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noun
Turf  n.  (pl. turfs, obs. turves)  
1.
That upper stratum of earth and vegetable mold which is filled with the roots of grass and other small plants, so as to adhere and form a kind of mat; sward; sod. "At his head a grass-green turf." "The Greek historian sets her in the field on a high heap of turves."
2.
Peat, especially when prepared for fuel. See Peat.
3.
Race course; horse racing; preceded by the. "We... claim the honors of the turf." Note: Turf is often used adjectively, or to form compounds which are generally self-explaining; as, turf ashes, turf cutter or turf-cutter, turf pit or turf-pit, turf-built, turf-clad, turf-covered, etc.
Turf ant (Zool.), a small European ant (Formica flava) which makes small ant-hills on heaths and commons.
Turf drain, a drain made with turf or peat.
Turf hedge, a hedge or fence formed with turf and plants of different kinds.
Turf house, a house or shed formed of turf, common in the northern parts of Europe.
Turf moss a tract of turfy, mossy, or boggy land.
Turf spade, a spade for cutting and digging turf, longer and narrower than the common spade.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books



... brick-and-mortar heel a long way in advance; but the intermediate space between the giant's feet, as yet, is only blighted country, and not town; and, here, among a few tall chimneys belching smoke all day and night, and among the brick-fields and the lanes where turf is cut, and where the fences tumble down, and where the dusty nettles grow, and where a scrap or two of hedge may yet be seen, and where the bird-catcher still comes occasionally, though he swears every time to come no more—this second home is to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... all over, in an excess of grateful zeal, because she was to be taken out on the car. As soon as she had had her breakfast, she ran into the yard to feed her magpie. Its perch was in a comfortable corner sheltered by the great turf-stack which had been built up against the wall that divided the Caldwells' yard from that of Pat Murphy, the farrier. Beth, in wild spirits, ran round the stack, calling "Mag, Mag!" as she went. But Mag, alas! was never more to respond to her call. He was hanging by ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... he heard a voice which seemed to call to him out of the air. It commanded him to dig under a little green knoll which was near, and to gather up the small white stones which he would discover beneath the turf. The voice informed him, at the same time, that while he kept these stones in his possession, he should be endued with ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... y'know, though I'm generally unlucky. Must have been under—Aldeboran, is it?—anyhow, some cursed star or other. Been dogged by ill-luck from my cradle, b'gad! On the turf, in the clubs and ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... strange fit of abstraction, he had never left the table. This is the narrative, attested by a gentleman now living. The year 184— is not so far back; perhaps there are still those residing on the upper side of the turf at Beaumaris who ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... by side, I turned my head to look for a bench farther removed from the bull-ring; and so became aware of another soldier, in uniform similar to Mr. Archibald's, stretched prone on the turf a ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... above the distant horizon ahead of him, trembled faintly, and then burned with a steady lustre. It was a light at the hacienda. Guiding his horse half abstractedly in this direction, his progress was presently checked by the splashing of the animal's hoofs in the water. But the turf below was firm, and a salt drop that had spattered to his lips told him that it was only the encroaching of the tide in the meadow. With his eyes on the light, he again urged his horse forward. The ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Maddy," the old man said, gazing fondly at her with a half sigh as he remembered another brown head, pillowed now beneath the graveyard turf. "Maybe you won't pass muster, and then the hair will make no difference. There's a new committee-man, that Dr. Holbrook, from Boston, and new ones are apt ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... guns and ammunition carts, with stale, ill-smelling straw, the carcasses of oxen and horses, and the bodies of men, is now a smiling landscape, with miles of growing grain, green vegetables, green turf. ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis

... by honest labor are fairly within their reach. But here there are none such for thousands. Born in wretched huts of rough stone and rotten straw, compared with which the poorest log-cabin is a palace, with a turf fire, no window, and a mass of filth heaped up before the door, untaught even to read, and growing up in a region where no manufactures nor arts are prosecuted, the Irish peasant-girl arrives at womanhood less qualified by experience, observation or training ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... however, will probably supersede equestrian performances on the turf. The horse will no longer be tortured for the amusement of man; but fellow bipeds, equipped in querpo, will start for the prize, and, with the fleetness of a North-American Indian, bound along the lists, amid the acclamations and cheers of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... with pines, droops with willows, and is overtopped by gigantic horse-chestnuts. Near the house are pines, elms, lilacs, syringas; and at the back, apple and pear trees. Huge masses of striped grass light up the thick turf here and there; and all over the grounds the birds, unmolested from time immemorial, build and sing in perfect freedom and content. Long ago Longfellow sang of the herons of Elmwood, and they are still to be found in the wooded ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold

... together, kneeling against the rock's edge, to carry it safely to the hay-cart without dropping any. Beyond the village is a rocky hill, deep set with brushwood, a square crag or two of limestone emerging here and there, with pleasant turf on their brows, heaved in russet and mossy mounds against the sky, which, clear and calm, and as golden as the moss, stretches down behind it towards the sea. A single cottage just shows its roof ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... room, Peter and Jack coming with me to the door. "Is everything right?" said Peter, looking among the towels and water-jugs. "They've given you a decent fire for a wonder," said Jack, stirring up the red hot turf which blazed in the grate. "All right as a trivet," said I. "And look alive like a good fellow," said Jack. We had scowled at each other in the morning as very young men do when they are strangers; and now, after a few hours, ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope

... rivers meet—rather, two large streams of salt water, fine, sparkling, billowy sea rivers. Before the house was a grove of large orange-trees, and behind it an extensive tract of down, covered with that peculiar close, short turf which creates South Down and Pre Sale mutton: and overshadowed by some magnificent live-oaks and white mulberry-trees. By degrees, however, the tide, which rises to a great height here, running very ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... wanted to hear her speak, was desirous of being talked to, and perhaps thought that he should by rights be allowed to sit by her, and hold her hand. No such privileges were accorded to him. If they had been alone together, walking side by side on the green turf, as lovers should walk, she would soon have found the use of her tongue,—have talked fast enough no doubt. Under such circumstances, when a girl's shyness has given way to real intimacy, there is in ...
— The Courtship of Susan Bell • Anthony Trollope

... cone of rock, upthrust from the bed of the wild little river which worked the mill. On the summit of a rock a few square rods of soil gave room for the cabin, half a dozen bushes, and some sandy, sun-warmed turf. In this retreat, within fifty yards of the busy mill, but fenced about by the foaming torrent and quite inaccessible except by the footbridge, MacPhairrson lived with the motley group of companions which men ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... nectar, and crowned vast goblets with that divine liquor. In this equipage they left their celestial mansions, and repaired to the grotto, where they saw the dead body of the nymph stretched along on a soft couch of turf, and approaching it with profound awe and silence, prepared to pay the sacred rites; and Flora, having thrice bowed herself to the ground, was heard to pronounce this prayer:—'Almighty Jupiter, great ruler of the universe, exert thy creating power, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... Piping Rock Club yet, I think. Well, it's absolutely it, and only the right people belong. There's fine golf, and tennis of course, and I've heard Englishmen say the lawns are more like the turf "at home" than any they've seen on this side. In fact, Winston said that very thing to-day: called the club an "American Ranelagh." Not that I set much value on his opinion! The clubhouse itself is just like some jolly old country house: white shingles and green blinds, green and white awnings, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... life stream ebbs and flows, And stains the track of trenchant blows That met no meaner steel, The bated breath—the battle yell— The turf in slippery crimson, tell Where Castile's proudest colors fell With wounds ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... of cool moist turf, and clapped it in a pad over the wound, my handkerchief under. For his body, he was shaken and bruised, but ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... one of the earlier impulses to that refinement of taste which has made of Sheffield one of the prettiest villages in the country. With its fine avenue of elms, planted nearly forty years ago, its gardens and well-shaven turf, it shows what care and a prevailing love of beauty and order will do for a place where there is very little wealth. It was about this time that my father planted in an angle of the main street the Seven Pines, which now make, as it were, an evergreen chapel to his memory, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... for Harry Lorrequer. After this he was for some time dispensary doctor at Portstewart, where he met Prebendary Maxwell, the wild parson who wrote Captain Blake: so that here and now it is natural to find him leaping turf-carts and running away from his creditors. At Brussels, where he physicked the British Embassy and the British tourist, he knew all sorts of people—among them Commissioner Meade, the original of Major Monsoon, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... She felt turf beneath her feet, and once or twice the brushing of twigs against her hand. She began to have a faint suspicion as to whither he was leading her. But she would not ask a second time. She had yielded to his guidance, and though her heart fluttered strangely she would not seem to doubt. The dread ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... startled me also, and I dropped the flap, clambering upon the chair so as to see without. It was a hundred feet to the main road, mostly velvety turf between, with a few trees partially obscuring the view. Yet I could see clearly enough, and up the pike leading through the village, half hidden by a cloud of dust, was advancing a regiment of cavalry, their flags draped, their horses walking in double column. As these swung into the straight ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... threshing-floor, a level meadow beyond and below the town; and there the Rasheiyan gilded youth come riding their blooded horses in the afternoon, running races over the smooth turf and showing off ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... towering before him far aloft in the clouds. The pursuit of the chamois will often lead him to the narrowest boundaries between life and death, to overhanging cliffs, and across gorges where even the falling of a bit of turf or the loosening of a stone would be fatal. Up, up, the hunter must go in search of the cunning game, until lost among the cliffs, and blinded by the thick mists which appear as clouds to those in the valley below, he may often wander ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... a lucky day, generally in autumn when the sheep are fat, a sorcerer kills the old ram, after sprinkling it with milk. Its flesh is eaten; the skeleton, with a portion of the fat, is burned on a turf altar; and the skin, with the head and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... mouthed his woful whistle and Sandy Sawtelle valiantly strove for the true and just accord of his six strings. It was no place for a passive soul. I parted swiftly from the hammock and made over the sun-scorched turf for the ranch house. There was shelter and surcease; doors and windows might be closed. The unctuous whine of ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... lower garden, hid from those immediately behind it all view of the estuary. Here, still sheltered by the hedge, he stopped and Audrey stopped, and Aguilar absently plucked up a young plantain from the turf and dropped it into ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... blockade him. Frode, distrusting his power of attacking this town, commanded several trenches of unwonted depth to be made within the camp, and the earth to be secretly carried out in baskets and cast quietly into the river bordering the walls. Then he had a mass of turf put over the trenches to hide the trap: wishing to cut off the unwary enemy by tumbling them down headlong, and thinking that they would be overwhelmed unawares by the slip of the subsiding earth. Then he feigned ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... tends the grave with fidelity and the dawdling minuteness of inherited sloth. He chops down the weeds and ever-springing grass with his machete, he plucks ants and scorpions and beetles from it with his horny fingers, and sprinkles its turf with water from the plaza fountain. There is no grave anywhere ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... on a narrow terrace at the rear of the building, which was sodded with turf and starred with pansies and ox-eyed daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and vases filled with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and double white violets. Three lines of tables ran down this bright pretty ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... hesitation, he answered, "I often dream things. One night I dreamt that I was walking on a wild barren common; there were many bare places where people had cut turf, and there were prickly furze-bushes about. I knew there were some did open mine-shafts there, for people sometimes fell into them at night; but I was walking along without thinking of danger, ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... the island will guard the Island's purity till the end of time. Seen from the west, the Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of beauty. It is as if a fragment of England floated forward to greet the foreigner—chalk of our chalk, turf of our turf, epitome of what will follow. And behind the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the nations, and Portsmouth, a latent fire, and all around it, with double and treble collision of tides, swirls the sea. How many villages appear in this view! How many castles! ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... kettle, may be placed on the top as in the other set. A small hole, 18 inches long, 6 inches deep, and of the same width as the central tube of the annular kettles, may be made for an ashpit, or the kitchen may be raised a few inches from the ground on stones or turf. The annular vessels may be made cylindrical or conical; in the latter case they will fit or nest into one another, and save space when not in use. They may be made circular or elliptical. Those intended for cavalry are provided with straps to attach them to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various

... the moment of De Haldimar's approach, the officers were bending over the rampart, and, with straining eyes, endeavouring to make out what it was, but in vain; something was just perceptible in the withered turf, but what that something was no one could succeed ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... daydreams much of the energy that they might otherwise have used in life's real battle. But the greyness of commonplace existence became more bearable when they listened to tales of the heroic deeds of the past. In the evening, the living-room (bastofa), built of turf and stone, became a little more cheerful, and hunger was forgotten, while a member of the household read, or sang, about far-away knights and heroes, and the banquets they gave in splendid halls. In their imagination people thus tended to make their environment seem larger, and better, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... function as did the base of the actual image of Athene in Troy, towards which Cassandra fled from Ajax. The second class of altars, called bomoi by the Greeks and altaria by the Romans, appears to have originated in temporary constructions such as heaps of earth, turf or stone, made for kindling a sacrificial fire as occasion required. But sacrifices to earth divinities were made on the earth itself, and those to the infernal deities in sunk hollows (Odyss. x. 25; Festus s. v. Altaria). The note of Eustathius (Odyss. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... four other rabbits, too, impressed with the beauty of the afternoon and the advantages of the situation, now followed their comrade's example, coming out from their burrows and squatting on the turf of the sloping glade in a semicircle opposite the children; while, the more poor Puck tried to express his indignation at their free-and- easiness, the more nonchalantly they regarded him, sitting up comfortably and combing away, ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson

... than the sordidness of this horrible existence, a big palace with a terraced front and a mile long drive straight to the park gate, past great trees and turf that is always green; and long rows of stately ladies looking down on me from their frames on the lofty wall beside soldiers that have stood silent guard there three hundred years. I can see a beautiful woman courtesying to a Queen and all the world reading ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... sun. The circular garden led to a long garden, where the gardener's shears had scarcely been, unless now and then, when he cut a bough of blossom for his beloved. A few tall trees shaded it, and round bushes with wax-like flowers mobbed their heads together in a row. A garden smoothly laid with turf, divided by thick hedges, with raised beds of bright flowers, such as we keep within walls in England, would have been out of place upon the side of this bare hill. There was no ugliness to shut out, and the villa looked straight across the shoulder of a ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... later the whole tribe arrived at their summer quarters, and no civilised family of boys and girls ever arrived at their seaside home with a more genuine expression of noisy delight than that with which those Eskimos took possession of the turf-mud-and-stone-built huts of Waruskeek. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... Approaching over the turf with her light swift foot, Bessie drew quite near to him unheard, and saw him before he saw her. He had seated himself on a fallen tree, and leant his head on his hand in an easy attitude; his countenance was abstracted ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... in at night, the long and gentle sleep on the soft grey sand, the crawling out again at morning, the washing in the river, the stick-collecting and kettle-boiling, the berry-gathering, the lazy hours of noon, the lying outstretched on the springy turf, sun-drinking, the wading in the river and the plashing of the rushing water over one's legs; sunny days, grey days, rainy days, the joyous delight in the beautiful world, the exploration of one's own heart, the sadness ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... himself from his fishing-creel, stabbed the butt of his rod into the turf, and settled down in the heather to fill a pipe. All round him stretched the undulating moor, purple in the late summer sunlight. To the southward, low down, a faint haze told where the sea lay. The stream at his feet ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... and the soft thudding of feet on the turf, like sheep stamping, had grown in volume as the shyest were gradually drawn ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm and walks them down into the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides o the line. Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says,Go and dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply, which they did, though they didnt understand. Then we asks the ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling

... upon the topmost branches of which the crowded pinkish-white blossoms still lingered. From one to another small birds flitted with a pretty dipping flight, uttering quick detached notes as in merry question and answer. Through the rough turf the bracken pushed upward, uncurling sturdy croziers of brownish green. Away to the right, beyond the railway line, rose the densely wooded slopes of Roehampton and Sheen; while, against the purple-green gloom of them, the home signals of ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... difficulty in finding it, and compared to most of the Roman remains in England, it is well worth seeing. The place held no fewer than three thousand people upon the semi-circular tiers of seats that are now covered with turf. Years ago, there was much stone-work to be seen, but this has largely disappeared, and it is only in the upper portions that many traces of mason's work are visible. A passage runs round the upper part of the theatre and the walls ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home

... had become increasingly irritable and impossible. Every human instinct seemed to have shriveled up and died—all save the love of money and his passion for flowers. His withered old lips almost smiled as he moved the field-glasses slowly, bringing into range the magnificent stretch of soft turf, with its patchwork ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... lain in the sun all day, was warm and dry, and stretched himself out. Ann was too big to go "larking" about with the girls, so she and Hanny, and one or two others, sat down on the soft, sunburned turf. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... N.—74.4 E. S.W. of Srinagar. It is a favourite hot weather resort of Europeans. The Maharaja has a house here. The forest scenery is beautiful, especially on the way to the limit of trees at Khilanmarg. Good golf links on beautiful turf. ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... had chosen to marry a certain Mr. Ryfe, of whom nobody knew more than that he could shoot pigeons, had been concerned in one or two doubtful turf transactions, and played a good hand at whist. While he lived, though it was a mystery how he lived, he kept Mrs. Ryfe "very comfortable," to use Bargrave's expression. When he died he left her nothing but the boy Tom, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... extends a vast shore, studded with groves of trees, covered with fine turf and little flowers joyfully unfolding their petals to the sun: two streams, having their source at the very base of the opposite hills, after having meandered around this immense lawn, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... himself as 'thoroughly cured and seasoned,' and to predict that he would 'last a good while yet.' But, one day in December, a subject of remark in the Boul' Miche was Bibi's absence; and before nightfall the news went abroad that he had been found on the turf, under a tree, in the Avenue de l'Observatoire, dead from a coup de sang, and that he was now lying exposed to the gaze of the curious in the little ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... down the crude steps decided me to brave the return fire and die in the open. The cave below the flat roof, turf-covered against the keen eyes of aeroplanes, was full of water. The officers ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Mopsus, who wandered from his comrades the Argonauts when they were returning after having carried off the Golden Fleece, and strayed to the African coast, where he died a sudden death. His heroic remains, though covered by Punic turf, have ever since that time cured a great variety of diseases, and have generally ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... the critic. 'I'd git orf the turf if I cud spit 'em out that style; mek m' fortin', I would, on ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... great sportsman as well. He had a typically British love of outdoor pastimes as an active participator and not a mere looker-on. At various times he was associated with nearly every form of British sport. Yachting and shooting were two of his favorites, but it was his close connection with the turf which most appealed to the general public. Probably no other breeder of thoroughbreds ever had such a trio of equine giants as Florizel II, Persimmon and Diamond Jubilee. And in one year, 1909, he won over L29,000. ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... of spending. My uncle married a rich merchant's daughter, for her money. My father ran off with a poor curate's penniless girl, for love. My father neglected his business and became poor. In the hope of redeeming his fortune he frequented the turf and the gambling-table; and died broken-hearted and insolvent in the prime of manhood; leaving his widow and her orphan boy to the protection and guardianship of the brother, who had drudged all his life ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... his hand, the mare sprang forward, and in a few seconds he was out of sight amongst the trees. Lady Maud listened to the regular sound of the galloping hoofs on the turf, and at the same time from very far off she heard Margaret's high trills and quick staccato notes. At that moment the moon was rising through the late twilight, and a nightingale high overhead, no doubt judging her little self to be quite as great a musician ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... first—from the front door of the large, rectangular, unpainted Red Owl Hotel, dragging its wheels heavily through the soft turf of a Main street from which the cotton-wood trees had been cut down, but in which the stumps were still standing, and which remained as innocent of all pavement as when, three years before, the chief whose name it bore, loaded his worldly goods upon the back of his oldest ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... was backed out from the hangar now, and rested on the great smooth landing field, its tremendous quarter million ton mass of lux and relux sinking a great, smooth depression in the turf of the field. They were waiting now for the arrival of the Ortolian ship. Zezdon Afthen assured them it would be there in a ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... cold and clear. The December sun shines upon the glassy turf, and upon trees all clad in armor of glittering ice. And the trees creak and rattle in the north wind; and the icy splinters fall tinkling ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... home that had been on the edge of Wimbledon Common ten thousand years ago. He remembered, with a curious sort of thrill, some notes which he had to complete that morning for his lecture—and in the same instant he was walking back across the turf towards his house through ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... some distance and carefully concealed, or thrown into a stream, if one be at hand. The place selected for a cache is usually some rolling point, sufficiently elevated to be secure from inundations. If it be well set with grass, a solid piece of turf is cut out large enough for the entrance. The turf is afterward laid back, and, taking root, in a short time no signs remain of its ever having been molested. However, as every locality does not afford a turfy ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... who could hold their own. I am speaking here of the Establishment, because in Catholic countries the higher clergy are very often good players. Antonelli, for instance, might sit down at the Portland or the Turf; and even my old friend G. P. would find that his Eminence was ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... beaver lay down to recover himself was not spacious nor particularly well ventilated, but in every other respect it was very admirably adapted to the needs of its occupants. Through the somewhat porous ceiling, a three-foot thickness of turf and sticks, came a little air, but no light. This, however, did not matter to the beavers, whose ears and noses were of more significance to them than their eyes. In floor area the chamber was something like five feet by six ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... whether any malcontent who availed himself of this as his only refuge from the miserable fate awaiting him in the dungeon to which he was consigned, ever considered in the end that his condition had been materially improved. Spangled canopies and soft turf couches do well to read of, but stiff limbs and anxious hearts are sterner realities, to say nothing of sundry woes inflicted on the culprit when discovered. But I am enlarging and must return ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... Brahmacharyya. The remnants of a Brahmana's dish are like ambrosia. They are like the lacteal sustenance that is yielded by the mother's breast. People highly prize those remnants. The good, by eating them attain to Brahma. He who pounds turf to clay (for making sacrificial altars), or he who cuts grass (for making sacrificial fuel), or he who uses his nails only (and not weapons of any kind) for eating (sanctified meat), or he who always subsists on the remnants of Brahmana's dishes, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... figure stood erect and graceful, and the face, with its thin lips faintly smiling, its dark eyes gleaming, was the face of Anthony Wilding. And as she stared he moved forward, and she heard the fall of his foot upon the turf, the clink of his spurs, the swish of his scabbard against the shrubs, and reason told her ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... Miss Mitford is living on still with her parents at Bertram House, but a change has come over their home; the servants are gone, the gravel turned to moss, the turf into pasture, the shrubberies to thickets, the house a sort of new 'ruin half inhabited, and a Chancery suit is hanging over their heads.' Meantime some news comes to cheer her from America. Two editions of her poems have ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... I cast myself panting on the turf, and turning my face downward instead of upward, clasped my hands over it, and the hot tears gushed in scalding streams through my fingers, till the pillow of earth was all wet ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... to build a couple of huts, to cut and dry turf for fuel, and to kill some cattle and prepare the flesh; to hunt for vegetables or herbs, which might keep off scurvy, and to do ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston

... the springy turf was gay With thyme and balm and many a spray Of wild roses, you tempted me ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... preceptor answered, and as he followed the boy at a more leisurely pace he wondered at Joseph's spindle shanks struggling manfully against the ascent. He will stop before the road turns, he said, but Joseph ran on. He is anxious to reach the top, Azariah pondered. There is some pleasant turf up there full of flowers: he'll like to roll like a young donkey, his heels in the air, Azariah said to himself as he ascended the steep path, stopping from time to time that he might better ponder on the moral of this spring morning. He will roll among the grass and flowers like a young donkey, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... clove my way through ether like a bird That flits beneath the glimpses of the moon, Right eastward, till I lighted at the foot Of holy Helicon, and drank my fill At the clear spout of Aganippe's stream; I've rolled my limbs in ecstasy along The selfsame turf on which old Homer lay That night he dreamed of Helen and of Troy: And I have heard, at midnight, the sweet strains Come quiring from the hilltop, where, enshrined In the rich foldings of a silver cloud, The Muses ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... all I wanted of these weary and dismal thoroughfares. Here and there was a strip of discolored turf, like an old worn-out bit of woolen carpet; and now and then a bit of kitchen garden, in which grew potatoes, cabbage, and lettuce, almost diminutive enough to suggest the ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... blue sky over my head," says he, "and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honour comes, a pilgrim-gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 10 And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... Davy could eat them all! There is an energy, an elasticity in his mind, which enables him to seize on, and analyze, all questions, pushing them to their legitimate consequences. Every subject in Davy's mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring up like the turf under his feet." With equal justice, Mr. Davy entertained the same exalted ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... mind hearing my story," replied the eminent foreign philosopher. "I am by profession an actor, and my name is Wilks. When I was on the stage I mixed with all sorts of Bohemian and blackguard company. Sometimes I touched the edge of the turf, sometimes the riff-raff of the arts, and occasionally the political refugee. In some den of exiled dreamers I was introduced to the great German Nihilist philosopher, Professor de Worms. I did not gather much about him beyond his appearance, which was very disgusting, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... of the great trail from the States to Oregon and California. It is situated in a low marshy 'swale' to the right of the Sweetwater river, and about forty miles from the South Pass. The ground is filled with springs; and about 18 inches below the turf lies a smooth and horizontal sheet of ice, which remains the year round, protected by the soil and grass above it. On July 12th, 1849, it was from 2 to 4 inches thick; but one of the guides stated that he had seen it a foot deep. It ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... is wild; the field touches the steep gravel hills, where a few scattered hawthorn bushes and dwarf birches grow. Patches of earth show here and there, as though the turf had been peeled. Even the hardiest plants eschew these patches, where instead of vegetation the surface presents clay and strata of sand, or else rock showing its ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... low log structure, roofed with turf, and it had not been occupied for three years. Bushes and briers had sprung up about it; but the door was open, and the cattle were inside, lying down. We could see our Jersey's head as she lay near the door, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... my turf gang out on the moor, and one day a old clergyman come in gaiters and a broad-brimmer, and a face as if the master of the house were a-shaking at his hand, and the missis flopping down-stairs to give him a smack of the lips. Well, 2001 saw him in Principal Warder Rennell's ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... great pools where no islands are, with rushes round its borders, where the duck love to come. I looked long at that untroubled world of heather, and then I looked at the white cottages on the hill, and saw the grey smoke curling from their chimneys and knew that they burned turf there, and longed for the smell of burning turf again. And far away there arose and came nearer the weird cry of wild and happy voices, and a flock of geese appeared that was coming from the northward. Then their cries blended into one great voice of exultation, ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... talks about being in the hands of the Jews he is moved by the theological fanaticism that prevails in Piccadilly; or that when a silly youth on Derby Day says he was done by a dirty Jew, he is merely conforming to that Christian orthodoxy which is one of the strict traditions of the Turf. They are not, like some other Jews, forced to pay so extravagant a compliment to the Christian religion as to suppose it the ruling motive of half the discontented talk in clubs and public-houses, of nearly every business man who suspects a foreign financier, or nearly every working man who grumbles ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... rest here for a little while," he said to himself, and suiting the action to the word, threw down his gripsack and flung himself on the turf. ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... ushered into a low long room on the ground-floor, paved with flag-stones, having an immense hearth at one end. Inside the chimney, and on each side of the blazing fire built of logs and turf, were two oak benches, so that six guests could literally sit in the chimney-corner. This recess was made beautiful by ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Cottage kitchen; turf fire on the right; a bed near it against the wall with a body lying on it covered with a sheet. A door is at the other end of the room, with a low table near it, and stools, or wooden chairs. There ...
— In the Shadow of the Glen • J. M. Synge

... in my way, to make friends with it, or to ask after its health, if it were an old friend. These old apple-trees make very charming bits of the world in October; the leaves cling to them later than to the other trees, and the turf keeps short and green underneath; and in this grass, which was frosty in the morning, and has not quite dried yet, you can find some cold little cider apples, with one side knurly, and one shiny bright red or yellow cheek. They are wet with dew, these little apples, and a black ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... expeditiously, and started before he was well aware. She was half round the lake before he came up with her. She then took a second start, and completed the circle before he came up with her again. He saw that she was an Atalanta on ice as on turf. He placed himself by her side, slipped her arm through his, and they started together on a second round, which they completed arm-in-arm. By this time the blush-rose bloom which had so charmed him on a former occasion again mantled on her cheeks, though from a different ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... 'What have you been doing to this child, Phffibe?' 'We-ell, Doctor, his eyes has been kind o' bad along back, the last week. I did cal'late to send for you before; but one o' the neighbors was in, and she said to put molasses and tobacco-juice in them.' 'Thunder and turf!' says I. 'What sa-ay?' says Phoebe. ''N' then old Mis' Barker come in last night. You know she's had consid'able experi'nce with eyes, her own having been weakly, and all her children's after her. And she said to try vitriol; but I kind o' thought I'd ask you first, Doctor, so ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... attendants and an occasional visitor, and like all the monuments around Delhi are most carefully conserved under the Act for that purpose, which was not the least of Lord Curzon's Viceregal achievements. Among the buildings which still stand, rising from the turf, is Humayun's library. It was here that he met his end—one tradition relating that he fell in the dark on his way to fetch a book, and another that his purpose ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... was! What air over my head; what grass under my feet! The sweetness of the inner land, and the crisp saltness of the distant sea, were mixed in that delicious breeze. The short turf, fragrant with odorous herbs, rose and fell elastic, underfoot. The mountain-piles of white cloud moved in sublime procession along the blue field of heaven, overhead. The wild growth of prickly bushes, spread in great patches over the grass, was in a glory of yellow bloom. On ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... square-towered churches, occur at rare intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The sense of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... around were countless effigies of the dead of every rank, from the plain slab of the undistinguished citizen to the wreathed obelisk of the hero, from the ancient monument of Abelard and Heloise to the broken turf on the new grave of poverty only designated by a wooden cross; gray clouds flitted along the zenith, and a pale streak of light defined the wide horizon; Paris with its frivolity, temples, business, pleasures, trophies and teeming ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... turf-built hut * Adieu, my little garden, too! I made, I deck'd you all myself, And I am loth to part with you: But since my arms I must resume, And leave your comforts all behind, Upon the hostile frontier soon My tent ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... little, and did not leave all the civility to Miss Keith, but graciously responded to the stranger's admiration of the views, the exquisite framings of the summer sea and sky made by tree, rock, and rising ground, and the walks so well laid out on the little headland, now on smooth turf, now bordering slopes wild with fern and mountain ash, now amid luxuriant exotic shrubs that attested the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and upon the butterfly box stood open. The pale clouded yellows had pelted over the moor; they had zigzagged across the purple clover. The fritillaries flaunted along the hedgerows. The blues settled on little bones lying on the turf with the sun beating on them, and the painted ladies and the peacocks feasted upon bloody entrails dropped by a hawk. Miles away from home, in a hollow among teasles beneath a ruin, he had found the commas. He had seen a white admiral circling higher ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... synthesis of the great English social order. Passing out upon the highroad, we came to the common browsing-patch, the "village green" of the tales of our youth. Nothing was wanting; the shaggy, mouse-colored donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and huge proboscis, the geese, the old woman—the old woman, in person, with her red cloak and black bonnet, frilled about the face and double-frilled beside her decent, placid cheeks—the towering plowman with his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to the girl and ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... was that? Was it an answer to her wish,—her prayer? Was he coming now—now? And, jumping to her feet, the woman ran to the door and flung it open. Yes, yes, it was in answer to her prayer; for there, over the turf, she could see a horse speeding towards her. It was coming at breakneck speed. "Wallula! Wallula!" she turned and called. An echo seemed to repeat, "Lula, Lula!" At that echo Wallula leaped up, and ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... rose renews, And licks the dropping leaves, and dries the dews; When Arcite left his bed, resolved to pay Observance to the month of merry May, Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode, That scarcely prints the turf on which he trod: At ease he seemed, and prancing o'er the plains, Turned only to the grove his horse's reins, The grove I named before, and, lighting there, A woodbind garland sought to crown his hair; Then turned his face against the rising day, And raised his voice ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden

... grow to be of use, beauty, or shelter. Neither can it be said, that the soil of Ireland is improved to its full height, while so much lies all winter under water, and the bogs made almost desperate by the ill cutting of the turf. There hath, indeed, been some little improvement in the manufactures of linen and woollen, although very short of perfection: But our trade was never in so low a condition: And as to agriculture, of which all wise nations have been so tender, the desolation made in the country by engrossing ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... went Kendrick just in time to see Jimmy Stiles disappear around a corner. He ran rapidly down the street, keeping to the boulevard turf, and when he reached the corner he waited until his man was sufficiently in the lead to avoid discovery, then sauntered along in the same direction just far enough behind to keep the other in sight. For Phil's curiosity was now justifiably awake and he determined to find out where young ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... on the following night, beside the turf fire of a hospitable Irish peasant, when a seafaring man, whom I had sailed with about two years before, entered the cabin. The meeting was equally unexpected on either side. My acquaintance was the master of a smuggling lugger ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... comforting reflection. It not only justified a slow progress up the hill, but at the crest a sprawl on the turf beside the road, to contemplate the Weald from the south. In a matter of two days he had crossed that spacious valley, with its frozen surge of green hills, its little villages and townships here ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... the moisture that may remain in the tar is consumed and dissipated, and the mass diminishes in proportion; and when they think it is sufficiently burnt, they extinguish the fire, not with water, but with a hurdle covered with turf and earth. As it grows cold, it becomes hard and shining, so that you cannot take it out of the pits, but by cutting ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... told her what had happened that morning, laying bare all his heart-aches, and not even concealing his evil deeds. When he had done, she pondered awhile, tapping her little foot upon the turf. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... the turf were hidden;—a white paper basket, which still held some flowers, had been suspended by some kind stranger hand over the grave;—from it had dropped a ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... The turf fire burning on the great hearth threw out a rich steady glow that touched the black oak panelling of the room, the book backs, and the long-nosed face of Sir Nicholas Berknowles "attributed to Lely" ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... house with Ettie the first thing she saw was the turf beneath the nursery window strewn with every possible thing that Master Tom could find. He himself was looking out of the nursery window with an armful of Ettie's frocks and sashes, which he aimed at Nurse and her charge as they came nearer ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various

... above the Spey, The rocks are red that line his way; Green is the strath his waters lave, And fresh the turf upon the grave Where sleep my sire and sisters three, Where none are left to mourn for me: Stand fast, stand ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the turf was short and beautifully level, the boys having joined hands the previous night to drag the great roller well over it. But the sunshine, the blue sky, and the delicious green of the hedges and trees were all nothing to me then, and I let Mercer chatter on ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... cheat, a sickening despair got hold of me. My knees shook together, and big drops of sweat gathered on my forehead. I roused myself and searched again; again I was baffled. Distractedly I beat the bushes round and round the tiny lawn, then flung myself down on the turf and gave way to my despair. To this, then, it had all come; this was the end for which I had abandoned my wife and child; this the treasure that had dangled so long before my eyes. Fool that I had been! I cursed my madness and the hour when I was born; never before had I heartily despised ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... slope, and to fill their hands with the heather and ling, shrieking with delight. Wilmet had enough to do to watch over Angela in her toddling, tumbling felicity; while Felix, weighted with Robina on his back, Edgar, Fulbert, Clement, and Lance, ran in and out among the turf; and Alda, demurely walking by her papa, opined that it was 'very odd that the gentleman's name ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ball, danced with the lady, handed her to the coach, drove her home, and some time after married her. The lady's cash enabled him to acquire an ample fortune, being at one time worth nearly a quarter of a million, most of which, however, was lost on the turf. The Repository was the largest establishment of the kind in the kingdom, and Beardsworth'a house adjoining was furnished in most splendid style, one centre table (made of rich and rare American wood) ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... had been established for the wounded, convalescents, etc. One of these, called the Westphalian camp, presented a most beautiful scene. It was a succession of beautiful small gardens; there a fortress made of turf, its bastions crowned with hortensias; here a plot had been converted into a terrace, its walks ornamented with flowers, like the most carefully tended parterre; on a third was seen a statue of Pallas. The whole barrack was decked with moss, and decorated with boughs and garlands ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... very competent and impartial writer, has left us a graphic account of a journey he made to the British Islands, about 1430. He describes the houses of the peasantry as constructed of stones put together without mortar; the roofs were of turf, a stiffened bull's-hide served for a door. The food consisted of coarse vegetable products, such as peas, and even the bark of trees. In some places they were ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... beguiled on to the Turf by winning a small family sweepstakes—L3 in fact. A sporting cousin told me that I had better "put it on Cauliflower," who was the favourite for The City and Suburban. He put it on Cauliflower for me, and we won, so that a career of easy opulence seemed open. Then I took ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various

... and all the British poets who have written familiar lines about the daisy, extolled a quite different flower from ours - Bellis perennis, the little pink and white blossom that hugs English turf as if it loved it - the true day's-eye, for it closes at nightfall and ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... glades with that feeling of enjoyment which the entrance into an unknown region, pleasant companionship, and fine weather, inspire. When we issued from the woods which clothe the sides of Melibocus, we sate down on the heathy turf, and gazed with a feeling of ever-youthful delight on the scene around us. Above us, and over its woods, rose the square white tower of Melibocus; below, lay green valleys, from among whose orchards issued the smoke of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... pointed silently towards one of the cedars. Dalibard mused an instant, and then, slowly descending the steps, took his noiseless way over the smooth turf towards the tree. Its boughs drooped low and spread wide; and not till he was within a few paces of the spot could his eye perceive two forms seated on a bench under the dark green canopy. He then paused ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton



Words linked to "Turf" :   lily turf, cover, ground, jurisdiction, turf out, greensward, land, city district, colloquialism, turf war, sod



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