare; And, sooth to say, her pupils ranged around, Through pious awe, did term it passing rare; For they in gaping wonderment abound, And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... throat with the wild strawberries which were fast ripening in the sheltered nooks of the hills. It was now so near midsummer, and the nights were so fast melting into the days, that Hund could at the latest scarcely see a star, though there was not a fleece of cloud in the whole circle of the heavens. While yet the sun was sparkling on the fiord, and glittering on every farm-house window that fronted the west, all around was as still as if the deepest darkness ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... described, belonging to the royal palaces, sparkled with flowers of gold and silver, and various imitations of the vegetable kingdom. Animals, also, were to be found there,—among which the llama, with its golden fleece, was most conspicuous,—executed in the same style, and with a degree of skill, which, in this instance, probably, did not surpass the excellence of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... beach and heaping the sand in curious little crescent ridges. The sun beat hotly on the board walk. There were faint sounds in the distance, from the Indian village up the shore and the fishing community across the bay. Life in this parish of the Northland drifted by like the fleece of ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor

... lamb, Its fleece was white as snow, And every where that Mary went The lamb was sure to go; He followed her to school one day— That was against the rule, It made the children laugh and play, To see a ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... as usual, to bestir themselves. The first Bee to appear, an Osmia, is dropped alive into a glass jar containing a few of these larvae; and after a lapse of some fifteen minutes I inspect them through the pocket-lens. Five Sitares are embedded in the fleece of the thorax. It is done, the problem's solved! The larvae of the Sitares, like those of the Oil-beetles, cling like grim death to the fleece of their generous host and make him carry them into the cell. Ten times over I repeat ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... I daresay you don't. Wasn't he as near ruining you as possible! Didn't he teach you to gamble, and fleece you, and lead you into all kinds of mischief? Didn't I forbid him the house for it? Didn't he rob his own father, and make his mother miserable? Didn't he drink and keep company with the worst profligates of the country? Didn't he as good as rob me, sir, out of a ten-pound note ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... interest in the candy. His professional reputation was at stake. Never could he face the gang on Billy-goat Hill, if he failed to fleece this lamb that Providence had so clearly thrust in ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... thousand crowns, and having on the ring in which it was set this inscription: "A token and proof of affection" (Dilectionis testis et exemplum). Charles put the ring on his finger; and, taking from his neck the collar of the order (the Golden Fleece) he was wearing, he put it upon the king's neck. Francis did the converse with his own collar. Only seven of the attendants remained in the emperor's chamber; and there the two sovereigns conversed for an hour, after which they moved to the hall, where a splendid ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... answered, her eyes twinkling at the thought of being able to fleece us, as she led us into a small room at ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... (uncultivated), that it might recover its fertility. It is said that eight or nine bushels of grain represented the average yield of an acre. Farm animals were small, for scientific breeding had not yet begun. A full-grown ox reached a size scarcely larger than a calf of to-day, and the fleece of a sheep often weighed less than two ounces. Farm implements were few and clumsy. The wooden ploughs only scratched the ground. Harrowing was done with a hand implement little better than a large rake. Grain was cut with a sickle, and grass was mown with a scythe. It took five men a day ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... God, thy watchfulness O'er me, oh may it never cease! Keep thou the opening of my lips! the fleece Of purest snow be my soul's daily dress. Guard thou my hands! O Samas, Lord of Light! And ever keep my life and ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... thought she always saw the rain falling either in hopeless sheets or more hopeless drizzle. The occasions upon which this was a dreary truth blotted out or blurred the exceptions, when in liquid ultramarine deeps of sky, floated islands and mountains of snow-white fleece, of a beauty of which she had before ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... so handsome that night, with his broad forehead, which seemed to retain the light, his thick, silvery fleece of hair, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil. Scorning the slow reward of patient grain, He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain, Then sat him down and waited for the rain. He sailed in borrowed ships of usury — A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea, Seeking the Fleece and finding misery. Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance Should plough for him the stony field of Chance. Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell, He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier



Words linked to "Fleece" :   bill, trim, rip off, overcharge, gouge, fabric, sheepskin, Golden Fleece, pelage, surcharge, extort, hook, rack, chisel, shear, charge, cheat, squeeze, textile, rob, fleecy, shave, plume



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org