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Rumble   Listen
noun
Rumble  n.  
1.
A noisy report; rumor. (Obs.) "Delighting ever in rumble that is new."
2.
A low, heavy, continuous sound like that made by heavy wagons or the reverberation of thunder; a confused noise; as, the rumble of a railroad train. "Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter." "Merged in the rumble of awakening day."
3.
A seat for servants, behind the body of a carriage. "Kit, well wrapped,... was in the rumble behind."
4.
A rotating cask or box in which small articles are smoothed or polished by friction against each other.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rumble" Quotes from Famous Books



... before the submarine began to move forward. Dave Darrin, familiar with the sounds from below, knew that the rumble of machinery coming to his ears was caused, not by the engines used in surface running, but by the electric motors employed ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... imperial dignity through the railway yard at Rugby. There was a maze of switches, innumerable engines noisily pushing cars here and there, crowds of workmen who turned to look, a sinuous curve around the long train-shed, whose high wall resounded with the rumble of the passing express; and then, almost immediately, it seemed, came the open country again. Rugby had been a dream which one could properly doubt. At last the relaxed engine, with the same majesty of ease, swung into the high-roofed station at Crewe, and stopped ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... will leave the point and purpose of his testimony to the languid curiosity of a spent reader. Dr. Johnson never did so; and who am I to question his literary infallibility? So if you do not take kindly to the solemn rumble of the Johnsonese mail-coach of a sentence in which we set out, receive the purport of it thus: It is of advantage to be on good terms with one's ancestors: Also; men absorbed in this practical present may be all the better for a little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... the resources of the house. Those of the neighborhood are various. Foremost among them is the cafetal, or coffee-plantation, of Don Juan Torres, distant a league from the village, over which league of stone, sand, and rut you rumble in a volante dragged by three horses. You know that the volante cannot upset; nevertheless you experience some anxious moments when it leans at an obtuse angle, one wheel in air, one sticking in a hole, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... attic window she had seen beautiful Paris writhing under the pitiless lash of the demon of terror which it had provoked; she had heard the rumble of the tumbrils, dragging day after day their load of victims to the insatiable maker of this Revolution ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... flame-like object that fled its approach. Rage conquering fear, the bull gave a dreadful roar and made a quick lunge at Madge. She sprang to one side but managed to thrust her umbrella full in the animal's face. With a rumble of defiance the bull dodged the umbrella and made another lunge at Madge. Its lowered horns never reached her. A rope swung skilfully forward caught the animal by the leg just in time. One swift pull ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers

... verse. And yet in real humorous poetry we have been sadly deficient. Only of late years have the constant lions by the gate begun to rouse from their strong slumber, to shake their tawny manes, and rumble out a warning of their ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... When Lady Russell not long afterwards, was entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of newspapermen, muffin-men and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of pattens, she made no complaint. No, these were noises which belonged to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose under their influence; and like Mrs ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... accounts, the Belgians destroyed it, as they have done many other costly bridges, so as to impede the advance of the German heavy guns. It takes lots of time and trouble to rebuild a bridge and make it strong enough to let a monster siege gun rumble over." ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... the rumble of an approaching train, the march of cavalry, and saw the glint of arms ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... first, and presently gaining in distinctness, came the fall of horses' hoofs and the rumble of wheels along the highway. A little cavalcade was soon passing beneath the archway. First there dashed in two horsemen, who had sprung to the ground almost as soon as their steeds' hoofs struck the paved court-yard. Then there swept by a jaunty dog cart, driven by a mannish figure radiantly ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... rumble John, mount the steps with a groan, Cry the book is with heresy cramm'd; Then out wi' your ladle, deal brimstone like aidle, And roar ev'ry note of the damn'd. Rumble John!^6 And roar ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... There was a dull rumble, but the confined space and the thick walls of the ship shut most of it out. It was followed by a sickening dizzy motion to the submarine. She seemed about to roll over and those in her grabbed frantically at the sides. The next instant the craft plunged down, down, down, ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood

... Presently a rumble of displaced stones reached my ear from the other side of the Pass. My eye searched for the spot, halfway up, where the trees grew sparser and the hard, sharp rocks gained the dominance. Out from this streak of trees and rocks rode the Black Colonel on black Mack, and ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... spur and impulse the summer shower is! How its coming quickens and hurries up the slow, jogging country life! The traveler along the dusty road arouses from his reverie at the warning rumble behind the hills; the children hasten from the field or from the school; the farmer steps lively and thinks fast. In the hay-field, at the first signal-gun of the elements, what a commotion! How the horserake rattles, how the pitchforks fly, how the white sleeves play and twinkle in ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... of the Bad Lands did not do this: they used to stand on their dignity and growl like a thunder-storm, and so gave the hunters a chance to play their deadly lightning; and lightning is worse than thunder any day. Men can get used to growls that rumble along the ground and up one's legs to the little house where one's courage lives; but Bears cannot get used to 45-90 soft-nosed bullets, and that is why the Grizzlies of the Bad Lands ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... Garibaldi had given Brazil all the freedom she deserved—all she knew how to use. He was crowned as "The Hero of Montevideo," and could have taken a place high in the councils of the State. But across the sea he heard the rumble of battle going on in his beloved fatherland, and the dream of a United Italy was still vivid in his mind, and of course, vivid, too, in the mind of Anita. So they sailed away, taking with them a hundred of their ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... rang, and a train began to rumble, but no one took note of it save Harley. The two-ten on the branch line to connect with the 'Frisco Express on the B. P. was moving out, and he breathed a great sigh of relief. "One gone," he said to himself; ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... churchyard, and when country folks of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant,—the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy time of the morning ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... wilderness itself. It seemed to her exactly as though the earth was holding its breath and waiting for something terrible to happen. The vague bulk of buildings was still some distance ahead, and when a rumble like the deepest notes of a pipe organ began to fill all the air, Lorraine thrust her grip under a bush and began to run, her soggy shoes squashing unpleasantly on the rough ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... leopard spat fiercely and struck at the points that were put upon it, the deep rumble in its throat swelling into loud crescendos. Of a sudden it bounded through the gateway and stood a moment, baring great fangs. The animal threatened with long hisses. Vergilius held its eye, his lance raised. The hissing ceased, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... Times, and as such a very notable representative of the Fourth Estate. No one ever more fully illustrated the truth of the words which Thackeray, in Pendennis, puts into the mouth of his George Warrington, when he and Arthur Pendennis stand in Fleet Street and hear the rumble of the engines in the press-room. He likened the foreign correspondents of these newspapers to the ambassadors of a great State; and no one more fully justifies the analogy than M. de Blowitz, for it is profitable to recall that when ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... to listen. Yes, the wall was thin! She could hear Kit and Churn talking in an ordinary tone, but she could catch few words, even when she laid her ear against the dusty paper. When the voices sank low, they reached her only in an indistinct rumble. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... on the first plank of the bridge she heard a little rumble of sound, and down the road came a light, two-seated vehicle, with coloured driver, and Miss Lydia Sessions taking her sister's children out for an early morning drive. There was a frail, long-visaged boy of ten sitting beside his aunt ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... stood. They both started and seized their guns, but they could see nothing and only heard the branches breaking. The rhythmical rapid thud of galloping was heard for a moment and then changed into a hollow rumble which resounded farther and farther off, re-echoing in wider and wider circles through the forest. Olenin felt as though something had snapped in his heart. He peered carefully but vainly into the green thicket and then turned ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... a real treat! That was the only thing wanting!' The dull rumble was heard a second time, rose, and fell in a crash. 'Bravo! Bis! Do you remember I spoke of the AEneid yesterday? They too were overtaken by a storm in the forest, you know. We must be off, though.' She rose swiftly to her feet. 'Bring me my horse.... Give ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... street door and sets her back against it. The rumble of the approaching van is heard outside. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... and suddenly the strangeness of it all came over Talbot and he felt afraid. The noiseless engine made scarcely a sound; the distant rumble of gunfire sounded like low and muttering thunder. They had come by way of Tucson so as to pick up a ten-gallon tube of concentrated explosive gas at the military camp in the ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg

... haze, dotted here and there with fire. It was unlovely, tremendous. Whistler might have painted it with its pathos, its majesty, but he would have missed what made it infinitely suggestive—the rattle and roar of iron on iron, the rumble of wheels, the throbbing beat, against the ears, of fire and ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... the fields, shedding their glare here and there on the front of a whitewashed house, while up above on the level ground it was still dark, under the shadow of the vessel. And now a glitter was seen, and a rumble was heard in the direction of the town. The fire brigade was on its way. And from the farmhouses which lay near, down over the fields, but chiefly in the avenue leading from the town, people were to be seen running, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... she had heard the smugglers' ponies, waiting in this same room. Waiting at the open window to catch the first rumble of the wheels of a returning carriage. Her poor dear Nannie, Sarah Watson, was returning home after a summer holiday spent with her own people in the north. And Damaris, younger then by nearly five years, had listened impatiently, ready to skirmish down into the front hall—directly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... the incandescent lights began to whirl about in circles, and to burn in different colors; the faces of the reporters kneeling before him and chafing his hands and feet grew dim and unfamiliar, and the roar and rumble of the great presses in the basement sounded far away, like the murmur ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... with much amazement at her, and the baron, and Robin, and the friar; listened to their conversation, and seemed much astonished to find himself in such holy and courtly company. Robin helped him largely to rumble-pie and cygnet and pheasant, and the other dainties of his table; and the friar pledged him in ale and wine, and exhorted him to make good cheer. But the young man drank little, ate less, spake nothing, and every now and then ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... a fork of lightning split the sky ahead. This was followed by another off to the right, then by one off to the left. Then they heard the rumble of thunder, and a heavy gray haze slowly began to engulf ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... man of action nothing is so wearing as inactivity. It had been intolerable sitting in the darkness while the new proxy had borne the enemy's assault unaided. He had heard the rumble of talk which had followed the first stifled cry from Doran when the sponge of chloroform was thrust into his face, and every now and again he had heard Frencham Altar's voice ring out high and mocking and exasperatingly like his own. ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... of this also, madam!" said I, while Anthony looked from her to me with shining eyes. At this moment we started, all three, as borne to our ears came the distant rumble of thunder, followed by a fierce wind-gust that rattled crazy door and lattice and, dying in a dismal wail, left behind the mournful sound ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... propagate themselves quick as the blight on a rose-tree; how profligacy, and crime, and all the devil's angels are busy on his errands. If we are sitting drowsy by our camp-fires, the enemy is on the alert. You can hear the tramp of their legions and the rumble of their artillery through the night as they march to their posts on the field. It is no time for God's sentinels to nod. If they sleep, the adversary does not, but glides in the congenial darkness, sowing his baleful ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... themselves with watching all these couples, the woman in summer toilette and the man darkly outlined beside her. It was a huge flood of lovers flowing towards the Bois, beneath the starry and heated sky. No sound was heard save the dull rumble of wheels. They kept passing by, two by two in each vehicle, leaning back on the seat, clasped one against the other, lost in dreams of desire, quivering with the anticipation of coming caresses. The warm shadow seemed full of kisses. A sense of spreading lust rendered the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... answer the arguments presented in Fitzgerald's beautiful quatrains. The poem both depressed and thrilled him. After reading it, he felt desperate—and ready for anything, convinced that the only wise course was to take the cash and let the credit go. He was much too young to hear the rumble of the distant drum. Sometimes he was sure that there wasn't a ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... like a sheet of rain. The Major's big car shuddered with each fresh blast, and the little Swallow seemed to cower close to the ground. Continuous sheets of lightning made the night as bright as day. Over the whine and whistle of the wind they could hear the distant rumble of the thunder. The room was full of dust, driven through the cracks of the window. Their throats were choked with it. The wind blew harder and harder; the lightning grew brighter, slashing the black sky with great ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb

... The rumble grew rapidly in volume, until once more the whole great mountain seemed to tremble. Bob was shivering partly from the excitement, and because he ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson

... in the Rue de l'Oiseau, before the old hostelry of the Oiseau Flesche, into whose great courtyard, once upon a time, would rumble the coaches of the Duchesses de Montpensier, de Guermantes, and de Montmorency, when they had to come down to Combray for some litigation with their farmers, or to receive homage from them. We would come at length to the Mall, among whose treetops I could distinguish the steeple of Saint-Hilaire. ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... slapped Gregory affectionately on the shoulder. "Didn't I tell you, Cap, that I'd have old Dupont eating out of your hand in less than a week?" he challenged. "Old leather-face has an ear to the ground. He's heard the rumble of my thunder and he ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... Illinois was lost to General Taylor. The Free Soilers had swept the northeastern counties. There had been great Democratic desertions. Voltaire and Rousseau were still at work. These fermentations of Europe had bubbled and exploded around Chicago. The concrete thing known as negro slavery heard the rumble of the ground. The tariff, the bank, imperial power in Congress unwittingly renewed their strength—unwittingly on the part of ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... dwelling In the body of Wipunen; Take at once thy habitation To the regions of thy kindred, To thy distant fields and firesides; When thy journey thou hast ended, Gained the borders of thy country, Gained the meads of thy Creator, Give a signal of thy coming, Rumble like the peals of thunder, Glisten like the gleam of lightning, Knock upon the outer portals, Enter through the open windows, Glide about the many chambers, Seize the host and seize the hostess, Knock their evil beads together, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... very pleasant one for travelling—"frosty, but kindly." About one o'clock there might have been seen standing before the door the roomy yellow family carriage, with four post-horses. All was in travelling trim. In the rumble sat Mr. Aubrey's valet and Mrs. Aubrey's maid—Miss Aubrey's, and one of the nursery-maids, going down by the coach which had carried Sam—the Tally-ho. The coach-box was piled up with that sort of luggage which, by its lightness and bulk, denotes lady-travelling: ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... like an ox-waggon—rumble and creak and jolt, a devil of a noise and turning of wheels, but very little progress. They will give up their twelve prisoners for our four, will they? That is about a fair proportion. No, it is not, though: four Boers are better than twelve ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... While it is in progress there can be heard between the words of NAPOLEON the persistent cries from the plain, rising and falling like those of a vast rookery far away, intermingled with the trampling of hoofs and the rumble of wheels. The bivouac fires of the engirdling enemy glow all around except for a small segment to the west—the track of retreat, still kept open by BERTRAND, and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... Ulster will roar in saving the calf their heart, in striking the battle. There will come to them a feeling of kinship at seeing that lad in the great battle, striking the battle before them. There will be heard the rumble of Conchobar's sword like the barking of a watch-dog in saving the lad. He will throw three walls of men about the battle in seeking the lad. It will be with the affection of kinsmen that the warriors of Ulster will attack the countless host,' ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown

... began to rumble, criers to shout, engines raised their polished, oily shoulders, and turned their buzzing wheels; and little by little the heavy, thick atmosphere was filled with a muffled murmur from the collective work of thousands. The day was begun; joyous Copenhagen ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... almost to the trees and it seemed that they must find shelter there. This would mean that it would be a hard task for the Montenegrins to dislodge them. They were less than a hundred yards away when there came a fresh, terrible rumble and roar. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... were few of the accompaniments that we conjure up in our stay-at-home imagination of battle scenes. There was a little galloping of hooves, not long sustained; an occasional sharp cry of command or sharper oath; an intermittent rumble and jar from the infrequently moved artillery, not yet in action; and perhaps a groan or two from the wounded. But, even when the field-rifles began to boom and shroud the landscape in drifting smoke, the make-believe aspect of the affair did not in any degree diminish. There ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman

... yellow head and muttered a formal blessing with an offhand manner, as if it were a mere ceremony. Bud stared contemptuously at him the while, and Cap uttered a low rumble as of a distant growl. Margaret felt a sudden desire to laugh, and tried to control herself, wondering what her father would feel ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... and then, even in November, it was partial, and limited to small patches of country; but scarcely a day passed between October and May without a good deal of thunder. When the thunder began to roll or rumble, that was taken by the natives as an indication of the near cessation of the rains. The middle of the watershed is the most humid part: one sees the great humidity of its climate at once in the trees, old and young, being thickly covered ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... among the pillows with a dreadful, sickening sensation gripping at her heart. They were talking about her! She strained her ears to catch the President's reply, but could hear only an indistinct rumble of voices mingled with Allee's sharp sobs. So the angels had carried Sadie Wenzell to her home beyond the Gates! Idly she wondered when it had happened and why she had not been told. It had been one of her dearest plans to visit Sadie some day and see for herself how she enjoyed the scrapbooks ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... made its conception possible; but this conception, finding the work responsive in some measure to its inner demand, attributes that response to its own magic prerogative. Hence the least stir and rumble of formative processes, when it generates a soul, makes itself somehow that soul's interpreter; and dim as the spirit and its expression may both remain, they are none the less in profound concord, a concord which wears a miraculous providential character ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... to threaten and rumble on the horizon, like a rising thundercloud, it was the more needful, in Peter's time, that Christians parted by seas, by race, language, and customs, should draw together. And for us, fidelity to our testimony ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... preliminary rumble, the band struck up the Marseillaise. You should have seen the change in this crowd of corpses. You must remember that these people had been so long accustomed to lies and snares that it would probably take days to persuade ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... enormously interested, excellently entertained. The noise is the thing that impresses you first. In most Village resorts you find quiet the order of the day—or rather night. Even "Polly's," crowded as it is, is not noisy. In the Brevoort there is a steady, low rumble of talk, but not actual noise. At the Black Cat it is one continual and all-pervading roar—a joyous roar, too; these people are having a simply gorgeous time and don't care who knows it. It is a wonder that the high-set ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... the matter, quotha? Faith, I ha' been in a fair taking for you, a bots on you! for t'other day, after I had seen you, presently my belly began to rumble. What's the matter, thought I. With that I bethought myself, and the sweet comportance of that same sweet round face of thine came into my mind. Out went I, and, I'll be sworn, I was so near taken, that I was fain to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... by he caught ear of the sea breaking under the wind beyond the Little Spotted Horse. He was nearing the limits of the ice. In full moonlight the whitecaps flashed news of a tumultuous open. A rumble and splash of breakers came down with the gale from the point of the island. It indicated that the sea was working in the passage between the Spotted Horses and Blow-me-down Dick of the Ragged Run coast. The waves ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... was born, various kinds of fearful phenomena occurred. And the nature of males and females, of heat and cold, and of such other pairs of contraries, was reversed. And the planets, the cardinal points and the firmaments became radiant with light and the earth began to rumble very much. And the Rishis even, seeking the welfare of the world, while they observed all these terrific prodigies on all sides, began with anxious hearts to restore tranquillity in the universe. And those who used to live in that Chitraratha forest ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... tree was easy, because it was so well identified. When the rumble of the big lumber wagons passing the cabin on the way to the swamp wakened Freckles next morning, he sprang up and was soon following them. He was so sore and stiff that every movement was torture ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... remain in Saratoga for dinner. They took Stull back to his hotel on the rumble of the runabout, Brandes remarking that he thought he should need a chauffeur before long and suggesting that Stull look about Saratoga for ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... far-off rumble of independent firing he muttered to himself indications of anxiety. Strange to say, the eyes that looked out over the hollow of the gorge-like valley were blue. They were, however, hardly visible through the tangle of unkempt hair and raw wool that fell over his forehead. The high sheepskin cap ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... inside the thing, a purry sort of rumble that grows bigger and bigger, and next I knew, it starts wallowin' right at us. It keeps comin' and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin' for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... touched him. Once he wakened to find the room empty, the lamp turned low. In the dim light and the hush the place seemed unutterably desolate and forsaken, as if he were buried in a crypt. When he listened he could hear the melancholy drone of the southeaster and the rumble of the surf, two sounds that fitted well his mood. He felt a strange relief when Betty came tiptoeing in from the kitchen. She bent over him. MacRae closed his ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... for writing, and could not get it. Of all boons this is the most difficult to find in France. It can be had in Paris, where it is easy to live shut off from the world, hearing nothing save the monotonous rumble of life in the streets; but let no one talk to me about the blessed quietude of the country in France, unless it be that of the bare moor or mountain or desolate seashore. In villages there is no escape from the clatter of tongues ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... pin-money, said he, and to efface any unpleasant impression made in the heat of discussion. The copies of the draft had scarcely been made out, Cachan had barely had time to send the documents to Petit-Claud, together with the three unlucky forged bills, when the Sechards heard a deafening rumble in the street, a dray from the Messageries stopped before the door, and Kolb's voice made the staircase ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... sat still, oblivious of the flight of time. The afternoon sun threw long shadows across the road. Mrs. Wederslen flew past in her automobile, inclining her haughty southern head as she sat, erect and dominant, behind the steering-wheel. The rumble of the trolley-cars came up on the still air from the valley. My friend and I looked at each other and knocked out ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... hill at Overstrand, the headwaiter of the East Cliff Hotel and the bearded German stood in the garden back of the house with the forbidding walls. From the road in front came unceasingly the tramp and shuffle of thousands of marching feet, the rumble of heavy cannon, the clanking of their chains, the voices of men trained to command raised in sharp, confident orders. The sky was illuminated by countless fires. Every window of every cottage and hotel blazed with lights. The night ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... the Bacchanalian divinity they might ride in the rumble-tumble if they liked, but none of it for him, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... the rumble of the London coach was heard. Then he quitted the bar and went to the stable, where he remained during the stay of the coach which occupied some little time, for the story of the highway ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... and the Hill of Howth. A wide strand of boulders is laid bare by the receding tide, with green sea-grass carpeting the stones. At the very verge of the farthest tide are two huge sand-banks, where the waves roar and rumble with a sound like the bellowing of bulls, and this tumultuous roaring is preserved in the name of the place ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... to us on the hill in regular order, and above them rang the startling discharges of the 4.7-inch naval guns, whose shells in bursting raised huge brown dust clouds from houses, trench, or hillside. At the same time the thunder began to rumble, and vivid streaks of blue light scarred the sombre hills. We watched the impressive spectacle in safety and ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... and with it the slight animosities it inspired. The last song has been sung, the piano closed, the lights are withdrawn from the windows, and the white skirts flutter away from stoops and balconies. The silence is broken only by the rattle and rumble of carriages coming from theatre and opera. I fancy that this sound—which, seeming to be more distinct at this hour than at any other time, might be called one of the civic voices of the night—has certain urbane suggestions, not unpleasant to ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte

... Northern England, had never become hardened to the maddening noises of the Via Babbuino: The rattle and clatter of cab wheels; the clack-clack of thousands of iron-shod hoofs; the shrill, high cry of the street venders; the blasts of motor horns that seemed to rend the narrow street; the roar and rumble of the electric trams; the wail of fretful babies; the chatter of gossiping women; and above and through and below it all the cracking of the cabman's whip—that sceptre of the Roman cabby, that wand which is one part whip and nine parts crack. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Gowd that her brain ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... couldn't help himself. And thereafter when the singers met in Cedar Swamp he always turned greener in the face than ever and looked as if he were about to burst, when Ferdinand Frog opened his mouth its widest and let his voice rumble ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey

... throughout the year. The shrewd old draper rubbed his hands, and allowed his assistants to remain at table. The members of the crew had hardly swallowed their thimbleful of some home-made liqueur, when the rumble of a carriage was heard. The family party were going to see Cendrillon at the Varietes, while the two younger apprentices each received a crown of six francs, with permission to go wherever they chose, provided they ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... vent in a sort of rumble. How the devil had he gone on all these years in the same house with that woman, dining with her day after day! But the servant had come back now, and putting ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Creak, bang! rumble, rattle; off they went, and were fairly under way, at last, for Segni. They passed out of Rome by the Porta San Giovanni, where their passports received a visto; and this being finished, again started, the vettura soon reaching the Campagna. It looked a fair and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... groans of the wounded and dying, cut into at frequent intervals by some sharp order from the captain or the first lieutenant; the curt commands of the captains of the guns: "Stop the vent! run in! sponge! load! run out!" and so on; the creak of the tackle blocks, the rumble of the gun carriages, the clatter of handspikes, the dull thud of the rammers driving home the shot, the rattling volleys of musketry from the marines on the poop, the occasional rending crash of a falling spar, and the terrific babble of the Frenchmen on either side of us, sounding ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... the army fled—a crashing through bushes—a splashing into the river, the rumble of mule wagons, yells of terror, swift flying shapes through the pale moonlight. Flitter Bill heard the din as he stood ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... among us. Indeed, the calm of that placid series of days was such that it was difficult to realise that the second Battle of Ypres was raging with unbroken ferocity a few miles to the north, until we listened to the unwearied rumble of the guns and saw by night the great light in the sky where the doomed ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell

... and enthusiastic voices and happy laughter rang through the half-lighted levels and galleries, there came a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery, and then there was a sudden sharp issuing of orders, and a dull, ominous rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale: one ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... stream ever since the early days of Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," whose midnight conversation was overheard by Burns, while other auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. The ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep between. Nothing else impressed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... spite of her speculative, philosophic observations to herself, she still felt the echo, the distant rumble, as it were, of the storm in her own soul. "Why cry? Why not cry?" She might have said—but wouldn't, and in spite of herself and all her logic, she knew that this tempest which had so recently raged over her was now merely ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... Tap! Yes there is a perceptible tumble. One can't "square" the weather or "get at" the glass. A storm? Oh! 'twas merely the least little rumble,— 'Twill probably pass. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... hurried away while Katrina went in to prepare the bed; she was hardly inside the door when the rattling noise, which she and the seine-maker believed was caused by a common wagon, sounded as if it were almost upon them. To Jan it was the rumble of heavy war chariots, at whose approach the whole earth trembled. He called in a loud voice to Katrina, who ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof

... good Mr. Hardy?" said Mary, who was looking out of the window; "there he is in the street. He has just helped Hopkins into the rumble, and handed her things to her just as if she were a duchess. She has been so cross all the morning, and now ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... such luxurious careers as we should expect in public despots. The oppression of the horse-car passenger is not from them, and the passenger himself is finally to blame for it. When the draw closes at last, and we rumble forward into the city street, a certain stir of expectation is felt among us. The long and eventful journey is nearly ended, and now we who are to get out of the cars can philosophically amuse ourselves with the passions and sufferings of those who are to ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... look up meekly at the functionary. He glowers contemptuously upon me. He recommends me to an underling, and bustles off to guests more important. There are in the dining-hall French, German, Italian, English and Japanese. Tongues, plates, knives and forks clatter inside—wheels roll, rumble and clatter over the stony pavement outside. I wait for my soup. Hours seem to lag by. I appeal in vain to other waiters. Life is too busy and important a matter with them to pay any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... overwarm and weary, perhaps, quiet and a little sad, at any rate. Mr. Rice was quiet, too, and thoughtful. The passengers inside were asleep. The coach rattled along at a steady pace, with the dust so deep under the wheels as to still their rumble. At intervals, a freight-wagon was passed, drawn to one side, at a "turn-out," or a rabbit skipped across the road, or a solitary horseman suggested alternately a "road-agent," or one of James's heroes. Grand views presented themselves of wooded cliffs and wild ravines. ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... houses, because long living in droves has made them afraid of the silence of long nights and the emptiness of skies. In the houses giant children are being reared. When the children fight and scream in the houses and in the streets, the dark spaces between the walls rumble with ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... round the Signal Office, nervous and excited, for "a run." The night was alive with the tramp of troops and the rumble of guns. The old 108th passed by—huge good-natured guns, each drawn by eight gigantic plough-horses. I wonder if you can understand—the thrilling excitement of waiting and listening by night in a town ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all their belongings would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books, that had rumbled down to them through the generations, must rumble forward again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push, and send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father's books—they never read them, but they were their father's, and must be kept. There ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... it she began to rumble a stanza of By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill; so I chanced it again, remarking on the sign I had observed that day. So she left her desk for a seat before the fire and said yes, and they was other signs of Herman's hid off in the mountains where no one but cows, that ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... the carriage and the Secretary. He sat on the box, and Mr Sloppy graced the rumble. So, to the Three Magpies as before: where Mrs Boffin and Miss Bella were handed out, and whence they all went on ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... maladies no longer run in our blood. There is no more of the Middle Ages in our constitution. We no longer live in the days when terrible swarms within made irruptions, when one heard beneath his feet the obscure course of a dull rumble, when indescribable elevations from mole-like tunnels appeared on the surface of civilization, where the soil cracked open, where the roofs of caverns yawned, and where one suddenly beheld monstrous heads emerging from ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... not leave the hospital before the end of the third week. She knew that when she crossed the threshold of the hospital there would be no more peace for her; and she was frightened as she listened to the never-ending rumble of the street. She spent whole hours thinking of her dear mother, and longing for some news from home, and her face brightened when she was told that her sister had ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... first dead Turk. But suddenly the carriages left this road and began a circuit of the Gulf of Arta, winding about an endless series of promontories. The journey developed into an excess of dust whirling from a road, which half circled the waist of cape after cape. All dramatics were lost in the rumble of wheels and in the click of hoofs. They passed a little soldier leading a prisoner by a string. They passed more frightened peasants, who seemed resolved to flee down into the very boots of Greece. And people looked at them with scowls, envying them their speed. At the little town ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... rapid succession. When the waiting-room was empty we went over to the Prep. and fetched the other Germans along. There were no wounded arriving at the station at that moment, but we knew from the distant rumble of the bombardment that the Prep. would soon ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... a general movement to go. Henrietta Vance and Mrs. Vance were inquired for, and the blue and white opera cloaks reappeared, descending the stairs, disturbing the couples who were seated there. The banging of carriage doors and the rumble of wheels recommenced in the street. The musicians played a little longer. As the party thinned out, there was greater dance room and a consequent greater pleasure in dancing. These last dances at the end of the evening were enjoyed more than all the others. But the party ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... situations and never turned a hair, but now the roar of the great metropolis, the rumble of the hand-cars on the platform as the heavy baggage was carted to and from the trains, the shrieking of engine whistles, the hoarse cries of the train-hands, all combined in such a menacing roar that for a moment she had a wild desire to run ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... the only objective sign of foreign body may be a wheezing respiration, the site of which may be localized with the stethoscope, by the intensity of the sound. Movable foreign bodies may produce a palpatory thrill, and the rumble and sudden stop can be heard with the stethoscope and often with the naked ear. The lungs will show equal aeration, but there may be marked dyspnea without the indrawing of the fossae, if the object be of large size and located below ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... nearly as light as day. Through the night air he could hear the thumping of the planks on the wharf. Faintly over this sound came the shouting of men and the tramp and shuffle of feet. And at intervals a train would rumble in the distance, slowly coming nearer, until with a roar that swallowed all the other noises it was past. The arc lamps glowed and buzzed over the heads of the sweating, grunting men, as they came along the path, gang after gang, lifting an end of a heavy stick ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... daring a rampageous river that runs the devil knows where; My hand is athrill on the paddle, the birch-bark bounds like a bird. Hark to the rumble of rapids! Here in my morris chair Eager and tense I'm straining — isn't it most absurd? Now in the churn and the lather, foam that hisses and stings, Leap I, keyed for the struggle, fury and fume and roar; Rocks are spitting like hell-cats ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... Manetho's words. He took Gnulemah by the hand and led her to the eastern window. A flash greeted them, creating a momentary world, which started from the womb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!" Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragments of the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... sullen and sultry evening, with great livid cloud-banks mustering in the west. As the night wore on, the air within my little cabin became closer and more oppressive. A weight seemed to rest upon my brow and my chest. From far away the low rumble of thunder came moaning over the moor. Unable to sleep, I dressed, and standing at my cottage door, looked on the black ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... been getting sleepy, but this woke me up. I no longer heard the monotonous creak of harness and whiffletrees and the rumble of wheels; I saw no longer the stars and the darkness of the night. My mind had scampered off into the future. I was playing with Sally or with the boys ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... artillery was passing. Soon flash and roar came farther apart and modified by distance. Nothing was left at last but a soothing rumble and the whisper of the receding rain. We slept, and woke to find ourselves rich, in sunlight, blue sky, and overflowing rain-barrels. This made it washday for Elizabeth and the tribe, and presently all the lines were full. It was a glorious storm, but that afternoon ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... drops from the clouds, and then there came a pattering on the leaves of the trees. It was getting quite dark now. There were many clouds in the sky, and, every now and then, a flash of lightning could be seen. Off in the west there was a rumble of thunder. ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope

... men leaned down to shake hands as they went by, some of the men saluted, not a word was spoken, and the silence was only broken by the tramp of the horses, the straining of the harnesses, and rumble of ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... lost in the banging of the fly door and the rumble of wheels; the terrible man had been got safely off on a wrong scent, and Paul fell back amongst the lumber in his closet, faint with the suspense ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... station. There were not many waiting on the platforms. Far down the black tunnels in either direction the little white lights glimmered. The echoing silence of a great cave was in the station. Then suddenly the red and green lights of a train appeared far away; then a rumble and a roar, the doors of the train slid open and Mr. Neal stepped in. All the way home he kept his eyes shut. The hurtling roar, the crush of people growing greater as they approached the great business sections, the calls of the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... summer day when assembled at dinner we heard the rumble of wheels as an imperial post-chaise hove into view, lumbering lazily past ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... base-burner, and the two sat around it for a month trying to assimilate each other; but they could not. He knew nothing of women; she nothing of such men as him. He never smiled; and, when he joked, the joke was lost in the rumble and grumble of his voice. He caressed her with the gentleness of a grizzly fondling the hunter, and was nonplussed and set back when she ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... They heard the rumble of the train, and she pulled herself together. "Come, dearest, we shall be run over next. We're saying things that have no sense." But on the way back he repeated: "They can still see us. They can see every ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... A rumble from Tantor brought the three, all jungle bred, to instant alertness. Tantor was looking toward the trees behind them, and as their eyes followed his gaze the head and shoulders of a great ape appeared amidst the foliage. For a moment the creature eyed them, and then from its ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Frenchman sat down with a thump, and let his ruined face droop forward. She heard the hoarse rumble: ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... fellow, and, as he said, when he found he could not walk upright, because the car swayed so, he made up his mind to crawl. And crawl he did, across the rough, splintery floor of the old car. Once he stuck a sliver into the palm of his hand. He cried "Ouch!" but the rumble of the wheels was so loud that Sue did not hear him, and Bunny was glad ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... the more he tried to compose himself, the more breathless he found himself. An acquaintance met him and called him by his name, but Levin did not even recognize him. He went towards the mounds, whence came the clank of the chains of sledges as they slipped down or were dragged up, the rumble of the sliding sledges, and the sounds of merry voices. He walked on a few steps, and the skating-ground lay open before his eyes, and at once, amidst all ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... warm day, as none realized more keenly than Anne and her little beehive of pupils, sweltering over fractions and syntax in the Avonlea schoolroom. A hot breeze blew all the forenoon; but after noon hour it died away into a heavy stillness. At half past three Anne heard a low rumble of thunder. She promptly dismissed school at once, so that the children might get ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Tisbett's come!" roared Joel, as if everybody couldn't see and hear the stage-driver's hearty tones, to say nothing about the stamping of the horses and the rumble of the wheels. And darting out, he flew over the grass. "Let me sit up there with you, Mr. Tisbett," he screamed, trying to ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... another, and another, like the smoke of Indian scouts signaling to their tribes. The lights in the windows go out, one by one; the sharp blast of a whistle cuts the air, the clang of a bell peals out, the rumble of a wagon is heard, and the street cars begin their clatter and clang. All this comes floating up to you on the still morning air, until an ever-increasing crescendo of sounds is borne in upon you, telling that ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson



Words linked to "Rumble" :   scrap, utter, rumbling, fighting, let loose, gang fight, go, equipage, combat, growl, sound



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