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Tail   Listen
noun
Tail  n.  
1.
(Zool.) The terminal, and usually flexible, posterior appendage of an animal. Note: The tail of mammals and reptiles contains a series of movable vertebrae, and is covered with flesh and hairs or scales like those of other parts of the body. The tail of existing birds consists of several more or less consolidated vertebrae which supports a fanlike group of quills to which the term tail is more particularly applied. The tail of fishes consists of the tapering hind portion of the body ending in a caudal fin. The term tail is sometimes applied to the entire abdomen of a crustacean or insect, and sometimes to the terminal piece or pygidium alone.
2.
Any long, flexible terminal appendage; whatever resembles, in shape or position, the tail of an animal, as a catkin. "Doretus writes a great praise of the distilled waters of those tails that hang on willow trees."
3.
Hence, the back, last, lower, or inferior part of anything, as opposed to the head, or the superior part. "The Lord will make thee the head, and not the tail."
4.
A train or company of attendants; a retinue. ""Ah," said he, "if you saw but the chief with his tail on.""
5.
The side of a coin opposite to that which bears the head, effigy, or date; the reverse; rarely used except in the expression "heads or tails," employed when a coin is thrown up for the purpose of deciding some point by its fall.
6.
(Anat.) The distal tendon of a muscle.
7.
(Bot.) A downy or feathery appendage to certain achenes. It is formed of the permanent elongated style.
8.
(Surg.)
(a)
A portion of an incision, at its beginning or end, which does not go through the whole thickness of the skin, and is more painful than a complete incision; called also tailing.
(b)
One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.
9.
(Naut.) A rope spliced to the strap of a block, by which it may be lashed to anything.
10.
(Mus.) The part of a note which runs perpendicularly upward or downward from the head; the stem.
11.
pl. Same as Tailing, 4.
12.
(Arch.) The bottom or lower portion of a member or part, as a slate or tile.
13.
pl. (Mining) See Tailing, n., 5.
14.
(Astronomy) The long visible stream of gases, ions, or dust particles extending from the head of a comet in the direction opposite to the sun.
15.
pl. (Rope Making) In some forms of rope-laying machine, pieces of rope attached to the iron bar passing through the grooven wooden top containing the strands, for wrapping around the rope to be laid.
16.
pl. A tailed coat; a tail coat. (Colloq. or Dial.)
17.
(Aeronautics) In airplanes, an airfoil or group of airfoils used at the rear to confer stability.
18.
The buttocks. (slang or vulgar)
19.
Sexual intercourse, or a woman used for sexual intercourse; as, to get some tail; to find a piece of tail. See also tailing 3. (slang and vulgar)
Tail beam. (Arch.) Same as Tailpiece.
Tail coverts (Zool.), the feathers which cover the bases of the tail quills. They are sometimes much longer than the quills, and form elegant plumes. Those above the quills are called the upper tail coverts, and those below, the under tail coverts.
Tail end, the latter end; the termination; as, the tail end of a contest. (Colloq.)
Tail joist. (Arch.) Same as Tailpiece.
Tail of a comet (Astron.), a luminous train extending from the nucleus or body, often to a great distance, and usually in a direction opposite to the sun.
Tail of a gale (Naut.), the latter part of it, when the wind has greatly abated.
Tail of a lock (on a canal), the lower end, or entrance into the lower pond.
Tail of the trenches (Fort.), the post where the besiegers begin to break ground, and cover themselves from the fire of the place, in advancing the lines of approach.
Tail spindle, the spindle of the tailstock of a turning lathe; called also dead spindle.
To turn tail, to run away; to flee. "Would she turn tail to the heron, and fly quite out another way; but all was to return in a higher pitch."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tail" Quotes from Famous Books



... father?" she asked complainingly; but he nodded and smiled at her, even though the cow, impatient to get to pasture, kept whisking her rough tail across his face. He held his head down and spoke cheerfully, in spite of ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... you," he said sullenly, "to nickname people after that fashion, as perhaps you are not aware of what you are called in your Quartier. Cow's-Tail is not a very nice name, but they have given it to you on account of your hair. Why should we not keep that room? It ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... and had a low wooden tower at the west end." Most of the old monuments were transferred to it, and the new church, although rather plain, was "peculiarly neat" and substantial. Upon Mrs. Boevey's death the estate passed by will to Thomas Crawley, Esq., of London, merchant, in tail male, upon the condition of adding the name of Boevey to Crawley. Thomas, a lineal descendant, succeeded to the baronetage on the death of Sir Charles Barrow in January, 1789, by limitation of the patent. {189} Part of the mansion having been destroyed by fire, ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... went for the cows, didn't he take old Prince? There was just a chance that Prince wasn't in the hay-field. She ran down the steps calling, "Prince! Prince!" The old dog rose deliberately from his place on the shady side of the barn and trotted toward her, wagging his tail. "Come, Prince!" cried Elliott, and ran ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... hear?" said Stanislas. "She is flourishing away, using big words that you cannot make head or tail of." ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... my brother to come on, and at the same moment the monster gave voice. I was near enough now to take aim at the puma; he was lying in a cat-like attitude on one of the highest limbs. But the angry growl and the moving tail told me plainly enough he was preparing to spring, and spring on Dugald. It was the first wild beast I had ever drawn bead upon, and I confess it was a supreme moment; oh, not of joy, but,—shall ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... the original forfeit and she could kiss him instead. But she objected, saying that forfeit was worse than the other one. This pleased Strout greatly, and he remarked to Abner, who kept as close to him as the tail to a kite, that there was one girl in town who wasn't afraid ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... you—for that's what I came for," he continued, turning to her with one of his sudden movements. "I couldn't make head or tail of ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... squadron of sleek, well-fed cart-horses, formed in fours, with straw braid in mane and tail, came the ponies, for the most part a merry company. Long strings of rusty, shaggy two-year-olds, unbroken, unkempt, the short Down grass still sweet on their tongues; full of fun, frolic, and wickedness, biting and pulling, casting longing eyes at the hedgerows. ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless

... More Devilment; the Rock Battles; I Hunt Rabbits in My Shirt Tail; My First Experience in Rough Riding; a Question of Breaking the Horse or Breaking ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... for); I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd win Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin; I thought ef tins 'ere milkin' o' the wits, So much, a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,— Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail, To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan Would send up cream to humor ary man: From this to thet I let my worryin' creep, Till finally I must ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... around the table reading, a long growl was heard from Caesar at the door, followed by an emphatic "Get out!" The growls grew fiercer, and James went to the door to see what was the matter. Squire Clamp was the luckless man. The dog had seized his coat-tail, and had pulled it forward, so that he stood face to face with the Squire, who was vainly trying to free himself by poking at his adversary with a great baggy umbrella. James sent away the dog with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... could not name them herself; and, since then, we know them each and all, and just how they behave. Annie and Mary are two sober-looking little creatures, in quakerish feathers of drab and grey. Nat is a white crower, with beautiful soft feathers, and a long graceful black tail. Louise has a shaded dress of grey and white, and is almost as modest and gentle as Luca. Hannah is a little bantam, with tufted head and large eyes, the smallest but the sprightliest of the family: she always ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous

... cooking right on the supper table. I wondered why old man Sterling didn't hire a cook, with all the money he had. Pretty soon she dished out some cheesy tasting truck that she said was rabbit, but I swear there had never been a Molly cotton tail in ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... exile and confiscation. Those who, strong in innocence, dared to brave a trial were lost without resource. The accused were forced to its bar without previous warning. Many a wealthy citizen was dragged to trial four leagues' distance, tied to a horse's tail. The number of victims was appalling. On one occasion, the town of Valenciennes alone saw fifty-five of its citizens fall by the hands of the executioner. Hanging, beheading, quartering and burning were the every-day spectacles. The enormous confiscations ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... Hreidmar spread out the skin that once covered his son. He drew out the ears and the tail and the paws so that every single hair could be shown. For long he was on his hands and knees, his sharp eyes searching, searching over every line of the skin. And still on his knees he said, "Begin now, O kings, and ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum

... wan, sor, wit a bit stub av a tail. An' she's that intelligent, she kin jist about talk Frinch. Th' Thomahlians all called her th' Four-footed, an' if they kape on, they'll jist aboot ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... was a large mule, and in good condition; indeed, there was some flesh on her bones. She was a dark chestnut with a white star on the forehead, a little white on her fore feet, and white below the hocks on the hind legs; she had a soft eye, and a peculiar twist in jerking her tail." ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... had a knack which seemed to Laura both desirable and unattainable: that of appearing to be engrossed in glib chat with her companion, while in reality she did not hear a word Laura said, and ogled everyone who passed, out of the tail ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... with graceful and eager movements, and certainly a rapid comprehension. Her grey eyes sparkled, and her brown hair was coquettishly tied up, rather in the manner of a horse's tail on May Day. She had arrived all by herself in the morning, with a tiny bundle, and she made a remarkably neat appearance—if you did not look at her boots, which had evidently been somebody else's a long time before. Hilda ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... feet armed with large nails. Their skin is hard, and they are of various colors. They have the snout and face of a serpent, and from the nose there runs a crest, passing over the middle of the back to the root of the tail. We finally concluded that they were serpents, and poisonous; yet, nevertheless, they were ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... indeed; that puckered mouth and ugly little scowl tell, all too quickly, and even if I could not see your face, that little jerk and twist would tell the story. Do you not know when the dog is sick or tired, or full of fun? yet, his bright eyes, eager little nose, lively body and whisking tail, tell no more surely than your ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various

... boats drew near, some of them waded out to meet us, showing no fear, but rather an anxiety to welcome us. They were all entirely naked except for a strip of tapa cloth, which formed a tee-band around the middle and hung down behind like a tail. This was probably the reason for the reports given by the earlier navigators of the existence of tailed men in ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... these was Galileo. His slight telescope magnified only thirty times, still, in the spots flecking the lunar surface, like the eyes checkering a peacock's tail, he was the first to discover mountains and even to measure their heights. These, considering the difficulties under which he labored, were wonderfully accurate, but unfortunately he made no ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... mass of papers in a trunk. For which service L1,000 was bequeathed. Boz was very humorous on his first despair at being appointed to such an office; then described his hopeless attempts "to make head or tail" of the papers. "Are they worth anything as religious views?" I asked. "Nothing whatever, I should say," he said, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, "I must only piece them together somehow." And so he did, I forget under what title, I think Religious Remains of the late C. H. T. There ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... spring, I had an opportunity of seeing the horses and sheep in their winter garments. The horses seemed to be covered, not with hair, but with a thick woolly coat; their manes and tails are very long, and of surprising thickness. At the end of May or the beginning of June the tail and mane are docked and thinned, their woolly coat falls of itself, and they then look smooth enough. The sheep have also a very thick coat during the winter. It is not the custom to shear them, but at the beginning of June the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... naughty she was, but her overweening vanity quite stifled her conscience. She scratched the bird's poll, treated him to several lumps of sugar, and, when he was not looking, suddenly jerked one of the finest feathers out of his tail. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various

... included several children, embarked, in November of all months in the year, on a small ship bound for Italy. They were something like a month getting down the Channel in tremendous weather, and at last when their ship had to turn tail from near Scilly and run into Dartmouth, Hunt, whose wife was extremely ill of lung-disease, made up his mind to stay for the winter in Devonshire. He passed the time pleasantly enough at Plymouth, which they left once more in May 1822, reaching ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... the prophets, until at last some prodigious want of keeping shows the education of the writer. For example, after half a page which might {54} pass for Irving's[106] preaching—though a person to whom it was presented as such would say that most likely the head and tail would make something more like head and tail of it—we are astounded by a declaration from the Holy Spirit, speaking of himself, that he is "not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." It would be ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... point they dared not yield, though heaven and earth should fall. The mass he denounced as the greatest and most horrible abomination, inasmuch as it was 'downright destructive of the first article,' and as the chiefest of Papal idolatries; moreover, this dragon's tail had begotten many other kinds of vermin and abominations of idolatry. With regard to the Papacy itself, the Augsburg Confession had been content to condemn it by silence, not having taken any notice of it in its articles on the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... says in regard to the special work which Mrs. Mansfield has done: "It is so seldom that an artist is able to take in hand what may be termed the entire decoration of a book—including in that phrase cover, illustration, colophon, head- and tail-pieces, initial letters, and borders—that it is a pleasure to find in the subject of our paper a lady who may be said to be capable of taking all these points into consideration in the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... ancient Scottish sources, is of admirable quality for style and otherwise quiet, brief, with perfect clearness, perfect credibility even, except that semi-miraculous appendage of the Ploughmen, Hay and Sons, always hanging to the tail of it; the grain of possible truth in which can now never be extracted by man's art! [6] In brief, what we know is, fragments of ancient human bones and armor have occasionally been ploughed up in this locality, proof positive of ancient fighting ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... this I heard the sound of a man somewhere in the wood. So did the fox, and oh! it looked so frightened. It lay down panting, its tongue hanging out and its ears pressed back against its head, and whisked its big tail from side to side. Then it began to gnaw again, but this time at its own leg. It wanted to bite it off and so get away. I thought this very brave of the fox, and though I hated it because it had eaten my brother and tried to eat me, I felt ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... cleaving love, and human interest, bind The broken force of her aspiring mind; As round the gen'rous eagle, which in vain Exerts her strength, the serpent wreaths his train, Her struggling wings entangles, curling plies His pois'nous tail, and stings her as she flies! While yet the blow's first dreadful weight she feels, And with its force her resolution reels; Large doors, unfolding with a mournful sound, To view discover, welt'ring on the ground, Three headless trunks, of those whose ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... stage of the whelp's life: she dug herself, with such baby feet, a huge hole, the use of which was evident, when, one day, she pounced thence on a stray turkey—allured within reach by the fragments of fox's breakfast,—the intruder escaping with the loss of his tail. The creature came back one night to explore the old place of captivity,—ate some food and retired. For myself,—I continue absolutely well: I do not walk much, but for more than amends, am in the open air ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... or turf from Ireland sold in envelopes for 25 cents each, and also "Irish bonds," to be redeemed on the consummation of the object of the Fenian organization, or the capture of Canada; and to show the ease in which they expected to accomplish this end, a stuffed lion was shown with its tail between its legs, and head down, covered with a calf-skin. On lifting the calf-skin the calf's head appeared, their idea evidently being to cast ridicule on the bravery of the British ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... Valuable old pictures and tapestries decorate the walls. The salon is two stories high and has an ornamental little winding staircase on which an enormous stuffed peacock stands with outspread tail, as if guarding things below. On her Sunday afternoons one is sure to hear some good music. No one refuses, as it gives a person a certain prestige to be ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... quite natural, isn't it?" cried Mercer good-humouredly. "I always feel like that, and it does seem a shame that old Eely should have tail coats and white waistcoats and watches, and I shouldn't. But, I say, Frank, he ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... superposed—a man's head and shoulders blazoned on the side of an animal; a wheel with legs for spokes rolling along the creature's back; a vast section of wall, having no contact with the earth, but (with a tail hanging from its rear, like a note of admiration) moving along the line, obscuring here an anatomical horror and disclosing there a mechanical nightmare. In short, this appalling procession, which was crossing our road with astonishing ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... portion: Kent's Commentaries, vol. iv., p. 370. Mr. Kent, in the same work, vol. iv., p. 1-22, gives an historical account of American legislation on the subject of entail; by this we learn that previous to the revolution the colonies followed the English law of entail. Estates tail were abolished in Virginia in 1776, on a motion of Mr. Jefferson. They were suppressed in New York in 1786; and have since been abolished in North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri. In Vermont, ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... in the thicket drew the Cossack's attention. A pied mongrel half-setter, searching for a scent and violently wagging its scantily furred tail, came running to the cordon. Lukashka recognized the dog as one belonging to his neighbour, Uncle Eroshka, a hunter, and saw, following it through the thicket, the approaching figure of ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy

... persisted Bobby Little. "As I passed the tail of their company one of their subs turned to another and said quite loud, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... conscious virtue, trotted the cause of all the trouble—a handsome, red-brown field spaniel. Robert Goddard, a lover of dogs, snapped his fingers and whistled, but Misery paid not the slightest attention to his blandishments. Wagging his tail frantically, he tore up to Nancy, and ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... the majority both of men and women, it was destitute of charm. Women disliked eyes that seemed to be indolently accepting admiration instead of rendering it; and men, especially if they had a tendency to clumsiness in the nose and ankles, were inclined to think this Antinous in a pig-tail a 'confounded puppy'. I fancy that was frequently the inward interjection of the Rev. Maynard Gilfil, who was seated on the opposite side of the dining-table, though Mr. Gilfil's legs and profile were not at all of a kind to make him peculiarly alive to the impertinence ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... village, having posted her letter, she turned towards a lane that led to the Riverside Road. Max, unaware of her reason for choosing the longest way home, remonstrated by halting in the middle of the lane, wagging his tail rapidly, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... the universe. O, let kine approach me!—There is no gift more sacred than the gift of kine. There is no gift that produces more blessed merit. There has been nothing equal to the cow, nor will there be anything that will equal her. With her skin, her hair, her horns, the hair of her tail, her milk, and her fat,—with all these together,—the cow upholds sacrifice. What thing is there that is more useful than the cow? Bending my head unto her with reverence, I adore the cow who is the mother of both the Past and the Future, and by whom the entire universe of mobile and immobile ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... months passed, and it was in the autumn, I remember, that a conversation occurred which opened new vistas. She had been showing me a parchment lamp-shade which she had painted. There was a peacock with a spreading tail, and as she held the shade over the lamp the light shone through and turned every feathered eye into a glittering jewel. Rosalie wore one of her purple robes, and I can see her now as I shut my eyes, as glowing and gorgeous as some of those ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... the dog looked at her and wagged his tail. She called him. He went on wagging his tail, but did not move from the spot. She went up to him and stroked him, and looked all around, hoping to see some signs of his master. She looked in the direction in which the dog had been staring when she first noticed him. The stables ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... said; and there was a whine. I did not know it, but Piter was curled up on the warm ashes close by me, and as soon as he heard his name he put up his head, whined, and rapped the ashes with his stumpy tail. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn

... piece of a cloud, and is always in the south.[11] I have been told of this and other matters by MARCO the Venetian, the most extensive traveller and the most diligent inquirer whom I have ever known. He saw this same star under the Antarctic; he described it as having a great tail, and drew a figure of it thus. He also told me that he saw the Antarctic Pole at an altitude above the earth apparently equal to the length of a soldier's lance, whilst the Arctic Pole was as much below ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... during twenty days in the western quarter of the heavens, and which shot its rays into the north. Eight years afterwards, while the sun was in Capricorn, another comet appeared to follow in the Sagittary; the size was gradually increasing; the head was in the east, the tail in the west, and it remained visible above forty days. The nations, who gazed with astonishment, expected wars and calamities from their baleful influence; and these expectations were abundantly fulfilled. The astronomers ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... completed embankment, he looked west, where through the clearing he could see the waters of Superior, then down stream to the tail of the rapids that roared half a mile further on. It came to him that nothing is so ugly as a well meant effort which has been left unfinished. Where he stood there had, a year or so before, been little rivulets which, escaping from the mighty flood of the rapids, lost themselves in thickets of birch, ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... like a race-horse. His slender, sinewy limbs seemed as fitted for running and for speed as the limbs of an antelope. His head was down, his neck arched, his tail in the air, and his long, rapid strides bore him with astonishing velocity ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... till this hour, save for a minute, seen Charlotte alone, so, positively, all the while, he had not seen even Maggie; and if, therefore, he had not seen even Maggie, nothing was more natural than that he shouldn't have seen Charlotte. The exceptional minute, a mere snatch, at the tail of the others, on the huge Portland Place staircase had sufficiently enabled the girl to remind him—so ready she assumed him to be—of what they were to do. Time pressed if they were to do it at all. Everyone had brought gifts; his relations had brought ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... those among them who generally hold the plough-tail show any zeal,(1) while the armourers impede them in ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... before dinner to-day; he got it when he came in, but it was lying here for an hour first. Perhaps it was that as took him to Malsham; and yet that's strange, for it was a London letter—and it don't seem likely as any one could be coming down from London to meet Steph at Malsham. I can't make top nor tail of it." ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... ranking. Sometimes the winning crewmen put their little coxswain in the boat and parade him through the streets of the town. At the end of the season the honor of "Head of the River" belongs to the boat that has not been defeated and is presumably the fastest, whereas the slowest boat, Tail End Charlie, has been defeated by all the other colleges. For another description of boating on the Thames in the nineteenth century, see the humorous travel-log "Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog" by Jerome K. Jerome, written in 1889, which also mentions the dangers of the lasher at ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... of the flying wedge galloped a dust-colored gray, ragged of mane and tail, and vindictive of eye, like its down-headed rider, who shifted his glance rapidly from side to side and watched the ground closely before his horse as if he were perpetually prepared ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... the bellow of the blast, There's grandeur in the growling of the gale; But there's eloquence-appalling, when Stirling is aroaring, And the Tiger's getting modest with his tail" ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... of thought, he gazed long and intently upon the heavens. His eyes wandered from where the tail of the Great Bear, now a zodiacal constellation, was scarcely visible above the waters, to where the stars of the southern hemisphere were just breaking on his view. A cry from Ben Zoof ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... distinct leanings, we shall speak later. He said he required two, and only two qualities in a woman, namely beauty and affection. It was the Eastern idea. The Hindu Angelina might be vacuous, vain, papilionaceous, silly, or even a mere doll, but if her hair hung down "like the tail of a Tartary cow," [96] if her eyes were "like the stones of unripe mangoes," and her nose resembled the beak of a parrot, the Hindu Edwin was more than satisfied. Dr. Johnson's "unidead girl" would have done as well ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and canvas. Bewick first practised drawing on the cottage walls of his native village, which he covered with his sketches in chalk; and Benjamin West made his first brushes out of the cat's tail. Ferguson laid himself down in the fields at night in a blanket, and made a map of the heavenly bodies by means of a thread with small beads on it stretched between his eye and the stars. Franklin first robbed ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... parabola, the pilot over-corrected and had to wait to gather down-speed, and then over-corrected again. It was an altogether clumsy landing. The ship was not even perfectly vertical when it settled not quite in the landing-area marked by silvery triangles. One of its tail-fins crumpled slightly. It tilted ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... in the middle a tuft of grass, they raise a strange and comical superstructure, surmounted by a few cockatoo feathers; or failing these, they fasten on, with the aid of a resinous gum, a few human teeth, or some bits of bone, a dog's tail, or one or two fish bones. Although the practice of tattooing is not much in favour among the natives of New Holland, some are occasionally to be seen who have succeeded by means of sharp shells in cutting ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... into a cabbage? What is it that is so constant and so irrepressible, and before the summer is ended will be lying in wait here with its ten thousand little hooks to attach itself to every skirt or bushy tail or furry or woolly coat that comes along, in order to get free transportation to other lawns and gardens, to green ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... intending to cross the gulf; but I was suddenly aroused from a reverie by a shout from Maximus. Looking hastily up, I beheld nothing of Oolibuck except his head above the ice, while Maximus was trying to pull him out by hauling at the tail-line of the sled. Luckily Oolibuck had kept fast hold of the line which was over his shoulder, and after much trouble we succeeded in dragging him out of the water. A sharp frost happened to have set in, and ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... completed for retaliating on the Chinese and proving to them, in that forcible mode which seemingly only appealed to their reason, that "the worst piece of work they ever did in their lives was to tread on the tail of the British lion," as Doctor Nettleby observed to Mr Jellaby in my hearing ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... them and begin to spin or make the cocoon. The silk comes from two little orifices in the head in the form of a glutinous gum which hardens into a fine elastic fiber. With a motion of the head somewhat like the figure eight, the silk worm throws this thread around the body from head to tail until at last it is entirely enveloped. The body grows smaller and the thread grows finer until at last it has spun out most of the substance of the body ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... incredible a story, eyes all round it, and surmounted by an object having a very marked resemblance to a silver crown. This extraordinary creature had no fins so far as could be seen, but propelled itself solely by its tail, which it moved with such wonderful rapidity as rendered it utterly impossible to detect the shape of it. The creature was evidently an air-breather, for it had no sooner completely cleared the fleet, which it ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... not imagine what desolate and queer young thing this was, up and awake in the middle of the night. Such creatures as Elma, in the cow's experience, were not to be seen at these inclement hours. It lashed its long tail slowly from side to side, and kept gazing at her; and Elma looked at it, and her nervous terrors grew worse. The cow had horns; suppose it came near, and tried to horn her. She was not a country girl, and did not ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... Fang. He, too, was lying on his side. His eyes were closed, but the lids slightly lifted in an effort to look at them as they bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated in a vain effort to wag. Weedon Scott patted him, and his throat rumbled an acknowledging growl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quickly ceased. His eyelids drooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed to relax and flatten out upon ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... puts the tongs in the sparklin' coals and heats the eends on 'em red hot, and the next time they comes in, I watches a chance, outs with the tongs, and seizes the old sow by the tail, and holds on till I singes it beautiful. The way she let go ain't no matter, but if she didn't yell it's a pity, that's all. She made right straight for the door, dashed in atween old aunty's legs, and carries her out on her back, ridin' straddle-legs like ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... might better spend his time in them, than in this. Secondly, that it is the mother of lies. Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires: with a siren's sweetness, drawing the mind to the serpent's tail of sinful fancy. And herein especially, comedies give the largest field to err, as Chaucer saith: how both in other nations and in ours, before poets did soften us, we were full of courage, given to martial exercises; the pillars of man-like liberty, and not lulled ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... which reed pens are made, and the stalk is hard and hollow. Afterwards they plant a root of the same grass where the stalk is standing over the head of the corpse. On the tenth day they sacrifice a pig and fowl and bury the legs, tail, ears and nose of the pig in a hole with seven balls of iron dross. They then proceed to the grave scattering a little parched rice all the way along the path. Cooked rice is offered at the grave. If the corpse has been burnt they pick up the bones and place them in a pot, which is brought home ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... her, he announced his intention of kissing her. A violent squabble ensued, in which the large china dish which Leffie held in her hand was broken, two pickle jars thrown down, chairs upset, the baby scalded, and the dog Tasso's tail nearly crushed! At last Aunt Dilsey, the head cook and mother of Leffie, interposed, and seizing the soup ladle as the first thing near her, she laid about her right and left, dealing no very gentle blows at the well-oiled hair of Rondeau, who was glad to beat ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... order in our feeding having a great influence on the alteration of our bodies, the cold courses, as they were called formerly, consisting of oysters, polyps, salads, and the like, being (in Plato's phrase) transferred "from tail to mouth," now make the first course, whereas they were formerly the last. Besides, the glass which we usually take before supper is very considerable in this case; for the ancients never drank so much as water before ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... generally better proportioned than the common sheep. As he requires no wool to shelter him from cold in the sultry regions of Central Africa, Providence has only given him a coat of hair; and his tail is like that of the common dog. The head offers nothing remarkable, but his look is bold, and his heart courageous. He butts fiercely at all strangers, and he is the only lord of freedom whilst marching over The Desert. In the companionship of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... at the plough-tail, I wonder, this mute inglorious heir-at-law? or shall I find an heiress with brawny arms meekly churning butter? or shall I discover the last of the Meynells taking his rest in some lonely churchyard, not ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... the fish from head to tail, and, if not very large, to serve it in two pieces. Most of the smaller fishes may be carved in this way, if too large to serve whole. In every case, one grand rule in carving fish must be attended to—not to break the flakes, and to help compactly, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... they were paving-stones the animal lifted its hoofs which were swollen like tumors. Rabbit was frightened by this great animated machine which moved with so loud a noise. He bounded away and continued his flight over the meadows, with his nose toward the Pyrenees, his tail toward the lowlands, his right eye toward the rising sun, his left toward the ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... smoke. It was from a point just over the turn, where the clouds dip down and touch the waves. A little tail of smoke crawled up and hung black and dirty, not gettin' any bigger nor spreadin' much. When we sighted her, we went to work in the way men of the sea have of working together and never sayin' a word. Up the beach we chased, and dragged out the boat we called our ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose

... Botta, and his mixed sympathy and menace: "You find my troops are beautiful; perhaps I shall convince you they are good too." Yes, Excellency Botta, goodish troops; and very capable "to look the wolf in the face,"—or perhaps in the tail too, before all end! "Botta urged and entreated that at least there should be some delay in executing this project. But the King gave him to understand that it was now too late, and that the Rubicon was passed." [Friedrich's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... rightly know her own mind (which, seeing one half of her was woman, I think myself was most probably), but when they were only about two oars' length from the rock where she sat, down she plopped into the water, leaving nothing but her hinder end of a fish tail sticking up for a minute, and ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... he had written of, he could give no reply but that they had changed their mind. The Assyrian king thought Shebnah had made sport of him. He, therefore, ordered his attendants to bore a hole through his heels, tie him to the tail of a horse by them, and spur the horse on to run until Shebnah was ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... a most dangerous and delusive beast, and by no means commonly to be met with. They live in the water as well as on land, using their long tail as a sail when in the former element. Their speed is extreme; but their habits of life are domestic and superfluous, and their general demeanor pensive and pellucid. On summer evenings, they may sometimes be observed near the Lake Pipple-Popple, standing on ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... forth death and destruction"—he paused and rubbed his chin—"Archie A' didn't mind," he said with a little chuckle, "but Archie's little sister, sir-r, she was fierce! She never left me. A' stalled an' looped, A' stood on ma head and sat on ma tail. A' banked to the left and to the right. A' spiraled up and A' nose-dived doon, and she stayed wi' me closer than a sister. For hoors, it seemed almost an etairnity, Tam o' the Scoots hovered with impunity ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... the tramp of an elephant's feet, and said one to another, "Here comes an elephant; now we shall know what he is like." The first blind man put out his hand and touched the elephant's broad side. The second took hold of a leg. The third grasped a tusk, and the fourth clutched the animal's tail. ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs

... anxious to preserve his skin entire, and not wishing to have recourse to my rifle, I cut a stout and tough stick about eight feet long, and having lightened myself of my shooting-belt, I commenced the attack. Seizing him by the tail, I tried to get him out of his place of refuge; but I hauled in vain; he only drew his large folds firmer together: I could not move him. At length I got a rheim round one of his folds, about the middle of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... an intelligent terrier whom he loved, sat there before the fire and watched him, wagging his stump of a tail now and then nervously, but not daring to approach. Then, after half an hour had gone by, he rose and went to the telephone. He called up the Universal and asked to be put through to the apartment of Madame Boleski, and soon heard Harietta's voice. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... would defeat the party in 1880, and to avoid such a calamity he advocated "scratching the ticket."[1656] Several well-known Republicans, adopting the suggestion, published an address, giving reasons for their refusal to support the head and the tail of the ticket. They cited the cause of Cornell's dismissal from the custom-house; compared the cost of custom-house administration before and after his separation from the service; and made unpleasant ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... blue, with light broken clouds; the sea an inconceivably pure opaque blue—lapis lazuli, but far brighter. I saw a lovely dolphin three days ago; his body five feet long (some said more) is of a FIERY blue-green, and his huge tail golden bronze. I was glad he scorned the bait and escaped the hook; he was so beautiful. This is the sea from which Venus rose in her youthful glory. All is young, fresh, serene, beautiful, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... depths of a mountain stream, the boy who had run miles in the early morning to warn him of the approach of the terrible Lukens, the boy whom he had called his only friend. He would see me dignified by a tail coat and beautified by a mauve tie, a white waistcoat and gleaming patent-leather shoes. He would remember me as I stood by the cabin door, a strong, rugged lad. He would see me a devotee of fashion, a dawdler after a pretty ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... stood a cart with a man, a woman, and a monkey in it. The superior animals were clothed in red, white, and blue, and the monkey was wearing a Union Jack for a ruff. The ape was humping himself on the tail-board, and from his expression he might have been wondering how long all this would last. His gay companions were rosily chanting that if they caught some one bending it would be of no advantage to him. The main thoroughfare was sanded, and was waiting for the official procession. Quiet ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... enchanting maiden last referred to, heard the announcement he said in a voice feigned to reach her peach-skin ear alone, yet intentionally so modulated as to penetrate the furthest limit of the room, "A Chinese tale! Why, assuredly, that must be a pig-tail." At this unseemly shaft many of those present allowed themselves to become immoderately amused, and even the goat-like sage who had called upon my name concealed his face behind an open hand, but the amiably-disposed Helena, after looking at the undiscriminating youth coldly for a moment, ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... a group of natives, sitting at a feast of baked alligator tail, at the mouth of the Amaceri, near the dirty, straggling riverine town of Llano, rose in astonishment as they saw issuing from the clayey, wallowing Guamoco trail a staggering band of travelers, among them two foreigners, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... side. Mars, in his houses Aries and Scorpio. Represented as a very ugly knight in chain mail, seated sideways on the ram, whose horns are broken away, and having a large scorpion in his left hand, whose tail is broken also, to the infinite injury of the group, for it seems to have curled across to the angle leaf, and formed a bright line of light, like the fish in the hand of Jupiter. The knight carries a shield, on which fire and water are sculptured, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... example, one or two little boxes of different shapes and substances, with lids to take off and on, one or two rubber things that would bend and twist about and admit of chewing, a ball and a box made of china, a fluffy, flexible thing like a rabbit's tail, with the vertebrae replaced by cane, a velvet-covered ball, a powder puff, and so on. They could all be plainly and vividly coloured with some non-soluble inodorous colour. They would be about on the cot and on the rug ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... upon the glistening skin of the fish, as it suddenly untwisted itself, and writhed into another form. Then the heron changed its direction, and nothing but the great, grey beating pinions of the bird were visible, the long legs outstretched like a tail, the bent back neck, and projecting beak being merged in the body ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn

... SOUP.—Take a piece of white paper and a lead pencil and draw from memory the outlines of a hen. Then carefully remove the feathers. Pour one gallon of boiling water into a saucepan and sprinkle a pinch of salt on the hen's tail. Now let it simper. If the soup has a blonde appearance stir it with a lead pencil which will make it more of a brunette. Let it boil two hours. Then coax the hen away from the saucepan and serve the soup hot, with a glass of ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... his tail in a mowing-machine; 'Zekiel had the asthma, and the immersion of his nose in milk made him sneeze, so he was wont to slip his paw in and out of the dish and lick it patiently for five minutes together. Nancy often watched him pityingly, giving him kind and gentle ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... look to thee, instead of heaven, for my reward," said the soldier. "Meanwhile do thou have thine eyes like those in a peacock's tail, all around thee, for this Master Spikeman is cunninger than all the foxes whose ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... old days," when George the Third was King, it was not very uncommon for malefactors to be flogged through the streets, tied to the tail end of a cart. In 1786 several persons, who had been sentenced at the Assizes, were brought back here and so whipped through the town; and in one instance, where a young man had been caught filching from the Mint, the culprit was taken to Soho works, and in the factory yard, there stripped and ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... attacked me, that March night, in the adjoining chamber; and, though I could make every allowance for his anger, I confess I trembled for the consequences. He gazed straight before him; but he could see us with the tail of his eye, and his temper kept rising like a gale of wind. With regular battle awaiting us outside, this prospect of an internecine strife within the walls began ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... tigers, not daughters: each is an adder to the other: the flesh of each is covered with the fell of a beast. Oswald is a mongrel, and the son and heir of a mongrel: ducking to everyone in power, he is a wag-tail: white with fear, he is a goose. Gloster, for Regan, is an ingrateful fox: Albany, for his wife, has a cowish spirit and is milk-liver'd: when Edgar as the Bedlam first appeared to Lear he made him think a man a worm. As we read, the souls of all the beasts in turn seem to us to have entered ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... scrupulous neatness of the men, the gaudy and ostentatious habiliments of 'de ladies.' The negroes have an intense ambition to imitate the upper classes of white society. They will study the apparel of a well-dressed gentleman, and squander their money on 'swallow-tail' coats, high dickeys, white neckties, and the most elaborate arts of their dusky barbers. The women are even more imitative of their mistresses. Ribbons, laces, and silks adorn them, on festive occasions, of the most painfully vivid colours, and fashioned in all the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... words are ill for him who speaks, and ill alike for him who listens. In such a day as already the end is scored like a comet's tail across the sky, the end shall be, and not before that day. Cease from thy clamour lest the street hear thee, and ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... right when you have a crayon in your hand, and will not draw what you see then, no "monochromatic system" is going to help you. But if you will put down on the paper what you see, as you see it, whether you do it with a cat's tail, as Benjamin West did it, or with a glove turned inside out, as Mr. Hunt bids you do it, you will draw well. The method is of no use, unless the thing is there; and when you have the thing, the method ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... known as the "Cockerel Church," for one hundred and forty-eight years, when it was raised on the Shepard Memorial Church of Cambridge, where it now is. "It measures five feet four inches from bill to tip of tail, and stands five feet five inches from the foot of the socket to the top of comb, and weighs one ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... lived. Georgie was all attention at once, and his eyes followed Pinkie wherever he went. Presently the little dog came and sat right down before him, and looking straight in his face, wagged his tail, and seemed delighted to see him. Georgie stared at him for a while, and then looked up earnestly into the lady's face, then at the dog, and then at the lady again, as if trying to make out a puzzle. Finally, when he had settled it, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... supply of oxygen, therefore, the father stickleback ungrudgingly devotes laborious days in poising himself delicately just above the nest, as you see in No. 3, and fanning the eggs with his fins and tail, so as to set up a constant current of water through the centre of the barrel. He sits upon the eggs just as truly as a hen does; only, he sits upon them, not for warmth, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... desperate efforts to shake off its persecutor. The hair eventually gave way, and with a mouthful of it hanging from both sides of his tightly closed lips the Jogpa now let go of the animal's head, and, brandishing his sword, made a dash for its tail. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... creatures got sight of our people, though at ever so great a distance, they ran directly at them; and no less than five of them were killed this day. They were always called wolves by the ship's company, but, except in their size, and the shape of the tail, I think they bore a greater resemblance to a fox. They are as big as a middle-sized mastiff, and their fangs are remarkably long and sharp. There are great numbers of them upon this coast, though it is not perhaps easy to guess how they first came hither, for these islands are at least ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... instructions he had received from the captains, he soon struck fire, and kindled some sticks, and was obliged the whole night to swing a fireband round his head; the sight of which kept the wild beasts from coming near, for, though they often came and looked at him, yet they soon turned tail again, seeing the fire. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... label tied on to him. Forgive me that label, Chum; I think that was the worst offence of all. And why should I label one who was speaking so eloquently for himself; who said from the tip of his little black nose to the end of his stumpy black tail, "I'm a silly old ass, but there's nothing wrong in me, and they're sending me away!" But according to the regulations—one must obey the ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... a large, cheerful apartment, with a wood-fire burning on the broad hearth. The members of the committee were already there, and Mr. Goodnight stood importantly, back to the fire, with a hand in either pocket, and a coat-tail under either arm. Mr. Crayon leaned against the wall and gently stroked ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... goes on. I don't think that we should worry too much about this graft union problem. We know that this Carr variety is a bear-cat. It is the one that gave us so much trouble. When we tried to propagate that one we had a real, nasty cat by the tail. But on the other hand, in answer to Dr. MacDaniels' question if we go out to Dr. J. Russell Smith's plantings up at Round Hill (Virginia), we can see a lot of the oldest grafted trees that I know of anywhere in the country, and the unions are just as smooth and just as slick as anyone would want ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... contributed to the knowledge that will be placed in front of you—brave, intelligent men, who blasted through the atmosphere with a piece of metal under them for a spaceship and a fire in their tail for rockets. But everything they accomplished goes to waste if the unit can't become a single personality. It must be a single personality, or it doesn't exist. The unit is the ultimate of hundreds of years of research ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... Eugene Martin passed them, in his buggy, stopped further on and called to them: "Ride?" He was not laughing now, he was not jibing. He seemed to be constrained to ask them to ride, they were hurrying so. Raven threw a curse at him, but Tenney broke into a limping run and jumped into the tail of the wagon and sat there, his legs dangling. And he called so piercingly to Martin to drive along, to "Hurry, for God's sake, hurry!" that Martin did whip up, and the wagon whirled away, and Raven hurried ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... muttered the old man, and much put out, but too timid to stand up for his rights and demand the return of his money, he placed the packages in his coat-tail pocket, and walked off. ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... and 'Zekiel's petticoats gave place to corduroy breeches, but his devotion to the china dog never waned. He would talk to it, and tell it all his plans and fancies, and several times he almost persuaded himself that it wagged its tail and nodded to him. In fact, he was quite sure that when Granny Pyetangle was ill that winter, the china dog was conscious of the fact, and looked at him with its yellow eyes full of ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry

... Ezekiel's vision came out of the north, a great cloud of "infolding fire" and the colour was amber. A cyclopean and dazzling staircase thronged by moving angelic shapes, harping mute harps, stretched from sea to sky, melting into the milky way like the tail of a starry serpent. Followed the opening of the dread prophetic seals; but, after an angel had descended from heaven, his face as the sun and at his feet pillars of fire, the people, prostrate like stalks of corn beaten by a tempest, worshipped in fear. These things were supernatural. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... should build a bark of dead men's bones And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, Stitch shrouds together for a sail, with groans To fill it out, blood-stained and aghast; Although your rudder be a dragon's tail Long severed, yet still hard with agony, Your cordage, large uprootings from the skull Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail To ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... its chief value. And it is conceded that Mr. C.L. Daboll, under the direction of Prof. Henry, and at the instance of the United States Lighthouse Board, first practically used it as a fog-signal by erecting one for use at Beaver Tail Point, in Narragansett Bay. The sounding of the whistle is well described by Price-Edwards, a noted English lighthouse engineer, "as caused by the vibration of the column of air contained within the bell or dome, the vibration ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... forgetting it is Fantomas who is supposed to be caught, then are they going to give out that Fantomas is dead?... That seems out of the question.... Besides this man didn't die a natural death, he was killed! I can't make head or tail of it." ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... make up a highland tract separated from the great Northern Shan plateau by the gorges of the Irrawaddy river. On the east the Kachin, Shan and Karen hills, extending from the valley of the Irrawaddy into China far beyond the Salween gorge, form a continuous barrier and boundary, and tail off into a narrow range which forms the eastern watershed of the Salween and separates Tenasserim from Siam. The highest peak of the Arakan Yomas, Liklang, rises nearly 10,000 ft. above the sea, and in the eastern Kachin hills, which run northwards from the state of Moeng Mit ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... upon the ten girls and saw in their midst a lady like the moon at fullest, with ringleted hair and forehead sheeny white, and eyes wondrous wide and black and bright, and temple locks like the scorpion's tail; and she was perfect in essence and attributes, as the poet said ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... from the fairies, steals his notes, and dedicates the whole earth to the sky every morning with a green-tree ballad, utterly frivolous. Such a performance, my dear Mr. Towers, can never be termed a "sacrifice"; rather it is the wings and tail of humour expressed in a song. But who shall say the dear little wag has no vocation because his small feather-soul is expressed by a minuet instead ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... inspires a presence of mind, to elude her vigilance I watched her face and motions so well, that I took my opportunity, and passed through quick enough to save myself and escape her malice, though she pinched the end of my tail. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... men haven't any other notions, ask 'em if it's anything to do with the earth passing through the tail of the comet," ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White

... go with them, if they've no objection," returned Mr. Frampton. "If I should happen to get knocked over in the scuffle, I shall want somebody to pick me up again. I shall like to see how near the tail of the list they stick ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... fifty feet below against which the fierce current was dashing. The Dean was so nearly water-logged that she was sluggish in responding to the oars, but we swept past the rock safely and rolled along down the river in the tail of the rapid with barely an inch of gunwale to spare,—in fact I thought the boat might sink. As soon as we saw a narrow talus on the right ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... the crow they denominate Jim, With a tail like a bull, and a head like a bear, Stands forth at the window—and what holds he there, Which he hugs with such care, And pokes out in the air, And grasps as its limbs from each other he'd tear? Oh! grief and despair! I ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... a real Fa-qui, tail, costume and all, and for aught I know may have seen the individual before, for he informed me that he had been to the United States—"America" he called them—and had sojourned in Boston, and this too with as strict regard to the memory of Lindley Murray, and in as good ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... first arose from the primitive Ape, He first dropped his tail, and took on a new shape. But Cricketing Man, born to trundle and swipe, Reversion displays to the earlier type; For a cricketing team, when beginning to fail, Always loses its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various

... strikes in upon this midmost party (nearly twice his number, but Infantry for the most part); and after fierce fight, done with good talent on both sides, cuts it into utter ruin, as proposed. Thereby he has left the Swedish Army as a mere head and tail WITHOUT body; has entirely demolished the Swedish Army. [Stenzel, ii. 350-357.] Same feat intrinsically as that done by Cromwell, on Hamilton and the Scots, in 1648. It was, so to speak, the last visit Sweden paid to Brandenburg, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... indescribable monsters. One, a king whose head having been lost, has been fitted with the head of a queen, treads on a man entangled by serpents; another king stands on a woman who holds a reptile by the tail with one hand, and with the other strokes the plait of her own hair; the third, a queen, her head crowned with a plain gold fillet and her shape that of a woman with child, while her face is smiling but commonplace, has at her feet two dragons, a ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... effect than that of the fly with the mastiff, when it dashes against his eyes and mouth, and at last comes once too often within the gape of his snapping teeth. The orc raised such a foam and tempest in the waters with the flapping of his tail, that the knight of the hippogriff hardly knew whether he was in air or sea. He began to fear that the monster would disable the creature's wings; and where would its rider be then? He therefore had recourse to a weapon ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... told her cheerfully. "Know 'em from front bumper to tail-lamp. Yours is a Boyd-Merril, Twin Eight, this year's model. Fox-Whiting starting and lighting system. Great little car, too, if ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory

... he was now neatly balanced. His tail had received the same treatment as his head. He wondered if a person could get concussion of the tail bones, and had reached no definite conclusion when, unexpectedly, his ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... cards," wrote the reporter, "that I may be up to see you again. I'm still working, on and off, on the tip that took me on that wild-goose chase. If I come again I won't quit without some of the wild goose's tail feathers, at least. There's a new tip locally; it leaked out from Paradise. ["The Babbling Babson," interjected the reader mentally.] It looks as though the bird were still out your way. Though how she ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... ladies' hair I dress to-morrow, that's all! [To STEVEN.] Mr. Carley, you've got lovely soft hair, haven't you? I know you have a lovely disposition, I can tell it from your hair. Yes, indeed, they always go together, it's a certain sign! Now Mrs. Wishings' hair is just like a horse's tail! what there is of it. I often feel like asking her which she'd rather I done it, on or off! [Laughs heartily.] I must have my little joke, but nobody ...
— Her Own Way - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch

... whispered to me to come to them after the domestics had gone to bed. I went and fucked them both three times, twice in front and once behind, the one who was being fucked always gamahuching the other. When I began to tail off, Mrs. Dale arose, unbolted the door of communication with uncle's room, and invited him to Ellen's arms, who was very glad to have a little further experience of another man's prick. Uncle gallantly gamahuched her before fucking her, then begged to see my wonderful prick, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... and rippled against the piers of the Pont Neuf far below, the wet roofs that twinkled under our garret window, were not more brilliant than my lord the Bishop's fortunes: and as is the squirrel so is the tail. Of a certainty, I was happy that morning. I thought of the little hut under the pine wood at Gabas in Bearn, where I was born, and of my father cobbling by the unglazed window, his nightcap on his ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... kept steering, and so leave the more experienced men to work the ship. These details are trivial enough, but a small thing serves as food for gossip aboard ship. The appearance of a whale in the evening caused quite a flutter among us. From its sharp back and forked tail, I should pronounce it to have been a rorqual, or "finner," as they ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... knowing him to be so, I may possibly keep him. Your Mr. Mockler shall be ensign as soon as I can make him one, or some other genteel thing. Your Mr. Elliot may be chaplain, if he likes being at the tail of my list, with the impossibility ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... tail of his jacket as he made a dart at the door and swung him into the middle of the room. Hurd laid hands on him. "You come along with me," he said. "I'll confront ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... strange creature that figured in different old-world mythologies. Its form varied, but the monster which propounded the famous riddle was supposed to have the body of a lion, the head of a woman, bird's wings, and a serpent's tail. Well, this sphinx appeared once upon a time, near Thebes, in ancient Greece, and asked a riddle of every passer-by, whom it promptly slew if the correct answer were not forthcoming. This scourge at length drove the poor Thebans to despair, and they offered their kingdom and the hand of ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... pointed at the dog. 'I've made a bet with myself he won't wag his tail within the next ten minutes. I beg of you, Harrington, to remain silent for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... one after school let out. he cought a big bumbelbea whitch had flew in to the window and took sum wax and hitched a long white thread to the bumbelbea and let him go and he flew all over the chirch with that long white thread hanging down like a kite tail. everybody laffed and the girls screemed and ducked there heads down and the minister tride a long while to ketch the bumblelbea and finely he cought it by the thred and it clim up the thred and stang him and he sed drat the pesky thing and snaped his fingers and the bea flew out of the window. ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute

... colour up, and say you don't know nothing! Why did you water your lemon plant three times over, but that you wanted to be looking out of window? Why did you never top nor tail the gooseberries for the pudding, but sent them up fit to choke my poor missus? If Master Jem hadn't—Bless me! what was I going to say?—but we should soon have heard of it! No, no, Charlotte; I've been ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... cloth to cover his mouth when speaking lest insects should enter it [Footnote ref 2]. The outfit of nuns is the same except that they have additional clothes. The Digambaras have a similar outfit, but keep no clothes, use brooms of peacock's feathers or hairs of the tail of a cow (camara) [Footnote ref 3]. The monks shave the head or remove the hair by plucking it out. The latter method of getting rid of the hair is to be preferred, and is regarded sometimes as an essential rite. The duties of monks are very hard. They should sleep only three ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... make a commemoration of St. George when going to bed. This, he says, never failed, but he also rubbed the bed with garlic. The following is given as a cure for the sting of the scorpion: "The patient is to sit on an ass, with his face to the tail of the animal, by which the pain will be transmitted from the man to the beast." Or again, a person who was bitten by either a tarantulla or a mad dog must go nine times round the town on the Sabbath, calling upon and imploring the assistance of the saint. On ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten



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