Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Ply   Listen
verb
Ply  v. t.  (past & past part. plied; pres. part. plying)  
1.
To bend. (Obs.) "As men may warm wax with handes plie."
2.
To lay on closely, or in folds; to work upon steadily, or with repeated acts; to press upon; to urge importunately; as, to ply one with questions, with solicitations, or with drink. "And plies him with redoubled strokes" "He plies the duke at morning and at night."
3.
To employ diligently; to use steadily. "Go ply thy needle; meddle not."
4.
To practice or perform with diligence; to work at. "Their bloody task, unwearied, still they ply."






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 |





"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books



... friendly hand thy life hath ta'en! There is a spot the village near Where dwelt the Muses' worshipper, Two pines have joined their tangled roots, A rivulet beneath them shoots Its waters to the neighbouring vale. There the tired ploughman loves to lie, The reaping girls approach and ply Within its wave the sounding pail, And by that shady rivulet A simple tombstone ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we hear of a "school" of jongleurs at Beauvais. In Lent they might not ply their profession, so they gathered at Beauvais, where they could learn cantilenae, new lays. [Footnote: Epopees Francaises, Leon Gautier, vol. ii. pp. 174, 175.] But by that time the epic was ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... in a mellifluous voice, clearer than the fluting of a bell-bird, "it is useless to look for words from this old man, for it is manifest that he himself is nothing, and that his lanthorn is alone concerned in this affair. But, reverend Judges, bethink you well: Would you have a lanthorn ply a trade or be concerned with a profession, or do aught indeed but pervade the streets at night, shedding its light, which, if you will, is vagabondage? And, Sirs, upon the second count of this indictment: Would you have a lanthorn dive into cesspools to rescue ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... is unsullied by the smoke of pit-coal, recalls you to the days of artless toil and healthy beauty. In the boats that meet us, half-naked men, revelling in their movement, in the sun and air, sing, as they ply their oars, those songs of the Nile that are as old as Thebes or Memphis. When the wind rises there is a riotous unfurling of sails, which, stretched on their long yards, give to the dahabiyas the air of birds in full flight. Bending right over in the wind, they skim along with a lively motion, carrying ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... honor—but let no god be told!— He brought me to my altar a lambkin from the fold. So though, my lads, a Scare-Crow and no true god I be, My master and his vineyard are very dear to me. Keep off your filching hands, lads, and elsewhere ply your theft: ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... from the crowded harbor of the Golden Horn. They crept up out of the mystery of the evening; voices from the caiques, and from the boats of the fishermen, and from the big sailing vessels which ply to the harbors of the East, and from the steamers at rest near the Galata Bridge, and from the many craft of all descriptions strung out towards the cypress-crowned hill of Eyub. And Mrs. Clarke, standing beside him, began to ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... character in his way, and in the winter he "goes a loggin'". On learning this we ply him with questions in such manner as would surprise a lawyer, eliciting in return graphic pictures of camp life in New Brunswick wildernesses, and the amusements with which they while away the long evenings in their rough barracks. He describes their primitive modes ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... Perhaps some of it will be unhappy. I have made my choice and will cheerfully abide by it. I rather envy your being a man. You have the world to conquer. A woman—what can she do? She can knead the dough, ply the distaff, and sit by the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... to settle our regulations about plunder. Accordingly, my station was to be the outermost in the Duke, the Duchess in the middle, and the Marquis nearest the shore; the nearest ship to be at the least six leagues, and nine at the most from shore, and the bark to ply between ship and ship, carrying advice. By this means we could spread out fifteen leagues, and might see any thing that passed in the day within twenty leagues of the shore; and to prevent any ships passing in the night, we were to ply to windward all day, and to drive to leeward all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... nod, While harping like the Delphian god, You charm our ears, stead of a nap, A batch of nectar will I tap, Which lately from Minerva came; Now if you do not scorn the same, Together let us bumpers ply." The Grasshopper, extremely dry, And, finding she had hit the key That gain'd applause, approach'd with glee; At which the Owl upon her flew, And quick the trembling vixen slew. Thus by her death she was adjudged To give what in her life ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... noble stream, inglorious, Mersey roll'd, Nor felt his waves by lab'ring art controll'd: Along his side a few small cots were spread, His finny brood their humble tenants fed; At op'ning dawn with fraudful nets supply'd The padding skiff would brave his specious tide, Ply round the shores, nor tempt the dangerous main, But seek ere ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... offices with Lincoln, he was preoccupied. But, by an effort, he attended to the things which Lincoln was saying. Soon his preoccupation vanished. Lincoln was talking of flying. Graham had a strong desire to know more of this new human attainment. He began to ply Lincoln with questions. He had followed the crude beginnings of aerial navigation very keenly in his previous life; he was delighted to find the familiar names of Maxim and Pilcher, Langley and Chanute, and, ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... son—sculpture! And incidentally—" He hesitated. "I ply a trade. Will you hand me that pipe and those smoking things? So! You can't make coffee, eh? Well, try your hand. Cast down this screen—no—fold it up and so we'll go into the other room. I'll keep in bed all the same. The fire's a gas stove. Yes. Don't make it bang. too loud as you light ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... storms and by the absence of good bays and ports. [v.03 p.0216] The principal port on the western shore, Listvinichnoe, near the outflow of the Angara, is an open roadstead at the foot of steep mountains. Steamers ply from it weekly to Misovaya (Posolskoe) on the opposite shore, a few times a year to Verkhne-Angarsk, at the northern extremity of the lake, and frequently to the mouth of the Selenga. Steamers ascend this river as far as Bilyutai, near the Mongolian frontier, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... Santa Claus to ply his trade," said Molly to Philippe, who was showing her over the estate. "But what is this peaked thing with the cross ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... He could not understand why he felt any anxiety to see Mrs. Errington refuse a beggar alms. Yet he would gladly have followed, like a spy, to behold a commonplace and dingy event. Despite the apparent reluctance of the beggar to ply his trade, Hindford felt convinced that presently the man would approach Mrs. Errington and be promptly sent about his business. Her negative would, no doubt, be eager enough even upon this exquisite and charitable ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... comes to lay aside their trowels for the day, they are pretty much alike. The one may be a philosopher and the other a scoundrel; but these traits will have small opportunity of betraying themselves as they chip away at the bricks in their hands, and ply their busy tasks. The intellectual proclivities of the one, and the vicious propensities of the other, will be held in the severest restraint as they labour side by side. The inexorable laws of industrial competition will keep their work up to a certain standard of excellence. ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... it all off from the surface. Rubber marks can be removed by rubbing in a direction the reverse of the marks with a half-dry rubber and increased pressure. When the work has received a sufficient body, in finishing the drying of the last rubber, ply it briskly the way of the grain to produce a clean ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon the ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... society of people who do want to know, and who ply one with questions as to one's tastes and habits, are almost more trying than the purely narrative people, and induce a subtle sense of moral hypochondria. The perfect mixture, which is not a common one, is that of the ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... made leisure enough to survey the natural sciences with critical exactness, pursue an extended course of inquiry into physical phenomena, note and digest the results of Italian, Spanish, English, French, German, Dutch, and American naturalists, ply every guide and ploughman, every driver and forester, every fisherman and miner, every lumberman and carpenter, for the results which men attain by observing within the narrow circle of their occupation,—and weave all into a copious work which subordinates ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Connecticut to Trenton, N.J., and there in his twenty-sixth year began to ply the humble trade of watch-maker. Then he became a gunsmith, making arms for the patriots of Seventy-six, until what time the British destroyed his shop. Then he was a soldier. He suffered the horrors of Valley ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... friend metrusteth you be, I will do as you bid me. All the money I have upon me is but some few shillings, and to them, if you lack, you are welcome. For valuable matter, I carry none; and I myself am an old man, no longer of much service unto any. If you desire me to ply my trade of healing, I am content; but I warn you that by murdering of me you should gain little beside an evil conscience.'—So with that I 'lighted down.—'Throw the bridle on your arm,' saith ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... He ran in great danger on that eventful night, and states that he would have been slaughtered but for the kindness of Hubert Languet, who lodged in his house. Andrew Wechel fled to Frankfort, where he continued to ply his trade in safety; and when more favourable times came re-established his presses at Paris. He had the reputation of being one of the most able printers and ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... a clever woman, I imagine; and as the first result of her cogitation she appears to have made the mistake of being, that evening, too kind to her husband. She could not ply him with wine, according to the traditional expedient, for though he drank heavily at times he had a strong head; and when he drank beyond its strength it was because he chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife, at any rate—she was an old story by now. As I ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... treatment of purging in cases of distemper, is first to give a good dose of Epsom salts, in order to carry away anything that may offend, and then to ply the animal with mingled absorbents and astringents. A scruple of powdered chalk, ten grains of catechu, and five of ginger, with a quarter of a grain of opium, made into a ball with palm oil, may be given to a middle-sized dog twice or thrice every day. To this may be added injections ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... the railways, and the roads where diligencias ply their lumbering and dusty course, the saddle is the only, and indeed the most characteristic, mode of travel; and the arriero and his string of pack-mules is the common carrier, and the mountain road or dusty desert trail the means of ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... to the side of the larger canoe. "The hatchets of the Pamunkeys were sharp. They fought like real men. This canoe could go no further. See, it is wet within—they had to ply the gourd very fast to keep afloat so far. One canoe would not hold them all, so they hid both here. They knew the palefaces would follow up the river, so they cared not to stay upon its banks; the Pamunkeys, too, are their ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... of the crew of that canoe a woman?" said Jack, looking over his shoulder, but not ceasing for an instant to ply his paddle. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... Fisk had added by way of pastime a splendid steamer to ply between Fall River and New York. Upon its trial voyage, Travers was the guest of its owners. The appointments of the vessel were gorgeous in the extreme, and in the large saloon were suspended life-size portraits of Gould and of Fisk. After a promenade of an hour in company with the originals, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... the hot-house, and having sweated a little, into the cold bath; and while Trimalchio was anointed from head to foot with a liquid perfume, and rubb'd clean again, not with linnen but with finest flannen, his three chyrurgeons ply'd the muscadine, but brawling over their cups; Trimalchio said it was his turn to drink; then wrapt in a scarlet mantle, he was laid on a litter born by six servants, with four lacqueys in rich liveries ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... seats; He sees the climber in the rocks: To him, the shepherd folds his flocks. For those he loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides. Those he approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, That with weak virtues, weaker hands, Sow gladness on the peopled lands, And still with laughter, song and shout, Spin the great ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the most toothsome morsels of the deep. Most of the other steamboat lines by which I travelled in the United States and Canada seemed to me as good as could be expected under the circumstances. There is, however, certainly room for improvement in some of the boats which ply on the St. Lawrence, and the Alaska service will probably grow steadily better with ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... intervals by the grassy by-lanes that run out to the neighboring haciendas or parallel roads. At places where there is a slight elevation, the bottom of the road is worn several feet below the level by the carts which ply between Rivas and the lake. Opposite one of these, where the banks sloped at a sharp angle, we came upon General Henningsen and a detachment of musketeers resting on the right bank of the road, and halted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... music," began Gertie. "It's pathetic. I came to Chicago from Beloit, Wisconsin, because I thought that little town was a lonesome hole for a vivacious creature like me. Lonesome! Listen while I laugh a low mirthless laugh. I didn't know anything about the three-ply, double-barreled, extra heavy brand of lonesomeness that a big town like this can deal out. Talk about your desert wastes! They're sociable and snug compared to this. I know three-fourths of the people in Beloit, Wisconsin, by their first names. I've lived here six months and I'm not on informal ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... themselves out to be our own minstrels."[570] Without any experience or understanding of the art, they go from place to place on festival days, and gather all the money that should have enriched the true artists, those who really devote themselves to their profession and ply no manual craft. Vain efforts; decline was imminent; minstrels were not to recover their former standing. The Renaissance and the Reformation came; and, owing to the printing-press, gay scavoir found other means of spreading through the country. In the sixteenth century, it is true, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... the shafts as snow, Though charging knights as whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where their comrade stood The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Link'd in the serried phalanx tight Groom fought like noble, ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... of the crew of the "Dolphin" was, however, still ringing in the ears of Wilder. He made an impatient gesture to his attendants to ply their oars, cautiously steering the boat on such a course as should soonest lead her from beneath the guns of the freebooters. While passing under the stern of the "Dolphin," a hoarse hail was sent across the waters, and the voice of the Rover was heard speaking to the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... by a plan of some of our wise-headed young gentlemen. Being in want of amusement, they bethought them of priming the fire engine, which happened to be standing on the poop, and after clapping a relay of hands ready to ply it to advantage, we uncovered, and waited the approach of the boats. No sooner were they within reach, than off went the water-spout, which fell "alike on the just and the unjust," for both the dockyard men and the spectators who came within its compass got a good ducking. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... she has become the rival of both. Her superior mental training has enabled her to wrest wealth from by-products, and she saves and grows rich on what America wastes. Whether Germany has succeeded in giving the ply of character to her youth, as she folds them in her educational factories, I sometimes doubt. That she has not made them independent and ready to grapple with new situations, and strange peoples, and swift emergencies, their own past ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... most amazing and outrageous types of craft soon meet the eye as commonplaces of river life. Things that would make a Thames waterman sign the pledge proceed up and down without arousing any comment. Noah's ark, with its full complement, could ply for hire between Basra and Baghdad, and the lion's roaring would be accepted as the necessary accompaniment of a somewhat old type of ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell

... force of habit I had carried it with me when I had landed, I stepped carefully back into the canoe. Immediately I had taken my seat, Tim shoved her off as far out into the stream as he could, then grasping his paddle, began to ply ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... we are dead. If they live we can grow, They ply in our streets as blood corpuscles ply In their own little veins. If you cut off the flow Of these beasts in a city, that city will die. Yet we heighten our buildings and harden our souls Till the little white animals perish ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... surface of the rock, let himself quietly into his skiff, cast loose the fastening, and abandoned himself to the rapid current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and soon swept him off from the neighborhood. It was not, however, until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his oars; when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate, never heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan, or Hog's-back itself; nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... Snake River begins there is an extensive system of canals and cultivated fields. With a sufficient water supply, the lava makes one of the richest and most productive of soils. Along the Snake and Columbia rivers, wherever there is a bit of bottom land, orchards have been planted. Little steamers ply along these rivers between the rapids, gathering the fruit and delivering it ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... fellow-creatures, and that vacant beach was but a pistol-shot from the capital city of the archipelago. But the life of an atoll, unless it be enclosed, passes wholly on the shores of the lagoon; it is there the villages are seated, there the canoes ply and are drawn up; and the beach of the ocean is a place accursed and deserted, the fit scene only for wizardry and shipwreck, and in the native belief a haunting ground of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... are many people living right here in San Francisco who have never sailed away out of the Golden Gate, people who have been bound economically or by love or duty, and have had to ply like the ferry daily between two given points. But can there be a man who has seen tall-masted schooners and long-bodied ocean-going steamers pass in and out of the alluring Golden Gate, and has never ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey

... appears, And o'er the seas his sov'reign trident rears, Their fury falls: he skims the liquid plains, High on his chariot, and, with loosen'd reins, Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains. The weary Trojans ply their shatter'd oars To nearest land, and make ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... should buy a boat and ply your trade as a waterman," the sailor said, when the short voyage had come to an end, and Walter leaped ashore, impatient to conclude the mission with which he had ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis

... this fair, and the prodigious conflux of people which come to it, there are sometimes no less than fifty hackney coaches which come from London, and ply night and morning to carry the people to and from Cambridge; for there the gross of the people lodge; nay, which is still more strange, there are wherries brought from London on waggons to ply upon the little river Cam, and to row people up and down from ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe

... quite by surprise, he began to ply his aunt with questions about the when and why and how of ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... wool was never so free from knots before. After she had said her prayers in the morning, and read a chapter with her mother, the little girl ate her frugal breakfast, and seated herself at her work, and so nimbly did she ply the cards, that her task was accomplished full half an hour before the usual time. She was just beginning her own pile when Charlotte came in; they sat down together, and worked away diligently. Charlotte said ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now[1315]. My judgement, to be sure, was not so good; but I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... master replied, "I'll give you mercy." "Good Lord do come and help me." "Yes, I'll help you" (and kept plying the lash). "Do, Lord, come now; if you ha'n't time send Jesus." "Yes, I'm your Jesus," retorted the inhuman persecutor, and he continued to ply the lash until thirty strokes were ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... comparatively slow process at the best of times, for it must be remembered that, behind the fighting-lines of such an army as opposed the Germans, rails are always more or less congested, while an enormous mass of vehicles ply the roads, bringing up ammunition and food, and hundreds of other articles necessary for the fighters. Time, then, was required in which to gather French forces, and time in which to rush them over the rails, and by motor-transport along the roads, to the neighbourhood of Verdun, and then to push ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... amid the starry sky, * Robing in tresses blackest ink outvie. The morning-breezes give her boughs fair drink, * And like a branch she sways with supple ply: She smiles in passing us. O thou that art * Fairest in yellow robed, or cramoisie, Thou playest with my wit in love, as though * Sparrow in hand ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... and five rebels We'll slay 'em as they come Join the ban' The rebels understan' Give up all the lan' To my brother Abraham Old Gen'l Lee Who is he? He's not such a man As our Gen'l Grant Snap Poo, Snap Peter Real rebel eater I left my ply stock Standin' in the mould I left my family And silver and gold Snap Poo, Snap Peter Real rebel eater ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big game; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopping all, as they lose themselves in the fairest of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that prevails ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... is very wroth against all such, and in the country men are going about from him and burning all who practise such arts, and otherwise cruelly maltreating them. So no man speaks openly of them now, though they still ply their trade ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table. This was long ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... me, you have seen. Steeled by a sense of my own danger, I was able to confront the woman whom I had so deeply wronged,—whom I had even endeavored to kill,—and ply her with those questions upon whose answers depended not only my honor, but ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... discreet, she hoped that he would "let slip" to dear Evie in the course of the vivid conversation they would be sure to have over lunch, that he had a good guess as to the cause which had led to that savage challenge. Upon which dear Evie would be certain to ply him with direct squeaks and questions, and when she "got hot" (as in animal, vegetable and mineral) his reticence would lead her to make a good guess too. She might be incredulous, but there the idea would be in her mind, while if she felt that these stirring days were no time ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... walls ascend, her empire spread? Join'd by the arms of Troy, with such allies, Think to what height will Punic glory rise. Win but the gods, their sacred off'rings pay; 65 Detain your guest; invent some fond delay. See low'ring tempests o'er the ocean ply, The shatter'd vessels, the ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... within hand-stroke of the enemy.[82] And this was before they reached dry land. For the British cavalry and chariots dashed into the water to meet them, making full use of the advantage which horsemen have under such circumstances, able to ply the full swing of their arms unembarrassed by the waves, not lifted off their feet or rolled over by the swell, and delivering their blows from above on foes already in difficulties. And on their side, they copied the ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... to force him to come. Say nothing of the boy; let him stay or come, as they think proper. To ask all might make them suspicious. They'll both come. They never yet resisted a spiritual temptation. When here, ply them well, and then we shall go on according to circumstances. Brooks carries the keys along with him: get him once in for it, and I'll take them from him. If he resists, or ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... knots were sundered; and gradually, one following another, the whole mob began to form into a procession and escort the curtained litter. Soon spokesmen, a little bolder than their mates, began to ply the Chancellor with questions. Never had he more need of that great art of falsehood, by whose exercise he had so richly lived. And yet now he stumbled, the master passion, fear, betraying him. He was pressed; ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thronged audience press and stare, Let stifled maidens ply the fan, Admire his doctrines, and his hair, And whisper, "What a good young man!" While he explains what seems most clear, So clearly that it seems perplexed, I'll stay and read my sermon here; And skulls, and bones, shall be ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... guessed would prove the most formidable, the boy saw an immense jet of water spurt high into the air. Twenty feet it rose, and then descended full and fair upon his head. A mingled shout of defiance and joy told Hal that his aim had been good, and he continued to ply the hose. At the same moment eight cannon-balls, five at least of which hit him, were thrown at the harassed defender, whose helmet was now ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler

... river to the Downs. Their pilotage extends no farther. Vessels seldom require pilots for the Channel, and do not take them unless they are bound to some port in the Channel with which they are unacquainted, and those pilots who ply in the Channel are termed Hoblers; but at the time I refer to, the regular pilots used to go out in their galleys to the chaps of the Channel, and take charge of vessels all the way up, which, by the new regulations, they do not do. The arrangements ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... finery, the foreign loungers, and even the unfailing beggar by the portal of St. Mark's. In his "Miracle of the True Cross," he introduces gondoliers, taking care to bring out all the beauty of their lithe, comely figures as they stand to ply the oar, and does not reject even such an episode as a serving-maid standing in a doorway watching a negro who is about to plunge into the canal. He treats this bit of the picture with all the charm and much of that delicate feeling for simple effects of light and colour that ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson

... the higher regions of the Alpujarras, on a skirt of which stands Granada. A common occupation of the Gitanos of Granada is working in iron, and it is not infrequent to find these caves tenanted by Gypsy smiths and their families, who ply the hammer and forge in the bowels of the earth. To one standing at the mouth of the cave, especially at night, they afford a picturesque spectacle. Gathered round the forge, their bronzed and naked bodies, illuminated by ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... projecting 72 ft. from the center of the boat, consists of a 5 ply rubber belt 36 in. wide; running over iron drums at each end and intermediate iron friction rollers at 3 foot centers. Ratchet and pinion on each side of conveyer ladder give means for taking up the slack of the belt and adjusting the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various

... will requite thee and do with thee even as thou didst with me; nay, more: so be of good cheer and eyes clear of tear." And he went on to soothe him and hinder him from speech, lest he should name his wife and what she had done with him nor did he cease to ply him with saws and moral instances and verses and conceits and stories and legends and console him, till the jeweller saw his drift and took the hint and kept silence concerning the past, diverting himself ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... from the stir, shouting, and gossip of war, Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, Where amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, Where under mulberry-branches the diligent rivulet sparkles, Or amid cotton and maize peasants their waterworks ply, Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,— Ah, that I were, far away from the crowd and the streets of the city, Under the vine-trellis laid, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various

... polished his manners as much as she could,—and 'twas much, for women, even of the lowest classes, have gentle tastes and delicacy. She could not bear to think that her darling should one day sit cross-legged on the paternal bench, and ply needle and scissors. She breathed her own aspirations into the boy's ears, and filled his mind with them. O mothers, ye do make us what ye please! Your tears and caresses are the rain and the sun ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... without disturbance. The other Vecchio, father of the bridegroom, struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen, were gondoliers. Both the Vecchi, indeed, continue to ply their trade, day and night, at ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... the house, and at each door a hundred warriors will fall by his hand. And when every one in the house has ceased to ply his weapon, 'tis then he will resort to a deed of arms. And if he chance to come upon you out of the house, as numerous as hailstones and grass on a green will be your halves of heads and your cloven skulls and your bones under ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... officer. "Shall I take bread out of the mouth of the poor? Clerk," he added in Arabic to a man who was with him, "make out a writing giving leave to these two to land and to ply their business anywhere in Egypt without question or hindrance, and bring it to me to seal. Farewell, musicians. I fear you will find money scarce in Egypt, for the land has been stricken with a famine. Yet go and prosper in the name of God, and may He turn your ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient, push from shore. "Have a care! that case holds liquor— Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!" "Sick, Ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker, Ere you've been an hour on board." Thus are screaming Men and women, Gemmen, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... we know Was that performed by JOSEPH AGOSTINO, The gunsmith who, by burglars often vext, A week or two since plotted for the next By planting cunningly a wide-bored fusil, With buck-shot loaded half-way to the muzzle, Right opposite the window to which came The nightly thief, to ply his little game; And to the trigger hitching so a string, That when the burglar bold was entering The charge went off, and, crashing through the shutter, Relieved the rascal of his bread and butter By blowing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various

... not yet. At first in random coasting sloop, and afterwards in the cutter belonging to the service, the engineer must ply and run amongst these multiplied dangers and sometimes late ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton

... coming, having kept those within hotly ply'd with Ball, both from Cannon and Mortars, Monsieur Chamilly, the Governor, after a few Days, being weary of such warm Work, desired to capitulate; upon which Hostages were exchanged, and Articles agreed on next Morning. Pursuant to which, the Garrison march'd out with ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe

... visitors engaging their lodgings for a season, yet many of the best situated and most convenient houses are handsomely fitted-up for the purpose; and should the river be ever sufficiently deepened to admit a passage steamer to ply at regular hours without regard to the state of the tide, Newport might defy all competition, by the rapid improvement of its various local capabilities which would ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... kill her mother. From this dilemma the brave woman determined that self-sacrifice offered the only effective exit. She promised to marry Morito after he had killed her husband, Wataru; to which end she engaged to ply Wataru with wine until he fell asleep. She would then wet his head, so that Morito, entering by an unfastened door and feeling for the damp hair, might consummate his purpose surely. Morito readily agreed, but Kesa, having dressed her own hair in male fashion and wet her head, lay down ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... Him, one by them hailed Christ. Enough! This cloud, no bigger than one's hand, Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate And venomed perfidy for Christian love. Thereat ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... of relief, and after a well-earned dejeuner went forth with the car into the Place des Arbres and prepared to ply his trade. First he unfurled the Hieropath banner, which floated proudly in the breeze. Then on a folding table he displayed his collection of ointment-boxes (together with pills and a toothache-killer which he sold on his own account) and a wax model ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke

... when Jean-Christophe went to the Palace, old Jean Michel used always to contrive to stay about the house on some pretext or another. He used to await his grandson's return with childish impatience, and when Jean-Christophe came in he would begin at once with a careless air to ply him with seeming ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... not claim that I have furnished literal transcripts of what I heard in my conversations with my heroes and heroines, but my purpose throughout has been to hold a mirror up to Nature, to give a faithful interpretation of thought and character, and to show my readers some of the ply of mind and habits of life that still prevail among Yorkshiremen whose individuality has not been blunted by convention and who have the courage to express their reasoned or instinctive views ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... walking-boots. One corner was Lucy's, which she occupied in conjunction with a little table, at which, from seven in the morning until bedtime, she worked with pen or needle (it was provoking she could not learn to ply both at one time), when she was not running about the house, or nursing a boarder's baby. On the rare evenings when her aunt could not find work of any description for her, Lucy was requested to take the Bible from the shelf, and read a chapter aloud. When her ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... gazed,—one well calculated to make them tremble for the result,—for the hosts of Mohammed covered the hill-sides and plain like "countless swarms of locusts." On an eminence which gave an outlook over the whole broad space stood the emperor's tent, of three-ply crimson velvet flecked with gold, strings of pearls depending from its purple fringes. To guard it from assault rows of iron chains were stretched, before which stood three thousand camels in line. ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... not die like rats in a hole, were captured and hung by their enraged uncle on the highest tree in their own domains. So was all the family of Hermanric destroyed except Theodoric and his young brother Diether: and against Theodoric Sibich now began to ply his engines of calumny. He represented to Hermanric that Theodoric's kingdom had for some time been growing large, while his own had been growing smaller, and hinted that soon Theodoric would openly attack his uncle. Meanwhile, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... of electorates on a population basis. This meant that a city electorate covered a very small area, and that practically all its wants were attended by the municipality, so that the city member had leisure to ply the trade of merchant, doctor, or barrister within a few minutes of the house of parliament; whereas the country member, to become acquainted with the vast area he represented and the requirements of its inhabitants and attend parliamentary sittings, had no time left to be anything ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... unrestrained indulgence of his passions, without a thought of his wife, Odysseus has the barbarian's stern notions regarding the duties of women who belong to him. There are fifty young women in his palace at home who ply their hard tasks and bear the servant's lot. Twelve of these, having no one to marry, yield to the temptations of the rich princes who sue for the hand of Penelope in the absence ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... organ, my brain, is working." Rapidly he began to write upon the back of a menu. "We must inform the world through the medium of the Press. An attractive paragraph must appear in The Times. What could be more appropriate than an epitaph? Ply me with wine, child. The sage is in labour with a song." Jill filled his glass and he drank. "Another instant, and you shall hear the deathless words. I always felt I should be buried in the Abbey. Anybody give me a rhyme for 'bilge'? No, it doesn't matter. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... they flew, As Norsemen fly, They but retired, the fight anew Unawed to ply. Now o'er the bodies of his slain His way Carl makes; He thinks he has the city ta'en, But he mistakes. Thus ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... been for him we should have had to lie out all night; he sees in the dark like an owl. We've had a hard tramp." He stood steaming before the fire as he spoke—drenched to the skin, the others crowding round him, too happy for the moment to ply him with questions. He himself was quivering with an inward joy. Alice's kisses were still on ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... drift with the drifting ship, And far as eye may see the plain Is cumbered deep with slaughtered ones, Contorted to the shape of pain, Dissolving 'neath the callous suns, And driven in his foetid breath Still ply the harvesters ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... keeper. The bleating will continue; and the hind, partly seeing and partly hearing, will bear down full tilt upon the man who has got her young, in her desire to rescue it. Now is the moment to urge on the hounds and ply the javelins. And so having mastered this one, he will proceed against the rest, and employ the same method of the chase ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon

... the party. Karlsefin, Biarne, and Thorward are there—on a visit to the Earl—with Gudrid and Freydissa; and away on the fiord they can see their two Norse galleys towering like quaint giants at rest among the small craft that ply and skim about there. ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... or belonging to others, exceeding half a mark in value. If disobedient they were liable to suffer pain of imprisonment for the first offence, a fine of half a mark for the second—a curious example of graduated punishment—and a prohibition to ply their trade within the precincts of the University for ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... it by mentioning his "dishonoured person;" but English readers cannot comprehend the full significance of the confession. About the same time Shaykh Nasr, Governor of Bushire, a man famed for facetious blackguardism, used to invite European youngsters serving in the Bombay Marine and ply them with liquor till they were insensible. Next morning the middies mostly complained that the champagne had caused a curious irritation and soreness in la parse-posse. The same Eastern "Scrogin" would ask his guests if they had ever ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... on the ocean think of its vastness; of the many shores in many climes visited by its waves to ply "their priest-like task of clean ablution;" of cities and empires that rose beside its waters, flourished, decayed, and became a memory; of others that shall rise and also pass away, while the moving element remains,—so we to-day ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... a favorite of the butterfly woman who rules the King of France,—the Pompadour,—and he has come to New France to mend his fortunes. How he planned to do it one may guess from his career at Louisburg; but Quebec offered better field, and it was to Bigot's interest to ply Montcalm and Vaudreuil with such tittle-tattle of enmity as would foment jealousy, keep their attention on each other, and their eyes off his own doings. As he had done at Louisburg, so he now did at Quebec. The King was requisitioned ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... one of two things, Gordon," Sawtelle said in disgust. His sneer was plainly visible through the six-ply, plastic-backed lead glass of his face-plate. "Either shut up or accept my personal invitation to come to Ardvor and try to go through the wringer. That's an invitation to your own funeral." Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, torn inwardly to ribbons, made ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... and liking we took our leave of that people, setting over to the islands of [ ? ], whence the next day after, we set sail towards Cape St. Antonio; by which we past with a large wind: but presently being to stand for the Havana, we were fain to ply to the windward some three or four days; in which plying we fortuned to take a small bark, in which were two or three hundred hides, and one most necessary thing, which stood us in great stead, viz., a pump! which we set in our frigate. Their bark because it was nothing ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols

... took, and on a spit staked them, then to thee gave them. I said they were of calves,—it was long of thee alone—thou didst leave none, voraciously didst devour, well didst ply thy teeth. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of demons, is what ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... bustled out, but very soon bustled in again; and now, as he stooped, menial-like, to ply the coal tongs, though his domelike brow preserved all its wonted serenity, no words could possibly express all the mute rebellion of ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... behind. I dug the spurs into Aggahr's flanks, and clasping him round the neck, I ducked my head down to his shoulder, well protected with my strong hunting cap, and I kept the spurs going as hard as I could ply them, blindly trusting to Providence and my good horse, over big rocks, fallen trees, thick kittar thorns, and grass ten feet high, with the two infernal animals in full chase only a few feet behind me. I heard their abominable whiffing close to me, but so did my horse also, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... Trengganu are of a very different type. First and foremost, they are men of peace. Their sole interest in life is the trade or occupation which they ply, and they have none of that pride of race and country, which is so marked in the Pahang Malay. All they ask is to be allowed to make money, to study, or to earn a livelihood unmolested; and they have none of that 'loyal passion' for their intemperate Kings, which is ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... together with the risk we must run in exploring a sea strewed with shoals, and where no anchorage, without them, is to be found, induced me to abandon the design of proceeding round by the N.W., and to ply up to the S.E., in which direction I knew there was a clear sea. With this view we tacked and stood to the S.E., with the wind at N.E. by E., a gentle breeze. At this time we were in the latitude of 19 deg. 7' S., longitude 163 ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... woolen caps, and strangers of the graver sort; mariners of England, Germany, and Holland. The lowest seats were full of trappers, smugglers, Canadian voyageurs, drinking and singing; Americains, too—more's the shame—from the upper rivers—who will not keep their seats—who ply the bottle, and who will get home by-and-by and tell how wicked Sodom is; broad-brimmed, silver-braided Mexicans too, with their copper cheeks and bat's eyes, and their tinkling spurred heels. Yonder in that quieter section are the quadroon women in their black lace shawls—and there is Baptiste; ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... relief; and I was soon glibly telling her the story in the doctor's letter: how I was a Miss Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my instructions, and, as the lady still continued to ply me with questions, began to embroider on my own account. This soon carried one of my inexperience beyond her depth; and I had already remarked a shadow on the lady's face, when a gentleman drew near and very ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... uppermost. Relent then and repent thee of thy wrath; For, if one young in years may claim some sense, I'll say 'tis best of all to be endowed With absolute wisdom; but, if that's denied, (And nature takes not readily that ply) Next wise is he ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... steeds, but many private citizens of different nations in their light pony-carriages, palanquins, etc., instead of the invariable barges and sampans of a few years ago, when the river was the "Broadway" of the city and the canals its cross-streets. Steamers of various dimensions now busily ply the river: the kings own several, which they use for pleasure-boats; eight or ten are fitted up as war-steamers, and others are packets to Singapore, China and elsewhere, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... and other vessels of his Majesty which ply amid these islands eighty Indians are employed from month to month, each receiving one peso per month and their board, which amounts to nine hundred and sixty pesos. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... present instance, as, from the same source, devotion to home life, springs another fine feature of Jewry; go down in the scale as deep as you may, they are an industrious, toilsome class of people, often turning their narrow homes into workshops where old and young ply a handicraft from early morn to the late evening hours. Hundreds of men and women, arriving in this country after they have passed the middle life, learn trades and work at them till their trembling hands can hold the tools no longer or the light fades from their overstrained ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau

... her, and continued to ply her with questions concerning Mr. Harrington, asking if he had formerly lived near Geneva, in western New York, if he had a crazy father, and if he ever ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... to the Clan of Tweedie a descent of a similar romantic nature. A baron, somewhat elderly, had wedded a buxom young wife, but some months after their union he left her to ply the distaff among the mountains of the county of Peebles, near the sources of the Tweed. After being absent seven or eight years—no uncommon space for a pilgrimage to Palestine—he returned, and found, ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... triple ply were wound about Diable's crossed arms from wrists to elbows. Burnt Earth gagged the knave with his own moccasin, while Ringing Thunder and Little Fellow quickly roped him neck and ankles to the fore and hind shanks of the dead buffalo. This ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... little page, And takes his stand before the table; 'Tis true he was of tender age, But well to ply ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise

... can account for most kinds of nauticality by their economic history, which all depended, directly or indirectly, down to the smallest detail, on the mercantile marine—especially if we give the name of mercantile marine its justifiable extension so as to cover all the craft that ply on inland waterways as well as those that cross the sea. It is calculated at the present day that it is as easy to move a hundred tons by water as ten tons by rail or one ton by road; and this rule, in spite of many local exceptions, is fairly correct in practice, especially ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood

... battle was gained, a rapid fire was heard in the direction of Quarman, showing that the Ashantees were attempting to cut off the communication with the rear. Four companies of the Rifle Brigade were accordingly ordered back, and so actively did they ply their rifles, that in less than an hour the Ashantees were put to flight. Another attack was, however, made on the right and rear of Quarman, by one of the principal Ashantee generals, but the enemy was gallantly held in check ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... the natural psychical inhibitions, sexual practices may occur that would not otherwise have occurred.") To take the woman's point of view first, it is, I believe, a common experience with prostitutes that, in the earlier days at any rate, they find it difficult to ply their trade unless under the influence of alcohol. Turning to the man's point of view, there is quite a considerable proportion of young men who, however strong their sexual impulse, object to meretricious intercourse at once on ethical and aesthetic ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... new fault have they to charge him with? That he alone decides what he alone Can understand? Well! Should it not be so? It should and must! This man was never made To ply and mould himself like wax to others: It goes against his heart; he cannot do it, He has the spirit of a ruler, and The station of a ruler. Well for us It is so! Few can rule themselves, can use Their wisdom wisely: happy for ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... the true treasures. There is no harm in a Latin ode after the manner of Messer Ovidius, but for the most part poets or those that call themselves such are foolish fellows enough, and keep very bad company. Ply your book, my son, and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... living-engines on. For as whipp'd tops, and bandy'd balls, 55 The learned hold, are animals; So horses they affirm to be Mere engines made by geometry; And were invented first from engines, As Indian Britons were from Penguins. 60 So let them be; and, as I was saying, They their live engines ply'd, not staying Until they reach'd the fatal champain, Which th' enemy did then encamp on; The dire Pharsalian plain, where battle 65 Was to be wag'd 'twixt puissant cattle And fierce auxiliary men, That ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... taken in the act; but if any one carried off a free woman and forced her, he assessed the penalty at one hundred drachmas. If he obtained her favours by persuasion, he was to pay twenty drachmas, except in the case of those who openly ply for hire, alluding to harlots; for they come to those who offer them money without any concealment. Moreover, he forbade men to sell their sisters and daughters, except in the case of unchastity. Now to punish the same offence at one time with unrelenting severity, and at another in ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... growth of the willow renders it easy to provide materials for this branch of industry. Osier-beds are planted in every suitable place, and here the willow-cutter comes as to an ample store. Autumn is the season for him to ply his trade, and he cuts the willow rods down and ties them in bundles. He then sets them up on end in standing water to the depth of a few inches. Here they remain during the winter, until the shoots, in the following spring, begin ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... a-dying, I will you messengers make: You ply you so fast, you are too-too diligent. Whoop how, Master Zeal, whither are ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... river then and at the beginning of the last century, until steam-boats were introduced, was a complete and serious voyage, which few undertook. The boatmen used to run their boats at one time on the beach opposite the end of Water-street and ply for hire. After the piers were ran out they hooked on at the steps calling aloud, "Woodside, ahoy!" "Seacombe, ahoy!" and so on. It is a fact that thousands of Liverpool people at that time never were in Cheshire in their ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... take oar, and turn mine eager prow, Back to the quiet waveless source again, Where no harsh sound breaks on the dreaming brain, And winds steal softly round the careless brow,— Swift as a dream my tiny bark hath gone, And stoutly though I ply the oar, yet now My weary shallop still goes sadly on, Swift floating ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... else he did not care, and only wanted to speak of her to some one, and so he told me the story over and over again as I walked beside the litter, or as we sat by the fire at night. She must have been a very remarkable girl. He had met her first the year before, on one of the Italian steamers that ply from New York to Gibraltar. She was travelling with her father, who was an invalid going to Tangier for his health; from Tangier they were to go on up to Nice and Cannes, and in the spring to Paris and on to London for this season just over. The man was going from Gibraltar ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis

... the ladies met, And at the frame are seated; In order plac'd, they work in haste, To get the quilt completed. While fingers fly, their tongues they ply, And animate their labors, By counting beaux, discussing clothes, Or talking of ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... all loved him. Even the common people—led as they were by hectoring preachers of sedition, of no more truth or honesty than the mountebanks that ply their knavish trade round Henry's statue on the Pont Neuf—even they, the very rabble, had their hours of loyalty. I rode with his Majesty from Royston to Hatfield, in '47, when the people filled the midsummer air with his name, from hearts ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... have cheaper Cabs in Greater London! The County Council should subsidise a lot of Cabs, to ply exclusively between London and the outskirts. Or why not a Government Cab Purchase Bill, like the Irish Land Purchase one? We want a special Minister for Public Locomotion—perhaps Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various

... seen the Emperor's body-slave a hundred times about his person; he therefore recognized him at once, and his presence here in Alexandria led him directly to the simple and correct inference that his master too must be in the city. The praetor's curiosity was roused, and he at once proceeded to ply the poor fellow with bewildering cross-questions. When the donkey-rider shortly and sharply refused to answer, Verus thought it well to reveal himself to him, and the slave lost his confident demeanor when he recognized the grand ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... a hundred, one of the many spies who ply this town by night, ran to the state inquisitor, with information that such a nobleman (naming him) had connections with the French ambassador, and went privately to his house every night at a certain hour. The messergrando, as they call ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... antagonism between two parties mutually indispensable to each other, at one time veiling itself in endearments, at another breaking out into open defiance. He who has a message to deliver must wrestle with his fellows before he shall be permitted to ply them with uncomfortable or unfamiliar truths. The public, like the delicate Greek Narcissus, is sleepily enamoured of itself; and the name of its only other perfect lover is Echo. Yet even great authors must lay their account with the public, and it is instructive to observe ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh

... cry. These poor good men, merciful, zealous, with many sympathies and thoughts, there do they vehemently appeal to me, Et tu, Brute? Brother, wilt thou too insist on the breeches being old,—not ply a needle among us here?—To the naked Caliban, gigantic, for whom such breeches would not be a glove, who is stalking and groping there in search of new breeches and accoutrements, sure to get them, and to tread into nonentity whoever hinders him ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson



Words linked to "Ply" :   gutter, indulge, fulfil, radial-ply tire, serve, dish, accommodate, employ, do, underlay, cater, three-ply, pander, dish out, help, horse, handle, give, two-ply, sustain, procure, run, bring together, cross-ply, travel, drench, use, trip, plyer, utilize, fix up, apply, satisfy, perform, supply, black market, meet, nourish, join, treat, fulfill, layer, utilise, bed, strand, radial-ply, plier, gratify, four-ply, nurture, manage, board, shower, fill, jaunt, power, combining form, regale, serve up, feed, pimp, wield



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org