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Vibrate   Listen
verb
Vibrate  v. t.  (past & past part. vibrated; pres. part. vibrating)  
1.
To brandish; to move to and fro; to swing; as, to vibrate a sword or a staff.
2.
To mark or measure by moving to and fro; as, a pendulum vibrating seconds.
3.
To affect with vibratory motion; to set in vibration. "Breath vocalized, that is, vibrated or undulated, may... impress a swift, tremulous motion." "Star to star vibrates light."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vibrate" Quotes from Famous Books



... touch the harp again; No chords will vibrate on the string; Like broken flowers upon the plain, My heart e'en withers while I sing. Aeolian harps have witching tones, On morning or the evening gale; No melody their music owns ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... runway, a beaten trail. He stepped into this easier path but had taken but a few steps when he was startled by the vicious rush of a swift object that whizzed up through the air and tore through a fold of his loose riding breeches, then swung back before his eyes to vibrate into stillness. It was a bamboo dagger, sharpened to a keen edge and point, hardened by charring in a slow fire. Fastened to a young sapling, it had been bent down over the trail and secured by a ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... is tuned to sorrow, and the strings Vibrate most readily to minor chords, Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words Which voice the passion and the ache of things: Illusions beating with their baffled wings Against the walls of circumstance, and hoards Of torn desires, broken joys; records ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... Earth would presently vibrate through their extended beings with an authoritative sweet thunder not to be denied. By a Voice, a Call, the Earth would tell them that she heard; that lovingly she was aware of their presence in her heart. She would call them, with the voice ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... had we commenced to the strains of an accordion, not having a piano, than the floor, which was laid on round joists over the entrance hall, began to vibrate so violently that glasses on the sideboard were smashed and ornaments fell from the walls, while dust from the carpet, which evidently had not been beaten for years, rose in such clouds that, coupled with the heat of a stifling night, we were literally choked ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... in the reiterated declaration. The clasp of his hand was feverish. That strange vitality of his that had made him defy the death he had courted seemed to vibrate within him like a stretched wire. His attitude was tense with it. And a curious thrill went through her, as though there were ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... to give an adequate idea of the effect of what D'Annunzio said. His words fell like moulded bronze into the stillness, one by one, with an extraordinary distinctness, an intensity that made them vibrate through the mass of humanity. They were filled with historical allusions that any stranger must miss in part, but that touched the fibers of his hearers. He seized, as he had at Quarto, on the triumphant advance of the liberating Thousand and recounted the inspiring ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... triumph of evil, discovers the influence of that power which the heathens personified as Nemesis. Her tread, indeed, is often noiseless—her form may be long invisible—but the moment at length arrives when the measure of forbearance is complete; the echoes of her step vibrate upon the ear, her form bursts upon the eye, and her victim—be it a savage tyrant, or a selfish oligarchy, or a hypocritical church, or a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... to forecast the future. Happily, all our maladies are thrown off, sooner or later, if they do not kill us; and we can cheerfully look forward to a time when the delicate chords in us shall no longer be made to vibrate "like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh" to any sound in nature, and when the peaceful crowing of the cock shall cease to madden the early waker. For, whatever may be the fate awaiting our city civilization, brave Chanticleer, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... folio will attract as much philosophical astonishment as the bones of the mammoth. For behold, the deluge of writers hath produced a new world of small octavo! and in the next generation, thanks to the popular libraries, we shall only vibrate between the duodecimo and the diamond edition. Nay, we foresee the time when a very handsome collection may be carried about in one's waistcoat-pocket, and a whole library of the British Classics be neatly ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... The sudden nestling of her head against him, the light caress of her fragrant hair across his cheek, revived a sweet, almost-conquered, almost-forgotten emotion. He felt an inexplicable thrill vibrate through him. No untrodden, ambushed wild, no perilous trail, no dark and bloody encounter had ever made him feel fear as had the kiss of this maiden. He had sternly silenced faint, unfamiliar, yet ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... electricity in coils surrounding the poles of the magnet, and the duration of this current of electricity coincides with the duration of the motion of the steel or iron moved or vibrated in the proximity of the magnet. When the human voice causes the diaphragm to vibrate, electrical undulations are induced in the coils environing the magnets, precisely analogous to the undulations of the air produced by that voice. These coils are connected with the line wire, which may be of any length, provided the insulation be good. The undulations which are induced ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... bells chiming full many a clime in, Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine; While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate, But all their music spoke nought to thine; For memory dwelling on each proud swelling Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free, Made the bells of Shandon Sound far more grand on The pleasant waters of the ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... in this Manner, I would answer, that the ALMIGHTY has in this, as well as in all his other Works, out of his abundant Goodness and Love to his Creatures, so attuned our Minds to Truth, that all Beauty from without should make a responsive Harmony vibrate within. But should any of those more curious Gentlemen, who busy themselves With Enquiries into Matters, which the Deity, for Reasons known only to himself, has placed above our limited Capacities, demand how he has so formed us, I should refer them, with proper Contempt, to their ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen

... vibrate to everything. My dear man, what IS the matter?" Mrs. Brook demanded. "Does it all ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... first day of his arrival, on one of the steepest summits of the mountain, he perceives stationed there, immovable, like a sentinel, a goat, between whose delicate limbs shines a group of stars, celestial eyes, whose golden lids seem to vibrate as if in appeal. It is his island! He does not hesitate; suddenly recovering all his energies, he springs from the raft, struggles with vigor, with perseverance against the current, triumphs over it, and, after prolonged efforts, at last reaches ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... came from deep within the heart of the cliff, a mighty note of sonorous beauty like the violent plucking of a string on some colossal bass viol. So powerful was the timbre of the pulsing sound that the entire side of the mountain seemed to vibrate in ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells

... for me?" He tried to speak casually but, to himself the eager note in his voice seemed to shriek and vibrate. Making every allowance for delays and changed addresses he had calculated that by now he should have an answer from Slim's mother or sister. He did not realize how positively he had counted on a letter until the ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... old place vibrate a little with his efforts, and to Guest the whole business was horribly suggestive of taking off the lid from a coffin; but he was firmer now, as he stood behind Stratton, who drew a deep breath, now and then like a heavy sigh, but neither stirred from his ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn

... a while moving his head about intelligently. Then he slipped into the water and paddled off. "One feels their lives in music," he said; "great tones vibrate round the island where men live. It ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum

... closes, as so often happens in cases of "cold in the head" as well as in constant irritation from adenoids, then may follow a vast train of difficulties—earache, mastoiditis, etc.—with the result that the tiny bones in the middle ear which vibrate so exquisitely may become ankylosed (stiffened) and deafness often follow. Everything known must be done to prevent baby's catching "cold in the head." If the sinuses become infected it may also ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... why silent so soon? My soul drinks each word of thy magical tune; My lyre owns thy touch, and its tremulous strings Still vibrate beneath the soft play of thy wings! Resume thy sweet lay, and reveal, ere we part, Thy home, lovely spirit,—and say what ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie

... utterly forgetting the onlookers, kissed her until every nerve in her body was tingling in the sweeping flame of that passion which his parting caress had stirred to vague but troublesome restlessness. And she, too, forgot the crowd, and shyly, proudly gave as well as received; so there began to vibrate between them the spark that clears brains and hearts of the fogs and vapors and keeps them clear. And it was not a problem in psychology that was revealed to those admiring and envying spectators in the brilliant September sunshine, but a man and a woman ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... key of it is the pathos Back from the altar to discover that she has chained herself Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite Excess of a merit is a capital offence in morality His idea of marriage is, the taking of the woman into custody I am a discordant instrument I do not readily vibrate I like him, I like him, of course, but I want to breathe I who respect the state of marriage by refusing Love and war have been compared—Both require strategy Peace, I do pray, for the husband-haunted wife Period of his life a man becomes too ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... centers of consciousness Of all the universes. We vibrate statically on a trillion golden wires. Our trillion golden fingers twine in the weltering darkness, And grasp tremblingly, Aware in agony Of the things we ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott

... Experiment 157. To vibrate the tympanic membrane and the little ear-bones. Shut the mouth, and pinch the nose tightly. Try to force air through the nose. The air dilates the Eustachian tube, and is forced into the ear-drum. The distinct crackle, or clicking sound, is due ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... sounding body will not only jar another body which touches it, but it will also give its motion to the air that touches it; and when the air-motions or air-waves strike the sensitive drums of our ears, these vibrate, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... to make a sort of preparation previous to its utterance, and never approached it by the regular scale. It began with an inconceivably fine tone, which gradually swelled both in volume and power, till it made the ears vibrate and the heart thrill. It particularly resembled the highest note of the nightingale, that is reiterated each time more intensely, and which with a sort of ventriloquism seems scarcely to proceed from the same bird that a moment before poured his delicate warblings at an interval ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... synchronous motion by two vibrating steel reeds of exactly the same fundamental note, and the axle of each wheel carries an arm whose end trails over the contacts or distributor segments already spoken of. The reeds are adjusted to vibrate at such speed that the trailer is in contact with each segment about 1/500 second. The number of groups of segments required for each working is determined by the retardation of the signals owing to the static capacity of the line. To convert the rapidly recurring impulses of current into practically ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... I met Livingstone at London in Exeter Hall, when Prince Albert delivered his maiden speech in England. I remember how nearly he was brought to silence when the speech, which he had lodged on the brim of his hat, fell into it, as deafening cheers made it vibrate. A day or two after, we heard Binney deliver his masterly missionary sermon, 'Christ seeing of the travail of ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... the sound of Princess Amelia's voice; imagine, my friend, the sweetest, the most delicious, the most harmonious tones; in fine, one of those accents which cause the most delicate chords of the soul to vibrate. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... I was exhaustedly trifling with my meridian meal, and balancing the gratification against the trouble of eating lumpy tapioca pudding, a muffled, rolling thud broke upon my ears, making the window and floor vibrate slightly. It seemed so distant and unimportant that I took no notice of it; and it was only when, ten minutes later, I became aware that certain excited townsfolk were scurrying past outside that I roused slowly to the thought that here was something unusual toward. Then, indeed, a sort of insane ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... I must have suffered, when I beheld one of the mountains moving, as it were, from its base, and tumbling down towards the spot on which I stood! In the twinkling of an eye the whole scene, hills and all, began to tremble, to vibrate, and to fly round me, with a rapid, delirious motion; the stars shot back into the depths of heaven, and disappeared; the ground on which I stood began to pass from beneath my feet; a noise like the breaking of a thousand gigantic billows ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... to be a good sailor, and her enjoyment was so contagious as even to tighten certain strings about her father's heart which had long been too slack to vibrate with any simple gladness. Her questions were incessant—first about the sails and rigging, then about the steering; but when Malcolm proceeded to explain how the water reacted on the rudder, she declined to trouble herself ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... inspire awe and fear in those who come in contact with him—realise this, and you may, perhaps, understand why the General walked abruptly out of the church when the first notes of a ballad, which he used to hear with a rapture of delight in a gilt-paneled boudoir, began to vibrate along the aisles of the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... wheel has moved a degree, when a circuit is closed and a magnet attracts an armature attached to a pendulum. This pendulum, after starting, breaks the circuit of the magnets which hold the pawls down, as well as of the short-circuiting device. As the pendulum takes an appreciable time to vibrate, this allows all the magnets to drop back, and breaks all circuits, leaving the primary contacts in the same relation as at first. The many details of the instruments are carefully worked out. All the contacts are of a rubbing nature, thus avoiding danger from dirt, and they are made ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... work here. And in a year you will have "caught the pulse beat," you will "vibrate to the city's rhythm," and if you only "make good" in your work, you will enjoy the strain and hurry, you will keep pace with the best of us, and you will get more out of yourself in a day in the city than you ever did in a week ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton

... apparatus, and they were sending a beam of interfering radio energy at us. We are invisible only by reason of the vibration of the molecules in response to the radio impressed oscillations. The molecules vibrate in tune, at terrific frequency, and the light can pass perfectly. What will happen, however, if someone locates the source of the radio waves? It'll be simple for them to send out a radio beam and touch our invisible ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... as he paused in the work. "It's got to be insulated, or it will vibrate against the metal of the machine and short circuit. I have it! My handkerchief! I s'pose Mrs. Baggert will kick at tearing up a good one, but ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton

... with whose other name Paul was unacquainted, was an artist, and, in addition, was an ornamental sculptor, and executed those wonderful decorations on the outside of houses in which builders delight. The trade is not a pleasant one, for it necessitates working at dizzy heights, on scaffolds that vibrate with every footstep, and exposes you to the heat of summer and the frosts of winter. The business, however, is well paid, and Andre got a good price for his stone figures and wreaths. But all the money he earned went in the study of the painter's ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... Dangerfield's spectacles gleamed through the crowd upon Dr. Sturk, who was thinking of other things beside the music, the angler walked round forthwith, and accosted that universal genius. Mrs. Sturk felt the doctor's arm, on which she leaned, vibrate for a second with a slight thrill—an evidence in that hard, fibrous limb of what she used to call 'a start'—and she heard Dangerfield's voice over his shoulder. And the surgeon and the grand vizier were soon deep in talk, and Sturk brightened up, and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... after the manner of their country. Having delivered this doleful annunciation, he assumed a posture of silent dejection, shaking his head slowly with the motion of a pendulum when it is ceasing to vibrate, and then remained stationary, his body stooping at a more acute angle than usual, and the latter part of his ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... about him in all directions, with a very puzzled expression. A delightfully cool breeze was fanning their faces: this breeze was laden with some strangely sweet perfume both soothing and stimulating to the senses. The air all about them seemed to vibrate with the distant melody of some angelic music, now sinking, now swelling in perfect harmony; so soft, so clear, so bright, so inspiring in its wealth of ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... the voice he had just heard could belong to no man but the colossus he had seen in passing through the kitchen. It made the place vibrate. The quarrelling continued some time, and then there was ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... inside of deep, hoarse voices muttering prayers, of tinkling of bells and clanging of cymbals. From time to time a drum was beaten, giving a hollow sound, and an occasional and sudden touch upon a gong caused the air to vibrate until the notes faded away as they were ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor

... those melancholy events in life to which the mind cannot for a long time reconcile or accustom itself. I saw her so short a time ago 'glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and joy;' the accents of her voice still so vibrate in my ear that I cannot believe I shall never see her again. What a subject for contemplation and for moralising! What ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... At three o'clock there was a sound like tremendous and continued peals of thunder. The earth seemed to shake and vibrate beneath ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... as I was thinking that the junk must escape, one of our big guns was fired with a crash which made the deck vibrate. There was a tremendous puff of smoke, which was drawn toward us so that I could not see the effect, but the shell seemed to burst almost directly with a peculiar dull crash, and another yell arose from the distant ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... the novel helping her to understand the libretto, she followed the story phrase by phrase, while vague thoughts that came back to her dispersed at once again with the bursts of music. She gave herself up to the lullaby of the melodies, and felt all her being vibrate as if the violin bows were drawn over her nerves. She had not eyes enough to look at the costumes, the scenery, the actors, the painted trees that shook when anyone walked, and the velvet caps, cloaks, swords—all those imaginary things that floated amid the harmony as in the atmosphere ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... Episcopal Church is not used, yet responsive chords vibrate to some mystic touch. The church is plain and music faulty. In pulpit utterances there is nothing strikingly trite or profound. The preacher has none of oratorical gifts. Oswald cannot account ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on an old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read her answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look was one of intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most humble patience. At length she seemed to force herself to face behind and around ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... or string, stretched between two given points, when struck will vibrate throughout its entire length in waves of a certain length and with a certain degree of rapidity, according to the tension of the string. This vibration of the entire length of cord gives forth the tone heard as the fundamental pitch or tone. Besides this fundamental or primary ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick

... to come and go, To vibrate between yes and no; For, cries the Sailor, "Glorious chance 320 That blew us hither!—let him dance, Who can or will!—my honest soul, Our treat shall be a friendly bowl!" [37] He draws him to the door—"Come in, Come, come," cries he to Benjamin! 325 And Benjamin—ah, woe ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... A tuning-fork or diapason kept in vibration by electricity. In general principle the ends of the fork act as armatures for an electro-magnet, and in their motion by a mercury cup or other form of contact they make and break the circuit as they vibrate. Thus the magnet alternately attracts and releases the leg, in exact harmony with its natural period ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... was organized by the moral ability of one has been executed by the physical efforts of many, and DRURY LANE THEATRE is now complete. Of that part behind the curtain, which has not yet been destined to glow beneath the brush of the varnisher or vibrate to the hammer of the carpenter, little is thought by the public, and little need be said by the Committee. Truth, however, is not to be sacrificed to the accommodation of either, and he who should ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... Slitting the genital duct of the other testis, causing its interstitial cells to hypertrophy and multiply, repeats the effects of the first experiment. The organism responds again to the new waves of vitality that vibrate through it. That it is recharged is demonstrated again by a revival of sex appetite and sex activity. The female which had become an object of indifference is reinstated as a creature to be sought and pursued. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... a sudden it seemed to him that the air began to vibrate faintly with a vague, captivating rhythm. Nils could hear his heart beat in his throat. With trembling eagerness he unwrapped the violin and raised it to ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... we may trace all the new poetic influences which he had come under in Strassburg—Shakespeare, Ossian, the popular ballad, the inspiration of Herder. What is remarkable in these early lyrics, however, is that though they vibrate with the emotion of the poet, the emotion is under strict restraint and never passes into the watery effusiveness which is the inherent sin of so much German lyrical poetry. That "brevity and precision" which was the ideal he now put before ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... received from a careful reading of The Study of Speech Curves is that the subject is vastly more intricate than had formerly been believed. Helmholtz's theory of vocal acoustics was fairly simple: The vocal cords vibrate after the manner of membranous reeds; a tone thus produced consists of a fundamental and a series of overtones; vowel and tone quality are determined by the influence of the resonance cavities, which reinforce certain of the overtones ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... lighthouses. It is as firm to-day as when originally built, but the reef on which it rests has been undermined and shattered by the joint action of the waves and the leverage of the tall stone column, against which the seas strike with prodigious force, causing it to vibrate like the trunk of a tree in a storm. The foundation-stone of the new lighthouse was laid on a reef one hundred and twenty-seven feet south of the old one in 1878. It is built of granite and rises one hundred and thirty-eight feet above the rock, its light being visible seventeen ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... important, during the axial movements of the spindle, to adjust the halves of the thrust-block so that there can exist no possible play which would leave the spindle free to move axially and probably vibrate badly. ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins

... be enjoyed in its own way. But Cornelia's loveliness carried with it a peculiar quality, which not only gratified the eye, but went further, and seemed to touch a vital chord in the beholder, jarring throughout his being with a sweet distribution of effect, and causing heart and voice to vibrate. It made Bressant conscious in every fibre that he was man and she woman. Whence came the influence he could not tell, and meanwhile it gained ever stronger and deeper hold upon him. Was it from the eyes, a-sparkle with the essence of youth and health? or from the mouth, with its red ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... fresh from the maker's hands? Now you know very well that there are no less than fifty-eight different pieces in a violin. These pieces are strangers to each other, and it takes a century, more or less, to make them thoroughly acquainted. At last they learn to vibrate in harmony, and the instrument becomes an organic whole, as if it were a great seed-capsule which had grown from a garden-bed in Cremona, or elsewhere. Besides, the wood is juicy and full of sap for fifty years or so, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... were made of clay, were an inch and a half long, dressed with paper, and had small wires protruding the sixteenth of an inch below the bottom of the skirt. He put them all on a brass tray, the edge of which he struck with a small stick to make it vibrate, thus causing the dancers to turn round and ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... vibration of matter causes the surrounding air to vibrate in consonance with it; and the waves of air thus created, breaking against the auditory nerve, awaken a peculiar sensation which we call sound. The trumpet, vibrating variously, as the valves are moved and the air forced through it, initiates waves of air of different lengths; and as they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... honourable career in the theatre behind him, from which he should be allowed to reap what financial and honourary rewards he may be able. But I would not add one leaf to these wreathes, nor one crotchet to the songs of praise which vibrate around them. I turn aside from their plays in the theatre and in the library as I turn aside from the fictions of Pierre ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... speaking the Everett gave a lurch, her whistle was tooted two or three times, the engines started turning, and the big boat began to vibrate under the pressure. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... life-heat from a flaming car; While one unchangeable upon a throne Broods o'er the frozen heart of earth alone, Content to reign the bright particular star Of some who wander or of some who groan. They own no drawings each of other's strength, Nor vibrate in a visible sympathy, Nor veer along their courses each toward each: Yet are their orbits pitched in harmony Of one dear heaven, across whose depth and length Mayhap ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... you expect to be able to land at the other end any more than this?" asked Jim. "Suppose the machine continues to vibrate instead of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... spirit of song,—midst the zephyrs at play In bowers of beauty,—I bend to thy lay, And woo, while I worship in deep sylvan spot, The Muses' soft echoes to kindle the grot. Wake chords of my lyre, with musical kiss, To vibrate and tremble with ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy

... and looked directly at her, prompted by her singular tone. A glance was enough to show Lane that this very young girl was an entirely new type to him. She seemed to vibrate with intensity. All the graceful lines of her body seemed strangely instinct with pulsing life. She was bottled lightning. In a flash Lane sensed what made her different from the fifteen-year-olds he remembered ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... late in autumn, a large, black hunting spider (Lycosa) dwelt in my piano. When I played andante movements softly, she would come out on the music rack and seem to listen intently. Her palpi would vibrate with almost inconceivable rapidity, while every now and then she would lift her anterior pair of legs and wave them to and fro, and up and down. Just as soon, however, as I commenced a march or galop, she would take to her heels and flee away to her den somewhere in the interior ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... blows. Even the music in the shell which you hold to your ear is made by the air in the shell pulsating to and fro. And how do you think it is set going? By the throbbing of the veins in your own ear, which causes the air in the shell to vibrate. ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... grope and stumble along through our earthly lives, burdened with ideas which were set in motion far back in a crude age, and which were so well adapted to their time that they still vibrate to the tendencies of our own day. This applies to every department of human experience, and were it not that we are, as a huge family, better than our cherished beliefs, higher in the scale of development than these would seem to indicate, ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... hard when I hate. We've taken pride in my family, I'm afraid, in being good haters, as if it were part of the same trait that makes you loyal and true to your friends. But perhaps it's a mistake. I know that Gerald said once"—she yielded to the obscure desire to hear the air vibrate, as it had not done for some time, with the syllables of his name—"Gerald said once, when we were talking of things, 'We must forgive everything,' he said; 'we must forgive happenings the same as we must people.' And Gerald, you know, when he's in sober earnest, ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall

... and was air-borne before he answered. Then, almost immediately, he had to land again to take on gas. By the time he was in the air en route to Spindrift, Cap'n Mike was squirming so impatiently that the whole plane seemed to vibrate. ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... though creation were but one vast symphony, glorifying the God of goodness with an inexhaustible wealth of praise and harmony. We question no longer whether it is so or not. We have ourselves become notes in the great concert; and the soul breaks the silence of ecstasy only to vibrate in unison ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... he, "this, then, is the string thy nerves endure not to have touched! sooner will I expire than a breath of mine shall make it vibrate! Oh sacred be thy sorrow, for thou canst melt ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... volley, and four hundred thousand cheers go up as if from one threat. Never was such an effort made to intoxicate the senses and strain the nerves beyond their powers of endurance!—The moral machine is made to vibrate to the same and even to a greater extent. For more than a year past, harangues, proclamations, addresses, newspapers and events have daily added one degree more to the pressure. On this occasion, thousands of speeches, multiplied by myriads of newspapers, carry the enthusiasm to the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... stirred by English literature though it is one of the great literatures of the world. Our history was different and the evolutionary product was a peculiarity of character, and the strings of our being vibrate most in ecstasy when the music evokes ancestral moods or embodies emotions akin to these. I am not going to argue the comparative worth of the Gaelic and English tradition. All I can say is that the traditions of our own country move us more than the traditions ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... It is by exercise, habit and education, that the mind is unfolded and becomes superior to that of others. Man, without culture and experience, is as void of reason and industry, as the brute. A stupid man is one, whose organs move with difficulty, whose brain does not easily vibrate, whose blood circulates slowly. A man of genius is he, whose organs are flexible, whose sensations are quick, whose brain vibrates with celerity. A learned man is he, whose organs and brain have been long exercised upon objects to ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... bread out of the mouths of all the other men in the town who are of the same trade with him; or use his breadth and sweep of sight to gather some branch of the commerce of the country into one great cobweb, of which he is himself to be the central spider, making every thread vibrate with the points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the facets of his eyes. You see no injustice ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... she cultivated other beneficent passions, and if she cherished the dream of something fine the moments at which it most seemed to her to come true were when she saw beauty plucked flower-like in the garden of art. She loved the perfect work—she had the artistic chord. This chord could vibrate only to the touch of another, so that appreciation, in her spirit, had the added intensity of regret. She could understand the joy of creation, and she thought it scarcely enough to be told that she herself created happiness. She would have liked, at any rate, to choose her way; but it was ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James

... be mounted within doors, if it can be conveniently erected on solid ground, as every movement in the house will cause the instrument to vibrate unpleasantly. Further, if the telescope is placed in a warm room, currents of cold air from without will render observed objects hazy and indistinct. In fact, Sir W. Herschel considered that a telescope should not even be erected near a house or elevation of any kind round which currents of ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor

... down to dinner. The young men were at table, talking as young men do, not very interestingly. After the meal, Ciccio sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise vibrate through the house. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... on "For Tippecanoe and Tyler too," which still obtrudes too obstinately upon my tympanum, though much fine harmony heard since in cathedrals and the high shrines of music is quite powerless now to make that organ vibrate. Four years later, my emerging voice did better justice to "Harry Clay of Old Kentucky," and my early teens found me in an environment that quickened prematurely my interest in public affairs. My father, the ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... father, instead of feeding the bird, goes eagerly for a gun, in order that he may shoot it, the boy will sympathize in that desire, and growing up under such an influence, there will be gradually formed within him, through the mysterious tendency of the youthful heart to vibrate in unison with hearts that are near, a disposition to kill and destroy all helpless beings that come within his power. There is no need of any formal instruction in either case. Of a thousand children brought up under the former of the above-described influences, ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott

... the induction of the pole, and would be attracted bodily to the pole were it not fixed by the rim, so that only its middle is free to move. Now, when a person speaks into the mouthpiece the sonorous waves impinge on the diaphragm and make it vibrate in sympathy with them. Being magnetic, the movement of the diaphragm to and from the bobbin excites corresponding waves of electricity in the coil, after the famous experiment of Faraday (page 64). If this undulatory ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... inspire a sweeter, richer, more ideal, though it be a humbler home for us, with all the tenderer love and finer genius, now that man's enterprise is wrecked abroad? Shall we have no Music? Has the universal "panic" griped the singers' throats, that they can no longer vibrate with the passionate and perfect freedom indispensable to melody? It must not be. The soul is too rich in resources to let all its interests fail because one fails. If business and material speculation have been overdone, if we are checked and flung down in these mad endeavors to accumulate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... Ted, who was aware that some one was trying to cut the rope, felt it vibrate suddenly beneath ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... but this is done by a special apparatus. The cross ridges which we noticed on the bands are really flat comb-like plates (p, Fig. 9), of which there are about twenty or thirty on each band; and these vibrate very rapidly, so that two hundred or more paddles drive the tiny ball through the water. This is the cause of the prismatic colors; for iridescent tints are produced by the play of light upon the glittering plates, as they ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... the window-panes Hath ceased to flap, or traverse with blind whirr The room's dusk corners; and the leaves without Vibrate upon their thin stems with the breeze Flying towards the light. To an Eastern vale That light may now be waning, and across The tall reeds by the Ganges, lotus-paved, Lengthening the shadows of the banyan-tree. The rice-fields ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... barrister, with his future in front of him, the child of "strolling players"; she, the beautiful Miss Linlay, was a singer of note. Her father was the leader of the Bath Orchestra, and had a School of Oratory where young people agitated the atmosphere in orotund and tremolo and made the ether vibrate in glee. Doctor Linlay's daughter was his finest pupil, and with her were elucidated all his theories concerning the Sixteen Perspective Laws of Art. She also proved a few points in stirpiculture. She was a most beautiful girl of seventeen ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... scarcely ceased to vibrate through the quiet air when in the distance there arose a mighty clamour of barking. Mary caught her breath and waited now to see what was coming, and in less than five minutes two huge dogs came bounding down the portage path to the shed where the ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... for just five minutes, Miss Langdon?" he asked in a low tone which had begun to vibrate with emotion. "Just call it off for one minute, if you won't let it go for five. It sure is hard to sit here, alongside of you, and not only to keep my hands and eyes away from you, but to keep my tongue cinched with a diamond hitch. I suppose I am hasty, and ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... repeated here on the same scale as it has recently been shown at the Pantheon at Paris. A brass sphere, weighing about five pounds, was suspended from the lofty ceiling by a piece of music wire, and made to vibrate in one plane over a table graduated into degrees. After a few vibrations, the direction of the pendulum appeared to be changed, as though the table had moved round ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various

... changed—changed extraordinarily with the mere turning of that gentleman's back, the treacherous aspect of which its owner couldn't surely have suspected. If the question was of the pitch of their sensibility, at all events, it wouldn't be Mark's that should vibrate to least purpose. Visibly it had come to his host that something had within the few instants remarkably happened, but there glimmered on him an induction that still made him keep his own manner. Newton himself might now resort to any manner he liked. His ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... succeeding drought they scatter to the hills of Yemen, Syria and Palestine,[1065] or migrate to the valley of the Nile and Euphrates.[1066] The Arabs of the northern Sahara, followed by small flocks of sheep and goats, vibrate between the summer pastures on the slopes of the Atlas Mountains and the scant, wiry grass tufts found in winter on the borders of the desert.[1067] When the equatorial rains begin in June, the Arabs of the Atbara River follow them north-westward into the Nubian desert, and let their camel ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... again. A slight suspension bridge flung across the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now in disrepair, and at either end was posted "No Thoroughfare." Armitage stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... the jingle of the bells upon the horse, the shrieks of our footman and driver, and the laughter of the passengers on the "bob" broke the stillness of the quiet, frosty air, which, in its intense purity and lightness seemed fairly to vibrate ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... a born artist and musician. Music, tone, sound, colour, vibrate in every page of your romances. Had your parents taught you harmony, the piano, and the fiddle, your music would have burst forth along its normal lines. As they merely taught you the alphabet and grammar, your creative faculty turned to literature; ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... me get it straight. If I follow your reasoning correctly, you think that, stimulated by being upholstered throughout in scarlet tights, Mr. Fink-Nottle, on encountering the adored object, will vibrate his tail and generally let himself go ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... my heart, it is maddening! Why was I born to such feeling! Why was I cursed with the susceptibilities of a warm and loving heart! Why were not these sympathetic chords torn rudely asunder ere they could vibrate with such anguish! Why did not my heart turn into stone ere it took root in such deadly bitter soil! Ah well, love is common and grief is common—'Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break.' And I am only ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... days—atmospheres were a thing to recognise and cultivate, for people really wanted them, gasped for them; which was why they took them, on the whole, on easy terms, never exposing them, under an apparent flush, to the last analysis. Did we at any rate really vibrate to one social tone after another, or are these adventures for me now but fond imaginations? No, we vibrated—or I'll be hanged, as I may say, if I didn't; little as I could tell it or may have ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James

... round the empty room—which she was never more to occupy. Her books, her music, were scattered on every side. The sound of her rich voice seemed still to vibrate through the room. And she was gone—for ever! Well, she was a base and guilty creature, and it was better so— infinitely better that her polluting presence should no longer dishonour those ancient chambers, within which generations of proud and pure women ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... had been skilfully watching the effect of his remarks. They were most successful. He had touched a chord which had long ceased to vibrate. Again the two madmen looked ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... us all that the day and hour of the beginning of the spring campaign was near at hand. The increasing signs of activity inside the enemy's lines filled the air and caused it to vibrate with the buz and hum of reinforcements, and the great addition to their drum corps and trumpeters, whose morning reveille shut out even the sound of fire-arms, gave ample evidence of it. Clouds of dust ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman

... had gone out against the Deliverer. No definite news of the outcome of the sortie had reached them and they were moving in a dense pack down toward the walls to hear the worst. The whole hurrying mass seemed to vibrate with suspense and ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... pontoon-bridge, a thousand feet in length, over the narrow line of which—level with the river, and rising and subsiding with it—General Banks had recently led his whole army, with its ponderous artillery and heavily laden wagons. Yet our own tread made it vibrate. The broken bridge of the railroad was a little below us, and at the base of one of its massive piers, in the rocky bed of the river, lay a locomotive, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the door now, and it seemed as if he would never reach it. His breath came thick and fast, and his heart throbbed so that he felt the bamboos over which he crawled vibrate, but still ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... attached at one end, cut from the middle of the narrow strip of metal. (The Igorot make the ab-a'-fu of metal cartridges.) A cord is tied to the instrument at the end at which the tongue is attached, and this the player jerks to vibrate the tongue. The instrument is held at the mouth, is lightly clasped between the lips, and, as the tongue vibrates, the player breathes a low, soft tune through the instrument. One must needs get within 2 ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... flash of a keen, unbearable passionate shame. Men by the score had wooed her love, to be flouted with the insouciant mischief of her coquetry, and forgotten to-morrow if they were shot to-day; and now he—he whose careless, calm caress would make her heart vibrate and her limbs tremble with an emotion she had never known—he valued her love so little that he never even knew that he had roused it! To the proud young warrior of France a greater degradation, a deadlier humiliation, than this ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... ball came off, and the performers kept it up from sundown till daybreak, so that it seemed as if every leaf in the forest were alive. The Katy-dids and the Mosquitoes, and the Locusts, and a full orchestra of Crickets made the air perfectly vibrate, insomuch that old Parson Too-Whit, who was preaching a Thursday evening lecture to a very small audience, announced to his hearers that he should certainly write a discourse against dancing for ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... from inside of deep, hoarse voices muttering prayers, the tinkling of bells and clanging of cymbals. From time to time a drum was beaten, giving a hollow sound, and an occasional and sudden touch upon a gong caused the air to vibrate until the notes in a gradual diminuendo were carried away over ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... danger, and the animating burst of enthusiasm, act on the feelings of many men at once, their minds hold a natural correspondence with each other, as it is said is the case with stringed instruments tuned to the same pitch, of which, when one is played, the chords of the others are supposed to vibrate in unison with the tones produced. If an artful or enthusiastic individual exclaims, in the heat of action, that he perceives an apparition of the romantic kind which has been intimated, his companions catch ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... or industry, every man who desires to preserve what he honestly possesses or to obtain what he can honestly earn, has a direct interest in maintaining a safe circulating medium—such a medium as shall be real and substantial, not liable to vibrate with opinions, not subject to be blown up or blown down by the breath of speculation, but to be made stable and secure. A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... form divine, was giv'n to me Sweet medicine to clear and strengthen sight, And, as one handling skillfully the harp, Attendant on some skilful songster's voice Bids the chords vibrate, and therein the song Acquires more pleasure; so, the whilst it spake, It doth remember me, that I beheld The pair of blessed luminaries move. Like the accordant twinkling of two eyes, Their beamy circlets, dancing ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... radio waves that can vibrate matter in a straight line! One Jackson Gee vibrates it in two straight ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various

... lived through three years of the French Revolution, and many other dreams of the same nature, are instances of this. Now, Fechner has proved, in his Elemente der Psychophysik, first, that a fraction of a second is needed for the sensorial contact to cause the brain to vibrate—this prevents our perceiving the growth of a plant and enables us to see a circle of fire when a piece of glowing coal is rapidly whirled round; secondly, that another fraction of a second is needed for the cerebral ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... impulse; and Mrs. Hepburn would be the last to forgive me should I make the conventional mistake of a scene or an aside. This old lady had taught me something. I went to the window, curious to know whether any nerve of association would vibrate again. Nothing stirred me; the machinery which had agitated and controlled ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... warmth, while others chill one like an iceberg, by reason of the emotional coldness of the dwellers therein. Likewise, the low quarters of our cities, the dens of vice, and the haunts of dissipation vibrate with the character of the thought and feeling of those inhabiting them. And, often, the weak-willed visitor is thus tempted. In the same way, certain other places are charged with the vibrations of strong, helpful, elevating ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... elicited a horrible blare. I did not succeed much better; something seemed to be lacking in my lip, or my lungs. It required a tremendous head of wind to make the old tube vibrate; at last, I got it started a-roaring and made the whole countryside hideous with an outlandish sort of blast. Theodora begged of me ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... with a deep, crashing sound, that made every timber in her frame vibrate, so great was the shock. A gleam of grey light now began to spread over the fearful scene. It was daylight, that friend which so often comes to the mariner's relief. The ship had struck broad on, and the berg seemed to have grasped her in ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... sat bolt upright, dislodging from his lap a black spaniel, who tumbled on a matronly hound, whose startled yelp of indignation caused the esplanade to vibrate with dogs, that, scurrying from every cranny, assembled in an expectant circle, and waited with hungry tongues the intentions of ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... to the inner end of the slot in the arm, G, and is thus exactly in line with the rock-shaft, O. The suspension-rod, S, will, therefore, be at rest; but the pin, A, will have been drawn, by the bridle-rod, R, into line with the journal, J, and the bridle-rod itself will now vibrate with the lever, M, whose sole motion will be derived from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... on. I suspect the nebular hypothesis had got into the poor man's head by reading, in some singular mixture with what it found there. Some modifications of vibration gave heat, electricity, etc. I {14} listened until my informant ceased to vibrate—which is always the shortest way—and then said, "Our knowledge of elastic fluids is imperfect." "Sir!" said he, "I see you perceive the truth of what I have said, and I will reward your attention ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... again the subtle rustling surrounded him, but no voice now. The sound seemed to vibrate and run before him, yet faster than he could travel afoot. Then, so suddenly that it startled him, he came alongside a stout tree, and other voices sounded,—voices of white people. For the moment he was at a loss; then ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle



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