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Litter   Listen
verb
Litter  v. i.  
1.
To be supplied with litter as bedding; to sleep or make one's bed in litter. (R.) "The inn Where he and his horse littered."
2.
To produce a litter. "A desert... where the she-wolf still littered."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Litter" Quotes from Famous Books



... having given way to clear flame, but there was still a faint thread rising, and unless the Malays took it for steam from one of the hot springs they might land there to see, and if they did, though nothing was visible from a distance, the trampled sand and litter of the camp, as well as the tracks left by the keel of the boat, would show plainly enough that there were inhabitants ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn

... Croix d'Arcy, is the hut of a peasant upon whom I can rely. His name is Poignot; and he was formerly in Monsieur Lacheneur's employ. With the assistance of his three sons, he now tills quite a large farm. We must procure a litter and carry Monsieur d'Escorval to the house of ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau

... mounted the platform, made reverent bows, and the chief judge, Lizet, kneeling down, harangued the queen. The chancellor then knelt down and answered. The queen made her entry at half-past three o'clock in an open litter, having Madame Marguerite de France sitting opposite to her, and on either side of the litter the Cardinals of Amboise, Chatillon, Boulogne, and de Lenoncourt in their episcopal robes. She left her litter at the church of Notre-Dame, where ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... this journey and had to be carried on a litter. There he lay unconscious and delirious with fever, and lost entirely his count of time. The troop moved again towards Tanganyika, and was to cross the lake in canoes to the Ujiji country on the eastern shore. If he could only get so ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... one of these birds; they were reserved exclusively to supply the king's headgear. In order to communicate with their people, the Incas were in the habit of making a stately progress through their land once in every few years. The litter in which they travelled was richly decorated with gold and emeralds, and surrounded by a numerous escort. The men who bore it on their shoulders were provided by two cities specially appointed for the purpose, and the service was no enviable one, since a fall ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... from the field an ounce of British lead, which remained in his body thirty-five years. Captain Solomon Van Rensselaer fought most courageously by the side of Mad Anthony Wayne in the Miami campaign. Being seriously wounded in a brilliant charge, he refused to be carried off the field on a litter, but insisted that, as a dragoon, he should be allowed to ride his horse from the battle and, if he dropped, to die where ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... cried, in an accent of alarm, "there is a fresh litter of leaves up stairs, which has been recently slept upon, and I miss a knife that I left the ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... defeat, the clan MacGregor kept together in a body, and did not disperse till they had returned into their own country. They brought James Roy with them in a litter; and, without being particularly molested, he was permitted to reside in the MacGregor's country along with ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... blank room which the young man occupied, and which had received but very few ornaments or additions since the last time we saw them. Warrington's old bookcase and battered library, Pen's writing-table with its litter of papers, presented an aspect cheerless enough. "Will you like to look in the bedrooms, Mr. Bows, and see if my victims are there?" he said bitterly; "or whether I have made away with the little girls, and hid them in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and with a light tap came into the room where she expected to find Rosamond, but the words of contrition died on her lips, for the room was filled with a litter of lovely gowns, hats and slippers, in the midst of which sat Rosamond criticising and selecting, while a deferential young woman in correct black made notes on a little pad. The name of an exclusive outfitter was on the box-lids ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther

... repeating the motive first heard in the prelude, arouse them from their sleep; and as they offer up their morning prayer the chorale is heard again. As they wend their way to the castle, they meet two knights preceding the litter upon which the wounded Amfortas, King of the Grail, is carried. In the subsequent dialogue Gurnemanz tells the story of the King's mishap. He is suffering from a wound which refuses to close, and ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... returned. When he had struggled to a sitting posture he discovered that his hands were bound with buckskin thongs. By his side he saw two long poles of basswood, with some strips of green bark and pieces of grapevine laced across and tied fast to the poles. Evidently this had served as a litter on which he had been carried. From his wet clothes and the position of the sun, now low in the west, he concluded he had been brought across the river and was now miles from the fort. In front of him he saw three Indians sitting ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... holiday with Bess and the baby, a holiday which had already stretched itself out to Thanksgiving, and threatened to last until Christmas. People wrote alluringly from town, but what had town to offer compared with a saddle-horse to yourself, and a litter of collie pups to play with, and a baby just learning to walk? I even began to consider ranching as a career, and to picture myself striding over my broad acres ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... borne by his friends on a litter to Boscean, but he died as he reached the town-place. His parents, overwhelmed in their own sorrows, thought nothing of Nancy, and without her knowing that Lenine had returned, the poor fellow was laid in his ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... from India and Peru, mosaic work from Italy, and bronzes from France, were all heaped together pell-mell with the coarse deal boxes and dingy leather cases which served to pack them for traveling. The little man apologized, with a cheerful and simpering conceit, for his litter of curiosities, his dressing-gown, and his delicate health; and, waving his hand toward a chair, placed his attention, with pragmatical politeness, at the visitor's disposal. Magdalen looked at him with a momentary doubt whether Mrs. Lecount had not deceived ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... ecclesiastical state and the South of Tuscany—his native home—he knew thoroughly, and after he became pope he spent his leisure during the favorable season chiefly in excursions to the country. Then at last the gouty man was rich enough to have himself carried in a litter through the mountains and valleys; and when we compare his enjoyments with those of the popes who succeeded him, Pius, whose chief delight was in nature, antiquity, and simple but noble architecture, appears almost a saint. In ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... she's got a litter of young ones close by here," said Bobolink; "and is playing lame just to lead us away from the bunch. I've seen rabbits do that before now. The cuteness of the thing! Look at her, would you, just beggin' us to run after, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... thing," he said gloomily. "You'll see. She'll litter the whole place up with a lot of smelly bandits, and they'll cut your throat, and steal your money, and ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... One of their visitors was an Indian queen—as they called her—the woman chief of a tribe of the South. When the Spaniards came near her domain she hastened to welcome them, hoping by this means to make friends of her dreaded visitors. Borne in a litter by four of her subjects, the dusky princess alighted before De Soto and came forward with gestures of pleasure, as if delighted to welcome her guests. Taking from her neck a heavy double string of pearls, she hung it on that of the Spanish leader. De Soto accepted it with the courtly ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Troopes, The King doth smile at, and is well prepar'd To whip this dwarfish warre, this Pigmy Armes From out the circle of his Territories. That hand which had the strength, euen at your dore, To cudgell you, and make you take the hatch, To diue like Buckets in concealed Welles, To crowch in litter of your stable plankes, To lye like pawnes, lock'd vp in chests and truncks, To hug with swine, to seeke sweet safety out In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake, Euen at the crying of your Nations crow, Thinking this voyce an armed Englishman. Shall that victorious hand be feebled heere, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... another curious incident in Rough's career. At one time when she had a litter of pups at home she was yet compelled to be a great part of the day with the flock of ewes as they could not do without her. The boys just then were bringing up a motherless lamb by hand and they would put it with the sheep, and ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson

... Don Mariano to his domestics. "Haste! Procure a litter, and have the wounded horseman carried down here ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... on a plank, laid upon iron ballast. There is a little wharf or pier close at hand, the outer end of which is always going to be repaired. There are two or three other shops near by, and about them is the pleasant litter of a boat-yard. In the cove before them lie at their moorings in the late afternoon a fleet of fifteen or twenty fishing and pleasure boats, all cat-rigged, all of one general build, wide, shoal, with one broad sail, all painted white, by the custom of the place, and all or nearly all kept neat ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... went down to the Municipal Building. It didn't look like the same place. The walls had been scrubbed; the floors were free from litter. All the drove of loafers and hangers-on had been run out, or maybe jailed and put to work. I looked into a couple of offices; everybody in them was busy. A few of the old police force were still there, but their uniforms had ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... the window as directed, and he retreated. His snug place proved to be a wretched little shelter of the roughest kind, formed of four hurdles thatched with brake-fern. Underneath were dry sticks, hay, and other litter of the sort, upon which he sat down; and there in the dark tried to eat his meal. But his appetite was quite gone. He pushed the plate aside, and shook up the hay and sacks, so as to form a rude couch, on which he flung himself down to sleep, for ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... blast of the storm which had broken over the church swept away the dust of its remains: the pulpit and the confessional-box, which had been ground into powder, the lacerated holy pictures, the shattered sacred vessels, all the litter at which the legion of sparrows that had once dwelt amongst the tiles was eagerly pecking. The great Christ, torn from the cross, hung for a moment from one of the streaming women's curls, and then was whirled away into the black darkness, in the depths of which it sank with a loud ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... "Seven Hills," which only on their summits showed the nobler temples or the dwellings of the great patricians, broke upon him. And it was with eyes a-sparkle with enthusiasm, and a light heart, that he reached the Porta Esquilina, left the carriage for a litter borne by four stout Syrians sent out from the house of his late uncle, and was carried soon into the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... Cordera to Hispaniola shore, and so in a litter to his own house in Isabella. All our town was gathered to see him carried there. He began to improve. The second day he said to Don Bartholomew, "You shall be my lieutenant and deputy. Adelantado—I ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... and told him that there was a litter of puppies with the hound. "That is well," said Little Fawn, "and in a while we will try if one has the strength and courage enough to help us to take ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum

... strayed away in the previous night, which she had never known them do before, and the keeper had found the heads scattered about the wood not far from an earth where an old vixen was known to have brought up a litter of cubs. What could have possessed the fowls Mrs. Mugford couldn't say, for her old stag (and she selected the head of a venerable cock from the heap as she spoke, to give point to her remark) was so sensible as ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... charm, while emotion is warm With the thought of my Prince on his travel unknown; The royal in blood, by misfortune subdued, While the base-born[148] by hosts is secured on the throne? Of the hound is the race that has wrought our disgrace, Yet the boast of the litter of mongrels is small, Not the arm of your might makes it boast of our flight, But the musters that failed at the moment of call— Five banners were furl'd that might challenge the world, Of their silk not a pennon was spread to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... that you're in a regular litter and clouds of tobacco smoke. I'm sending you Marya and Fomushka. They'll tidy you up in half an hour. And don't hinder them, but go and sit in the kitchen while they clear up. I'm sending you a Bokhara rug and two china ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... beginning of better habits may be made by getting the pupils to aid in beautifying and decorating the school building by means of pictures, either prints or their own work, by flowers in pots, by keeping the floor and walls clean and free from marks and litter; also in making the grounds around the school more attractive by means of flowers and shrubs. Arbor Day may be made of great use in this respect, if the spirit of that Day can be carried through the whole ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education

... the house beyond the stile-block had looked miserably uninviting,—a plough on the front porch, harness on the porch posts; all around the house the yard litter of cheap farm life, a broken-down harrow, broken-backed furniture, straw, corn-shucks, ghosts of past winters and past summers on the farm, that had shuffled out there and died there; each time the cleared patches ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... had a litter of a dozen pigs, and Don Mariano fed them and saw them grow with satisfaction and certainty that the bears would not get them. When they were about roasting size Don Mariano looked into the corral one morning and counted only eleven little ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... streaming upon them from the dark circle of the fort, the air and the light and his soul full of haunting, the touch of the unimaginable thrilling his heart; and now he sat in a terrible "bed-sitting-room" in a western suburb, confronted by a heap and litter of papers on the desk of a ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... careful to cover the sashes at night with garden mats, woollen carpeting, or like material. Water with tepid water, at noon, on sunny days. If the heat of the bed declines much, apply a moderate lining of warm dung or stable-litter to the sides, which, by gently renewing the heat, will soon forward the Radishes for pulling. Remember, as they advance in growth, to give more copious admissions of air daily, either by lifting the lights in front several inches, or, in fine, mild ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr

... this, knew not that Rachel had stolen her father's gods. Then Laban entered the tabernacle of Jacob and Leah, and sought and found nothing. And when he came into the tabernacle of Rachel, she hied her and hid the idols under the litter of her camel and sat upon it. And he sought and found nought. Then said Rachel: Let not my lord be wroth for I may not arise to thee, for sickness is fallen to me, and so she deceived her father. Then Jacob, being angry and grudging, said to Laban: What ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... in secluded and mountainous districts. You would wonder that they have not been extirpated long ago—being such large creatures, easily discovered and easily tracked; besides, it is always an ambition with the settlers and amateur-hunters to kill them. Moreover, but two cubs are produced at a litter, and that only happens once a-year. The fact is, that during winter, when the snow is on the ground and the bear might be easily tracked and destroyed, he does not show himself, but lies torpid in his den—which is either a cave in the rocks or a hollow tree. This happens only ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... empty sacks on the ground near it, and they emptied the corn into these, so that there should be no litter about. Chester gave an exclamation of disappointment as they reached the bottom. Mark put his hand on the bin ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... result is known. The whole case was investigated by Congress. St. Clair was exculpated and regained the confidence Washington had in him when appointing him to that command. He had put himself into the thickest of the fight, and escaped unhurt, though so ill as to be carried on a litter, and unable to mount his horse ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... Camille to have her taken to the farmhouse from which the ladder had been borrowed. Calyste, Gasselin, and Camille took off what clothes they could spare and laid them on the ladder, making a sort of litter on which they carried Beatrix. The farmers gave her a bed. Gasselin then went to the place where the carriage was awaiting them, and, taking one of the horses, rode to Croisic to obtain a doctor, telling the boatman to row to the landing-place that ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... chair he placed at my disposal, I awaited his further pleasure. He had seated himself at the writing-table, and was fingering a pen with thoughtfulness or perhaps hesitation. The table, I noticed, was bare of the litter which usually cumbers the desk of a busy man. The calendar lying at his elbow was an ornamental cardboard trifle, embellished with cupids and simpering shepherdesses—such as girls send to each other at the New Year. The surroundings, in fact, were indicative rather of a trifling leisure than ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... Winifred at the lodge admiring the litter of purebred white puppies. The girl looked up, and there was a rather ugly, unseeing cast in her eyes as she turned to Gerald and Gudrun. She did not ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... his province. It was easy to discern, from the first words which he spoke, whether he came from Somersetshire or Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about decorating his abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom produced anything but deformity. The litter of a farmyard gathered under the windows of his bedchamber, and the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty; and guests were cordially welcomed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... finished, with its dairy and coal-shed, and a stable put up at Mr. Lockwood's desire, a large party assembled within the walls. Martha had been diligently occupied all the week in a grand cleaning down; and Tim and Stephen had been equally busy in clearing away the litter left by the builders, and in restoring the garden to some order. They had been obliged to contrive some temporary seats for their visitors, for the old furniture had not yet been brought up from the cinder-hill cabin; and the only painful ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... litter around him, and recovered his own very clumsy umbrella. Beyond it lay the broad sombrero fallen from the head of Muscari, and beside it a sealed business letter which, after a glance at the address, he returned to the elder Harrogate. On the other side of him the grass ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... He felt hot and uncomfortable. He stretched himself and rolled over on his back. He gazed upward through the tangle of branches and tried to relax again. But the heat had become unbearable. He struggled to his feet and brushed the litter from his clothes. Away in each direction stretched the field. It was dry and dusty and covered with a short, cutting stubble beneath the upper surface of waving grass and weeds. It no longer held any allurement for him and yet ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... soon she got to be known by that name, or Mel, for short. Until she got well, she was put into the cow stable, where Mr. Wood's cows all stood at night upon raised platforms of earth covered over with straw litter, and she was tied with a Dutch halter, so that she could lie down and go to sleep when she wanted to. When she got well, she was put out to pasture with the ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... expeditious passage from scene to scene. Stage properties, however, were probably a valuable part of the theatrical belongings. If we glance over the stage-directions in the plays of Greene, Peele, Kyd and Marlowe, we come upon such visible objects as a throne, a bower, a bed, a table, a tomb, a litter, a cage, a chariot, a hearse, a tree; more elaborate would be Alphonsus's canopy with a king's head at each of three corners, Bungay's dragon shooting fire, Remilia's 'globe seated in a ship', the 'hand from out a cloud with a burning sword' (A Looking-Glass), ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... handes of his owne people. Hereupon the troupes of the Gentiles being returned with the recouered pray, and being deuided through the secret and hard passages of the craggie hilles, the souldiers brought the dead bodie of Hugh, which they had put in a litter, into the citie of Nazareth, which is by the mount Thaber, where with great mourning and lamentation, so worthie a prince, and valiant champion was honourably and Catholikely interred. The brother of the said Hugh named Gerrard, the same time lay sicke of a grieuous disease. Which hearing ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... mission quarters in the gray of the next dusk, and stood again after nigh three months at his own door. The clearing was a white square, all its unlovely litter of fallen trees and half-burned stumps hidden under the virgin snow. The cabin sat squat and brown-walled amid this. On all sides the spruce stood dusky-green. Beyond, over in Lone Moose meadow, Thompson, standing ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... aforethought," I responded, "I am going to litter up your floor. I have decided to be reckless. I don't ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... Ralph, you are a bigger fool, for you think that Jan Botmar, your foster-father here, desires to be rid of you when in truth he only seeks your good to his own sore loss. As for you, Suzanne, you are the biggest fool of all, for you wish to fly in everybody's face, like a cat with her first litter of kittens; but there, what is the use of arguing with a girl in love? Now listen, and I will ask you some questions, all of you. Jan, do you wish to send Ralph ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... words which he spoke whether he came from Somersetshire or Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about decorating his abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom produced anything but deformity. The litter of a farm-yard gathered under the windows of his bed-chamber, and the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty; and guests were cordially welcomed to it. But as the habit of ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... favorable to an expansion of the currency and to laws to relieve the debtor class. It was but the continuation of an old practice when the western legislature in this time of stringency attempted measures of relief for their citizens. Kentucky's "litter" of forty banks chartered in the session of 1818-1819 had been forced to the wall by the measures of the national bank. After the panic, Kentucky repealed the charters of these banks and incorporated the Bank of the Commonwealth ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... Cortez, gazing with eagle eye around the field in search of some vision of hope, some promise of safety, saw at no great distance in the midst of the throng a splendidly dressed chief, who was borne in a rich litter and surrounded by a gayly attired body of young warriors. A head-dress of beautiful plumes, set in gold and gems, rose above him, and over this again was a short staff bearing a golden net, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... his car Milt Daggett drew a tiny stove, to be heated by a can of solidified alcohol, a frying pan that was rather large for dolls but rather small for square-fingered hands, a jar of bacon, eggs in a bag, a coffee pot, a can of condensed milk, and a litter of unsorted tin plates and china cups. While, by his request, Claire scoured the plates and cups, he made bacon and eggs and coffee, the little stove in the bottom of his car sheltered by the cook's bending over it. The smell of food made Claire forgiving ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... passionate. I hated this life spent in walking on bare boards, and the blank walls and polished forms of the school appeared to me to be sordid. When now and again I went into one of the master's studies and felt a carpet under my feet, and saw a pleasant litter of pipes and novels lying on the table, it seemed to me that I was in a holy place, and I looked at the hearthrug, the wallpaper, and the upholstered chairs with a kind of desolate love for things that were nice to see and touch. I suppose ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... sigh, I swept the litter from the table, and, taking from the shelf that held my meagre library a bundle of Master Shakespeare's plays (gathered for me by Rolfe when he was last in London), I began to read; but my thoughts wandered, and the tale seemed dull and oft told. I tossed it aside, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... in 1504 to be carried ashore on a litter, and to learn that the Queen of Spain was dead. He was friendless, penniless, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge

... up the garments from the chair, looked them over closely and replaced them. He turned to the wardrobe cupboards again, and hunted through them carefully. The litter on the dressing-table now engaged his attention for the second time. Then he sat down on the empty chair, took his head in his hands, and remained in that attitude, staring at the carpet, for some minutes. He rose at last and opened the inner ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... thin as a pancake under a threadbare blanket with a faded red stripe, and a folded mosquito-net against the nights spent in harbor. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere in sight, no boots on the floor, no litter of any sort, not a speck of dust anywhere; no traces of pipe-ash even, which, in a heavy smoker, was morally revolting, like a manifestation of extreme hypocrisy; and the bottom of the old wooden arm-chair (the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... any dishes," smiled Rosemary. "Winnie put in only paper plates and napkins, and it won't be wasteful to leave the little that's left for the birds. If you want to bury the boxes, that will be nice; Hugh always detests any litter ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... down by a limited allowance of water were our only form of food; everyone suffered more or less from dysentery, spread by the millions of flies which settled on every mouthful we ate and made life almost insupportable by day. No Man's Land was one vast litter of unburied corpses. Yet no man's spirit ever wavered and all ranks remained as bright, as hopeful and as cheerful as on the day of the first great landing. If shells were scarce, complaints were non-existent; all were upheld by the wonderful religion of self-sacrifice. It will ever remain ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... for me than a drink of water. I beckoned him close, stopping the arabeah; and under the tumbler he handed up was a folded bit of paper. None save the water seller had attention to spare for me just then, as a wedding procession was approaching, with a crude but gorgeous curtained litter drawn by camels, and a number of musicians with raeitas, darabukas, the "key and bottle," and other Eastern instruments which may have been ancestors of the Highlanders' bagpipes. The street crowd followed, enchanted by the plaintive, monotonous notes, grotesque to newcomers from ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... he had been captured by the tribe that had a battle with Friday's people. The Spaniard was one of sixteen men that had been saved by Friday's people from a wrecked ship. So weak were the prisoners that they could not walk to the shelter. Robinson and Friday made a litter and carried them one after the other. When once there, Friday prepared some rich rice soup. The prisoners ate heartily and in a few days were strong enough to ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison

... still counting down from minus three hours. I just phoned the launching site for a jeep. Eugenio's been there ever since dinner; they say he's running around like a cat looking for a place to have her first litter of kittens." ...
— The Answer • Henry Beam Piper

... thing I saw? It is so petty a thing to state, and yet it seemed so wonderful, so pregnant with emotion. I have said that amidst the stick-like litter were these rounded bodies, these little oval bodies that might have passed as very small pebbles. And now first one and then another had stirred, had rolled over and cracked, and down the crack of each of them showed ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... thus out of our history. But in the evening Gui Camoys came into Bristol under a flag of truce, and behind him heaved a litter ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... a slit hole. The sun, now gone far down the sky, shone brightly on shattered gable-tops, and roofless, rough-edged walls, revealing many a flaw and chasm in the yielding masonry; and their shadows fell with picturesque effect on the loose litter, rude implements, and gapped dry-stone fence, of the neglected farm-yard which ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... in Scotland a terrier had a litter of pups, which were at once taken away from her and drowned. The unfortunate mother was very unhappy, until, a few weeks later, she saw a brood of ducklings, which she seized and carried to her house, where she kept them, following them in and ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown

... stared at the immense rollers and cried piteously. Chickens and cats, wading perturbedly in the water, as by common consent, with flight and scramble took refuge on the roof of the captain's house. A Paumotan, with a litter of new-born puppies in a basket, climbed into a cocoanut tree and twenty feet above the ground made the basket fast. The mother floundered about in the water beneath, whining ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... tardily obeyed, and many hours elapsed before our encampment was raised. Had I submitted to my surgeon's orders, I might have been in a state to accompany the most dilatory of the stragglers; I could have borne, perhaps, the slow motion of a litter, on which some of the sick were transported; but in the evening, when the surgeon came to dress my wounds, he found me in such a situation that it was ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... was that she did not want to see George Cannon; she was not honestly persuaded that she feared to see him. In the meantime, Edwin Clayhanger was invisible, though the removal of the Clayhanger household to the new residence at Bleakridge had made a considerable stir of straw and litter ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... that hurricane, that his passage home in this manner only seemed a natural tribute of respect. A few last words from Lawrence told us that he was safely on board, all unconscious of the silent, almost weeping, procession that had escorted his litter to the Douro's boat, only too much as if it were his bier. In fact, Captain Coles actually promised him that if he died at sea he should be buried with ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the little wood, a window-frame mounted on a bunch of laurel, and intended for an hermitage. In the inhabited part of the house, the chimney-pieces are like tombs; and on that in the library is the figure of this lord's grandfather, in a night- gown of plaster and gold. Amidst all this litter and bad taste, I adored the fine Vandvek of Lord Strafford and his secretary, and could not help reverencing his bed-chamber. With all his faults and arbitrary behaviour, one must worship his spirit and eloquence: where one esteems but a single royalist, one need not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... over now. The borers had been dismantled and packed away. At one end of the cliff the mining equipment lay piled in a litter. There was a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped it after his first crude refining process had yielded it as waste. The ore-slag lay like gray powder-flakes strewn down the cliff. Tracks and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... not do it. I could not remember the tenants' names, and I don't care about game. I can't throw myself into a litter of young foxes, or get into a fury of passion about pheasants' eggs. It's all beastly nonsense, but if a fellow could only bring himself to care about it that wouldn't matter. I don't care ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... hawed a bit and finally he blurts out: 'Parson! I ain't got airy a penny. Ye know how 'tis—the licker an' the stuff to eat cleaned me out. But I got a mighty likely litter of pups out in the barn. Come out and take your ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... of culture, of intellectual activity and of a zest in the affairs of all the world, which greatly impressed her. Every room had its book-cases or book-shelves, and was more or less a library; upon every table was liable to be a litter of new books, fresh periodicals and daily newspapers. There were plants in the sunny windows and some choice engravings on the walls, with bits of color in oil or water-colors; the piano was sure to be open and strewn with music; and there were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... scene. It is at night, the wind is high, and is driving the rain against the Emperor's litter, which is borne by mountaineers and surrounded by his ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... came, with all the state with which the Earl had conducted Queen Mary to the lodge before she was absolutely termed a prisoner. Halberdiers led the procession, horse and foot seemed to form it. The home party stood on the top of the steps watching with much anxiety. There was a closed litter visible, beside which Lady Shrewsbury, in a mourning dress and hood, could be seen riding her favourite bay palfrey. No doubt it contained the Lady Margaret, Countess of Lennox; and the unfortunate Earl, forgetting all ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... are to ask questions! We got into the empty house after the so-called Bates was supposed to have been kidnapped, and to our surprise we found that all that fine furniture had vanished. There was no litter of straw or sign of removal outside, so we came to the conclusion that it had been conveyed from one house to the other. After a good deal of trouble, we lit upon a moveable panel, and by means of it entered the house where ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White

... pained her; but, leaning on Karl's arm, she exerted herself bravely to walk. Meanwhile the young men broke down a few poles, and laid fir branches across them. In spite of her resistance, Lenore was constrained to seat herself upon the rude litter, while some ran on to the bailiff's stable to get her horse ready ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... the said hedge, shiny blacktarred palings, shutting off all view of the river. Between these barriers, a long stretch of drab- coloured high road, flanked by slightly raised footpaths, a verge of coarse weedy grass to them in which a litter of rags, torn posters, and much other unloveliness found harbourage. To the northwest and north, a sky piled to the zenith with mountainous swiftly moving clouds, inky, blue-purple, wildly white, from out the torn bosoms of which rushed, now and again, flurrying showers of hail and sleet driven ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... "I am accustomed to all sorts of conveyances—a dooly, a litter, a cart, a palanquin, or a post-chaise, are all alike to me—I think I could be an inside with Queen Mab in a nutshell, rather than not get forward.—Begging you many pardons, if you have no particular objections, I will light my sheroot," &c. ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... possibly be attributed to natural selection, as cats in many cases have largely to support themselves and to escape diverse dangers. But man, owing to the difficulty of pairing cats, has done nothing by methodical selection; and probably very little by unintentional selection; though in each litter he generally saves the prettiest, and values most a good breed of mouse- or rat-catchers. Those cats which have a strong tendency to prowl after game, generally get destroyed by traps. As cats are so much petted, a breed bearing the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... quickly, in search of Ray. The boy, having come out of the excitement of battle, was looking around at the litter of dead and wounded on the blood-splashed floor. His eyes widened, and he gulped. Then, carefully setting the safety of his burp gun and slinging it, he went over and leaned against the wall, and ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... taken holiday, it seemed, and the officers appeared to have been indifferent, or absent all day; for this room was in a vile condition, with even the bed not yet made up, and the curtains torn. In this and the front chamber, used commonly as my aunt's own sitting-room, was a strange litter of maps, papers, and equipments, two swords, a brace of inlaid pistols, brass-plated, two Hessian hats, the trappings of a Brunswick chasseur, and a long military cloak with a gold-braided regimental number under a large crown ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... up a buffer from the litter of ivory and silver on the dresser and began to polish her already glittering nails, turning her head this way and that, preening her neck, biting her scarlet lips to deepen their crimson, opening her eyes wide and half ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... foot of the "Three Witches," as the triangle of mountains is called to which Solomon's Great Road runs. Our party consisted of our three selves and Foulata, who waited on us—especially on Good—Infadoos, Gagool, who was borne along in a litter, inside which she could be heard muttering and cursing all day long, and a party of guards and attendants. The mountains, or rather the three peaks of the mountain, for the mass was evidently the result of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard

... their seats. The carriers, two to each litter, stalwart men, uniformly clad in loose white garments, raised the poles on their shoulders. Syama threw the door of the house open, and at a signal from the Prince the procession sallied into the street. The crowd, in expectant ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... that it not only circled round the lower rim of this fine sketch, but dwindled in the distance to mere dots and lines. Such merry conceits as one found there! A mouse bringing the tail it had lost in some cruel trap, a dor-bug with a shade over its eyes, an invalid butterfly carried in a tiny litter by long-legged spiders, a fat frog with gouty feet hopping upon crutches, Jenny Wren sobbing in a nice handkerchief, as she brought dear dead Cock Robin to be restored to life. Rabbits, lambs, cats, calves, and turtles, all ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... and Limoges threw open their gates to Du Guesclin. But the march of an English army from Calais upon Paris recalled him from the south to guard the capital at a moment when the English leader advanced to recover Limoges, and the Black Prince borne in a litter to its walls stormed the town and sullied by a merciless massacre of its inhabitants the fame of his earlier exploits. Sickness however recalled him home in the spring of 1371; and the war, protracted by the caution of Charles who forbade his armies to engage, ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... friendly terms with a kennel of hounds. The animal had come to its maturity when my friend observed it and its good understanding with its canine neighbours had never been interrupted. So far from it, indeed, that the she-wolf has had and reared a litter of pups by one of the dogs, and does duty in hunting as well as any dog of the pack. Buffon states that he had found that an experiment continued for a considerable time, to bring about the like result between the like animals, never showed the least appearance of success. The ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... cat's-claw bush at whose base lay a tangle of dead leaves. With a bit of stick, he scattered this litter, struck the ground several good blows and returned with a string of fat desert mice. With infinite care Cesca kindled a fire so tiny, so clear, that scarcely a wisp of smoke escaped into the quivering air. Into this she flung the eviscerated mice and in an instant the tiny things ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... in the moonlight against the hen-runs outside, and after thirty minutes or so of rest, Cossar roused them all to the labours that were still to do. "Obviously," as he said, they had to "wipe the place out. No litter—no scandal. See?" He stirred them up to the idea of making destruction complete. They smashed and splintered every fragment of wood in the house; they built trails of chopped wood wherever big vegetation was springing; they made a pyre ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... Spanish general and statesman, eminent both in war and diplomacy; commanded the Spanish infantry at the siege of Rocroi when he was eighty-two, borne on a litter in the midst of the fight, and perished by the sword, the Great Conde having ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... probability, that these three figures represent C. Marius, his wife Julia, and the prophetess Martha, who attended him in his campaign against the Teutons and Ambrons. Plutarch says: "He had with him a Syrian woman named Martha, who was said to have the gift of prophecy. She was carried about in a litter with great solemnity, and the sacrifices which he offered were all by her direction. When she went to sacrifice she wore a purple robe, lined with the same, and buttoned up, and held in her hand a spear adorned with ribands ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... each other and send up barren and feeble shoots. When the bulbs are lifted they are divided, and any surplus stock either sold or replanted in fresh ground. The beds require very little attention further than being kept free from weeds, and having a top-dressing of stable litter or freshly gathered seaweed. Bulbs will not stand forcing, and are always sturdier when grown in the open." Men, women, and children find employment in the flower-fields, and in the busy time are often engaged from early morning ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... two faithful and sturdy head-servants from among the litter-bearers of the princess, who were however commanded to appear as though they were not in any way connected with their mistress and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... they must keep their bodies parallel. I got up, and laid myself in the hollow between their two backs; when the wise animals, counteracting the weight that pushed them apart, leaned against each other, and made for me a most comfortable litter. My feet, it is true, projected beyond their tails, but my head lay pillowed on an ear of each. Then some of the smaller children, mounting for a bodyguard, ranged themselves in a row along the back of each of my bearers; the whole assembly formed itself in ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... which sent Thomas Jefferson Hogg a freshman to the same college at the same time, and made him Shelley's friend. The chapters in which Hogg describes their live at Oxford are the best part of his biography. In these lively pages we see, with all the force of reality, Shelley working by fits in a litter of books and retorts and "galvanic troughs," and discoursing on the vast possibilities of science for making mankind happy; how chemistry will turn deserts into cornfields, and even the air and water will year fire and food; how Africa will be explored by balloons, of which the shadows, ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... beautiful sandalwood case for Sylvia, and a set of rice-paper pictures for Lily; and the appropriating other treasures to the De la Poers, packing them up, and directing them, accompanied with explanations of their habits and tastes, lasted till so late, that after the litter was cleared away there was only time for one game at chess with the grand pieces; and in truth the honour of using them was greater than the pleasure. They covered up the board, so that there was no seeing the squares, and it was necessary to be most inconveniently cautious in lifting them. ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to open the gate and soon arrived at the spot with a litter, guided by the groom, whose horse had refused to jump the brook, and who since then had followed the race on foot outside the track. While the General placed Zibeline on the litter, the groom took Aida by the bridle, and the sad procession made ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... forebodings, Lady Dene smiled to herself as she put the finishing touches to the last vase, whilst Gladys Norman gathered up the litter of leaves and stalks that lay on the floor, throwing them into the fireplace. She then removed the last spots of ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... been examining the shanty while resting after the battle, discovered a hammock tucked away in one corner, and he proposed that this should be used as a litter, for the man could be conveyed more easily on something than if the boys raised him simply ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis

... whole body broken and powerless; long hair, white as snow, fell about his face, which bore the distorted expression of long suffering. The woman went silently to the hearth and added some fresh fagots. "A bed we cannot give you," she said, "but I will make a good litter of straw here; you'll have to make ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... words in the still poor, meager human language. That small, cynical and evil feeling which had called forth in him a contempt for mankind and at times even an aversion for the sight of a human face, had disappeared completely. Thus, for a man who goes up in an airship, the filth and litter of the narrow streets disappear and that which ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev

... soil, enriched with well-rotted manure, which should be dug in below the tubers. These may be planted in October, and for succession in January, the autumn-planted ones being protected by a covering of leaves or short stable litter. They will flower in May and June, and when the leaves have ripened should be taken up into a dry room till planting time. They are easily raised from the seed, and a bed of the single varieties is a valuable addition to a flower-garden, as it affords, in a warm situation, an abundance ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... Kisra heard this, he redoubled in loveliking for her and affection and said to her, 'Do what thou wilt.' So he let bring a litter and carrying her therein to his dwelling-place, married her and entreated her with the utmost honour. Then he sent a great army to King Dadbin and fetching him and his vizier and the chamberlain, caused bring them before ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... which would come in through a hole left in the thatched door for her especial benefit, and purr a regular hurricane. We blessed her both by day and by night, for we saw no rats after she came; and great excitement prevailed when, three weeks after her arrival, she added a litter ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... quantities, I tell you, as scarce could be piled together in one mansion in a time of tumult and rapine from many wealthy establishments. And his household—why should I describe how many it numbers, and how varied are its accomplishments? I do not speak of ordinary domestics, the cook, the baker, the litter-bearer. Why, for the mere enjoyment of his ears he has such a multitude of men that the whole neighborhood echoes again with the daily music of singers, and harp-players, and flute-players, and with the uproar of his nightly banquets. What daily expenses, what extravagance, as you well know, gentlemen, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... unreasonable,—she conceived that she reaped abundant returns in her share of my happy enthusiasm, while it lasted; and when I wept over the famine-stricken forms of my operatives, she said, "Never mind, honey; dey was an awful litter anyhow, and I spec' dey was only de or'nary caterpillar poor trash, after all, else dey 'd a-kep' goin' on dat tea; fur 't was de rale high-price Chany kind, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... swelling, almost to the point of bursting, extended along the body up to the arm-pit. The pain was almost beyond endurance. I lay at the hotel something over a week without being able to turn myself in bed. I had a steamer stop at the nearest point possible, and was carried to it on a litter. I was then taken to Vicksburg, where I remained unable to ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... recovered after receiving such ministrations as could be given on the way. They were assisted in Cincinnati and the next day started on their journey to Canada. They had not gone far before the young Lightfoot became so seriously ill that he had to be carried on a litter, and this became so irksome that he himself begged to be left in the wilderness to die alone rather than handicap the whole party with such good prospects for freedom. With considerable reluctance, they acceded to his request, and sad indeed was the parting. But before ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... her for a witch! A party next of glittering dames, From round the purlieus of St. James, Came early, out of pure good will, To see the girl in dishabille. Their clamour, 'lighting from their chairs Grew louder all the way up stairs; At entrance loudest, where they found The room with volumes litter'd round. Vanessa held Montaigne, and read, While Mrs. Susan comb'd her head. They call'd for tea and chocolate, And fell into their usual chat, Discoursing with important face, On ribbons, fans, and gloves, and lace; Show'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... round the throat of each, and on the collar was a massive chain which led to the wall, where it could be payed out or hauled in by means of a windlass in one of the hidden galleries. So that at ordinary moments the two huge beasts could be tethered, one close to either end of the circus, as the litter of bones and other messes showed, leaving free passage-way between the two ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne



Words linked to "Litter" :   sedan, material, bedding material, bear, palankeen, scrap, sedan chair, litter-basket, stuff, give birth, bedding, Kitty Litter, palanquin, litterer, be, covered couch, litter lout



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