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Half-moon   /hæf-mun/   Listen
Half-moon

noun
1.
The crescent-shaped area at the base of the human fingernail.  Synonyms: lunula, lunule.
2.
The time at which the Moon is at first or last quarter when half its face is illuminated.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Half-moon" Quotes from Famous Books



... mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... nearly 3,000 feet above us, towered the bald white crest of Long's Peak, its huge precipices red with the light of a sun long lost to our eyes. Close to us, in the caverned side of the Peak, was snow that, owing to its position, is eternal. Soon the afterglow came on, and before it faded a big half-moon hung out of the heavens, shining through the silver blue foliage of the pines on the frigid background of snow, and turning the whole into fairyland. The "photo" which accompanies this letter is by a courageous Denver artist who attempted the ascent just ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... a few moments?' she said; and Albinia turned aside with her to the flagged terrace path between the churchyard and vicarage garden, in the light of a half-moon. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, And trampling envy spied ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... whole coast in this region as far as the city of Aquileia. However, it does not always take place in the same way at every time, but when the light of the moon is faint, the advance of the sea is not strong either, but from the first[6] half-moon until the second the inflow has a tendency to be greater. ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... a gallant figure in a glittering steel corselet crossed by a silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length, headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant. "Is not Crichton victorious?" asked Ogilvy of Captain ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... awaited our leader. Between the roofs we could see the low half-moon, hanging like a tilted bird's nest in the dark blue sky, while a group of stars fluttered near it like young birds. The Cathedral clock sounded the ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... than to the King of England—namely, with the Indians. He consequently convened a meeting—under the wide spreading branches of an elm tree, the Indian chiefs assembled. They were unarmed; the old men sat in a half-moon upon the ground, the middle aged in the same figure, at a little distance from them; the younger men formed a third semicircle in the rear. Before them stood William Penn,—a light blue sash, the only mark which ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... garrisoning the fort. The advance party halted to wait until these should arrive; but at length Semple grew impatient and ordered his men to advance without them. The Nor'westers had concealed themselves behind a clump of trees. As Semple approached they galloped out, extended their line into a half-moon {97} formation, and bore down to meet him. They were dressed as Indian warriors and painted in hideous fashion. The force was well equipped with guns, knives, ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... Mother dropped asleep; I sat beside her and watched. But Margaret stood still at the foot of the bed, not sitting down, and in the dim light of our one little lamp I could scarcely see her face as she stood, only that it was turned toward the casement, where a faint half-moon rode in the heavens, and the calm ancient stars looked down on us. Oh, how small a world is ours in the great heavens! yet for one soul of one little babe in this small world, the Son of ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous'd words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... unused to city ways, I did not know where to go. I applied at several places for lodging, but they all wanted money, and that was what I did not have. Knowing nothing else better to do, I walked the streets. In doing this I passed by many food-stands where fried chicken and half-moon apple pies were piled high and made to present a most tempting appearance. At that time it seemed to me that I would have promised all that I expected to possess in the future to have gotten hold of one of those chicken legs or one of those pies. But I could not get either of these, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... bonbonniere, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... leave untouched the skin of the coronet and the coronary cushion. They therefore make their first incision along the lower border of the coronary cushion (see Fig. 140), afterwards exposing the lower half of the cartilage by removing a half-moon-shaped portion of the thinned horn and underlying sensitive laminae ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... thrice-sharpened teeth, Giuseppe! I saw him bite a fair half-moon out of the iron pipe by the fountain trough this morning!" ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... Indians of Virginia, says: "Of this shell they also make round tablets of about 4 inches in diameter, which they polish as smooth as the other, and sometimes they etch or grave thereon circles, stars, a half-moon, or any other figure suitable to their fancy." [Footnote: Hist. ...
— The Problem of Ohio Mounds • Cyrus Thomas

... Destroyer, and Regenerator are combined in him. His loins are enveloped in a tiger's skin. In his character of Time, he not only presides over its extinction, but also its astronomical regulation. A crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates the measure of time by the phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the measure of time by years, and a second necklace of human skulls marks the lapse and revolution of ages, and the extinction and succession of the generations ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... these outlines were plainly visible to the unaided vision. The Earth appeared as a great, softly shining, greenish half-moon, with parts of its surface obscured by fleecy wisps of cloud, and with its two gleaming ice-caps making of its poles two brilliant areas of white. The returning wanderers stared at their own world with their ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... and shutting of the swinging door a round-bodied, round-headed man in his shirt sleeves comes into view. Covering his forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare of the overhead gas jet, is a half-moon of green leather held in place by strings tied behind his ears. The line of shadow caused by this shade makes a blank space about his eyes and brings into relief his pale, flabby cheeks, hard, straight mouth, and ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Besides, a bad man would not sing that song.—As she opened the door, a soft spring wind blew upon her full of genial strength, as if it came straight from those dark blue clefts between the heavy clouds of the cast. Away in the clear west, the half-moon was going down in dreaming stillness. The dark figure of a little man stood leaning against the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... very wisely from the point of view of men unwilling to be taken by surprise. Far away over to our right, appearing and disappearing as I watched them, were a number of tiny black dots in sort of wide half-moon formation, and a larger number of rather larger dots ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... on each side of the broad street, and not a light was to be seen. Narrow clouds stretched here and there over the star-spangled sky, and where the dawn would soon be coming there was a narrow crescent moon; but neither the stars, of which there were many, nor the half-moon, which looked white, lighted up the night air. It was cold and damp, and there ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... A half-moon in the sky showed her that the distance down was too far to jump. She might sprain or break one of those ankles which must go fast ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... in the form of a half-moon, with a sandy beach round it, and at its head a fresh-water river, having a bar across its mouth, which makes it navigable only for boats. He mentions also the height of the land which forms its sides. All these particulars are noticed by Cook. ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings; that it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name; that his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... each one of them was a naked sword, and in their midst stood Musli holding aloft the half-moon banner. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... Yes, but carved From some clear stuff, not like a woman's flesh, And colored like half-faded, white-rose leaves. 'Tis all too thin, and wan, and wanting blood, To take my taste. No fulness, and no flush! A watery half-moon in a wintry sky Looks less uncomfortably cold. And ... well, I never in the eyes of a sane woman Saw such ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... Hooker's Bend, drawn in a rough semicircle around the Big Hill, lies Niggertown. In all the half-moon there are perhaps not two upright buildings. The grimy cabins lean at crazy angles, some propped with poles, while others hold out against ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... that step, facing the half-moon that looked down from above the grove. Her glance was not directed toward him, but up and away. In the pupils of her eyes was a shine which seemed a refraction of the silver-gray beams of the moon. There was about her gaze ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... boat were simplicity itself. A half-moon wheel for guiding, up, down and either side, and two pedals on the floor, one for going and one for stopping. Roger stepped on the "Go" pedal and the small ship flashed out ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... which is of a light brown above, white underneath; very broad and thin, and has a peculiarly shaped tail, half-moon-shaped, in fact, like a ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... in May, he surprized me one morning with a visit at my lodgings in Half-Moon-street, was quite satisfied with my explanation, and was in the kindest and most agreeable frame of mind. As he had objected to a part of one of his letters being published, I thought it right to take this opportunity of asking him explicitly whether it would be improper to publish ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... Another, desirous to extend his arms to the twisting ropes, had no arms, and becoming crooked, with a body deprived of limbs, he leaped into the waves; the end of his tail was hooked, just as the horns of the half-moon are curved. They flounce about on every side, and bedew {the ship} with plenteous spray, and again they emerge, and once more they return beneath the waves. They sport with {all} the appearance of a dance, and toss their sportive bodies, and blow forth the sea, received within their wide nostrils. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... stands in the form of a half-moon on the banks of this mighty stream, and before it are moored craft of every description— backwood boats, keel boats, steamers and ships, brigs and schooners, from every part of the world. I may remark that directly behind the city is an impenetrable swamp, into which all the filth ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... row of houses, before them a few sooty trees in a half-moon of grass, one side railed off from the street and dignified with gates at either ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... in the herd from the other half-section. Emil ran from the windmill to open the corral gate. From the log house, on the little rise across the draw, the smoke was curling. The cattle lowed and bellowed. In the sky the pale half-moon was slowly silvering. Alexandra and Carl walked together down the potato rows. "I have to keep telling myself what is going to happen," she said softly. "Since you have been here, ten years now, I have ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... supported by the Camel Corps and Horse Artillery, trotted out rapidly, and soon interposed a distance of eight miles between them and the army. As before, the 21st Lancers were on the left nearest the river, and the Khedivial squadrons curved backwards in a wide half-moon to protect the right flank. Meanwhile the gunboat flotilla was seen to be in motion. The white boats began to ascend the stream leisurely. Yet their array was significant. Hitherto they had moved at long and indefinite intervals—one ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... of the night made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold, was sinking behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making the sky dull purple with its glow. Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to stir with scent, as if it ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... in the middle, where great logs of dry wood sent myriad sparks up the dark chimney-throat; and over the front of this recess a large wooden entablature bearing this motto, finely carved in old English letters, 'Fear God and honour the King'. And beyond the party, who formed a half-moon with their chairs and well-furnished table round this bright fireplace, what a space of chiaroscuro for the imagination to revel in! Stretching across the far end of the room, what an oak table, high enough surely ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... a half-moon, which struggled through the clouds soon after dark, and by its light the little English steamer sidled almost noiselessly under the shadow of her large companion. Captain Cable's crew worked quickly and quietly, and by nine o'clock that ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... thought nothing of it at the moment, for I had not seen the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and our sea-chests which the men bore shoreward and up the steep hill to the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued, she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common threshold ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... the half-moon were fighting furiously for the upper hand in Spain. Terrible battles were fought, and much blood flowed from both Christians and Infidels. Bloody victories were gained by the emperor's brave knights, the chief of whom was Roland. His sword forced ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... Madame Balnokhazy, touched to the quick. "Kindly greet, in our names, dear Czipra and dear Fanny. We are very fond indeed of the good girls, and wish you much good fortune with them. The arms of Aronffy, too, find an explanation therein: the half-moon will in one case mean a horse-shoe, in the other a bread-roll. Adieu, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... and Patoka. Surface, hilly and broken,—limestone rock,—springs of water, of which Half-moon and French Lick are curiosities. On the alluvial bottoms, the soil is loamy,—on the hills, calcareous, and inclined to clay. Excellent stones for grit, equal to the Turkey oil stones, are found in ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... half-moon in the sky, which was pitilessly clear, for cloudiness might have made it warmer; when the firelight sank he could see the slender spruce trunks cutting against the silvery radiance and the hard glitter of the snow. Everything ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... summit of the half-moon was the uppermost cavea, assigned to the common herd and the women. So, after all, we are somewhat ahead of the Romans in gallantry. Railings separated this tier from the one we sit in, so as to prevent "the low rabble" from invading the seats occupied ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east: a new lamp had come, she thought, and all ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... manipulation. The big boy took out a mouthful, leaving a crescent with jagged edge. The little boy was not pleased by the change, and began to whimper; whereupon the big boy pacified him by saying that he would make the cake into a half-moon. So he nibbled off the horns of the crescent, and gnawed the edge smooth; but when the half-moon was made, the little boy perceived that there was hardly any cake left, and he again began to snivel. ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... of Murillo's Madonna presenting the Divine Child to St. Joseph hung over the fireplace; between the windows another Madonna stood on a half-moon, and when Lord Dungory said, 'For what we are going to receive, the Lord make us truly thankful,' these pictures helped the company to realize ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... two o'clock in the afternoon that Barnabas knocked at the door of the Viscount's chambers in Half-moon Street and was duly admitted by a dignified, albeit somewhat mournful gentleman in blue and silver, who, after a moment of sighing hesitancy, ushered him into a small reception room where sat a bullet-headed ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... large, irregular, flat patches, which cover large spaces with a uniform scarlet-red, being brightest in those parts which are usually covered by the garments of the patient; in measles the spots are small, roundish or half-moon-like, with little grains upon them, and usually of a darker color; the measle-rash is thickest in such parts as are exposed to the air.—In scarlatina the symptoms of fever and the affection of the mucous membranes continue two days after the eruption has begun to make its appearance; ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... on the morning of the 19th of January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and nearly dressed. I had risen half-an-hour before her entrance, and had washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow window near my crib. I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates at six a.m. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... begin swinging in a certain rhythm. I am ringing in tune with the great stillness—ringing with it. I look at the half-moon; it stands in the sky like a white scale, and I have a feeling of love for it; I can feel myself blushing. "It is the moon!" I say softly and passionately; "it is the moon!" and my heart strikes toward it in a soft throbbing. So for some minutes. It is blowing ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun

... Hudson, in the Dutch East India Company's ship, the "Half-moon," in September, 1609, sailed up "the River of Mountains" as far as the site of Albany, looking for the northwest passage to China, the English settlement at Jamestown was in the third year of its half-perishing existence. More than thirteen ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... The half-moon disappeared behind Olympus, and out of the gathering darkness in the chamber a voice was at last heard: "They have killed other Sultans," it said. "They ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... his elbow, gently suggesting ingredients which may give the dish a richer flavor. The landscape is softened by the hush of coming evening; a few birds are still twittering among the bushes, and the half-moon grows whiter and clearer in mid-heaven. The people about me are humble, but appear honest and peaceful, and nothing indicates that I am in the wild Serrania de Ronda, the country ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... Reservation, red earth smooth as a billiard table; and just at an angle where the road made a sharp elbow and trended cityward, they paused for a moment and looked down and back at the superb view of the ocean, the vast half-moon of land, and the rolling hills in the foreground tumbling down toward the beach and all spangled with ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... find the apse, assuming in most cathedrals the form of a semicircle. There are exceptions; to mention three: at Poitiers, at Laon, and in Notre Dame du Fort at Etampes the wall is square, as in the ancient civic basilicas, and does not describe the sort of half-moon, of which the significance is one of the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... probable that the rendezvous is not at dusk, as is commonly supposed, but at midnight. Owen Wister, in his fine novel, The Virginian, speaks of the lover's journey as taking place at dusk. Now the half-moon could not scientifically be low at that early hour, and although most poets care nothing at all for the moon except as a decorative object, Browning was generally precise in such matters. An American poet submitted to the Century ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... nevertheless, beneath a tiny pair of horny wing-cases, a very wonderful pair of transparent wings is cunningly tucked away. The marvellous way in which they are folded up after use we cannot describe in detail here. In each wing there is a hinge shaped somewhat like a half-moon, in the middle of the stiff front edge (fig. 3, in the wing extended on the left). When the hinge is bent, the outer half of the wing folds over towards the tail, and the tip points forward. The further inward folding of the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... night came cool and friendly in their faces. The blue heaven was studded with stars. A little half-moon hung above the quiet shadows of the square through which they were passing. For the stillness they might have been ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... the captain held in his hand when he pushed open the door of the sitting-room and stood before the inmates in his rough pea-jacket, his ruddy face crimson with the cold, his half-moon whiskers all ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... in her orbit more and more of her illuminated surface is brought into view; and so the crescent of light becomes broader and broader, until we get what is called half-moon, or first quarter, when we see exactly one-half of her surface lit up by the sun's rays. As she draws still further round yet more of her illuminated surface is brought into view, until three-quarters ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... the general satisfaction, a strong tempest during the night between the 11th and 12th of December cleared the atmosphere, and the half-moon was distinctly visible on the dark background of ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... Vulcan at all, whereas he saw the black spot very distinctly. Say Vulcan has half the diameter of Mercury, and let us compare the brightness of these two planets when at their greatest apparent distances from the sun, that is, when each looks like a half-moon. The distance of Mercury exceeds the estimated distance of Vulcan from the sun as 27 exceeds 10, so that Vulcan is more strongly illuminated in the proportion of 27 times 27 to 10 times 10, or 729 to 100—say at least 7 to 1. But having a diameter but ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... the populace. And, indeed, she was a striking figure in her yellow leather jerkin, her knee-breeches and puttees, and her shining yellow "doggy" boots. She carried all the air of an officer planning a desperate coup. As she cut her famous half-moon curve from the north-east corner of the Place by the Gendarmerie over to the Hotel at the south-west, she saluted General de Wette standing on the steps of the Municipal Building. He, of course, knew her. Who of the Belgian army did not know those ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... His teeth won't be anything to the crown we'll put on him. But I mustn't lose a square inch of the rind. He must have ears too—a half-moon on each side—and you can let any amount of blaze shine ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of the pioneer English inventors of coffee-plantation machinery, brought out in Ceylon his cylinder pulper for Arabian coffee. The pulping surface was made of copper, and was pierced with a half-moon punch that raised the cut ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... might it be about?" "Well, anything on newspapers, or perhaps what you've done yourself, starting them." And off the boys went, for we had reach'd the Philadelphia side. The hour was fine and mild, the bright half-moon shining; Venus, with excess of splendor, just setting in the west, and the great Scorpion rearing its length more than half up in the southeast. As I cross'd leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night-scene, my young friend's ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet more in pain, because I was under water to my neck. The emperor concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy's fleet was approaching in a hostile manner: but he ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... silence succeeded, during which we sat speechless, awaiting a resumption of the clamour. At last Abner broke the heavy silence by saying: "I doan' see the do'way any mo' at all, sir." He was right. The tide had risen, and that half-moon of light had disappeared, so that we were now prisoners for many hours, it not being at all probable that we should be able to find our way out during the night ebb. Well, we were not exactly children, to be ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... time that ever I saw any of this kind), where I observed how they do invite one another, and at last how they all do cry,—[To cry was to bid.]—and we have much to do to tell who did cry last. The ships were the Indian, sold for L1,300, and the Half-moon, sold for L830. Home, and fell a-reading of the tryalls of the late men that were hanged for the King's death, and found good satisfaction in reading thereof. At night to bed, and my wife and I did fall out about the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... of coast line in Dorset is Swanage Bay, and to see it at its best one should stroll across the rising ground of Peveril Point. To the right are the dark cliffs of Purbeck marble that encircle Durlston Bay; to the left across the half-moon stretch of water is the white chalk of Ballard Point guarded by "Old Harry's daughter," the column of detached chalk in front. At one time this was one of a family, but "Old Harry" and his "wife" have sunk ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... River salmon boat, leaving three of us in the Reindeer. Then the two craft proceeded in company till the sun showed over the eastern skyline. Its fiery rays dispelled the clinging vapors, and there, before our eyes, like a picture, lay the shrimp fleet, spread out in a great half-moon, the tips of the crescent fully three miles apart, and each junk moored fast to the buoy of a shrimp-net. But there was no stir, no ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London

... St. George; and on the left, the brave Barbarigo, the Venetian, his flank protected by the coast commanded. Against the wind, the sun shooting its bright rays against the ships, the Turkish fleet, in half-moon formation, two hundred and fifty great galleys and many smaller craft, carrying one hundred and twenty thousand men, slowly advanced "in battle's magnificently stern array." The brave Ali Pacha ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... of eye-flirtation of many days' standing; on one morning appealing to my taste by an insinuating streak of white lead over each of her bright eyes; on the next, giving my heart a stab from under a crimson half-moon; and on the third, killing me quite by a broadside from each chubby cheek, the right having at me with a ball of fiery red, the left exhibiting one of ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... the bazar was the noisiest, for the men were engaged—to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block—with the kukri, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the Afghan hates the half-moon blade. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... before daybreak, and in the morning the little hotel had returned to its normal state of peace. The early sun blazed upon the white walls above, and upon the half-moon, beach below, and shot straight into the recess in the rocks where Clare had sat by the old black cross in the dark. The level beams ran through her room, too, for it faced south-east, looking across the gulf; and when she went to the window and stood ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... The half-moon was bright in an unclouded sky, and it showed me tears on Margaret's cheeks, as I bent to clasp and kiss her hand. Then I said good-bye to Master Freake and Dot, and was helped into ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... leading to the shining vague offing, the luminous pale sky-line, where the islands of Palmaria and Tino float like unsubstantial, shadowy dolphins. The roofs of Montemirto glimmer among the black, pointing cypresses: farther below, at the end of that half-moon of land, is San Massimo: the Genoese fort inhabited by our friends is profiled black against the sky. All is dark: our fisher-folk go to bed early; Gertrude and the little ones are asleep: they at least are, for I can imagine ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... a general description of his various conferences upon this business. "Their order," he says, "is thus: the king sits in the middle of a half-moon, and has his council, the old and wise, on each hand. Behind them, or at a little distance, sit the younger fry in the same figure." Then one speaks in their king's name, and Penn answers. "When the purchase was agreed great promises passed between us of kindness and good neighbourhood, and ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... they were within and were trying to get at them. Luckily the incendiaries had heaped wood and straw all round the outside of the house, and the blaze was so hot that they could not reach the door. Between the arch of the doorway and the door itself was a half-moon opening; and Mr. Liegeay and his family, during three days and three nights, broke up all the barrels in the cellar and threw the bits out through the opening to feed the fire ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... victualling, and very soon afterwards the order was given to make sail and bear for the French coast. The wind was however so light; that the whole day was spent before Seymour with his ships could cross the channel. At last, towards seven in the evening; he saw the great Spanish Armada, drawn up in a half-moon, and riding at anchor—the ships very near each other—a little to the eastward of Calais, and very near the shore. The English, under Howard Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins, were slowly following, and—so soon as Lord Henry, arriving from the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... wolf of the Mediterranean herds, was not here either. In his place were swimming other animals of the same species, whitish and long, with great fins, with eyes always open for lack of movable eyelids, and a mouth split like a half-moon, under the head at the beginning ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... her green plaid waist in the middle and flanked her with purple violets and red carnations. The ear-trumpet was laid upon the orchids just where she could reach it easily. Then her escorts took positions as a sort of half-moon guard behind and each held two or three American Beauties straight up and down as if they were the insignia of ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... looked about him, stiff with cold, he noticed that a half-moon had sailed up above the peaks. Its elusive light lay upon the slope, but ledge and stone seemed less distinct than their shadows, which were black as ebony. After that he commenced a struggle with himself, for, numbed as he was, he did not want to move, which ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... on the second night we lay in camp in a burnt forest. We were all tired and hungry, and—for Johnston was silent—a melancholy settled down upon the camp, while I lay nearly frozen under two blankets, watching a half-moon sail slowly above the fretted ridge of ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... Then that chastiser of foes, Savyasachin, beholding the host disposed in battle-array, aided by Dhrishtadyumna, disposed his troops in counter-array. And in opposition to that array of thine, the son of Pandu formed a fierce array after the form of the half-moon. And stationed on the right horn, Bhimasena shone surrounded by kings of diverse countries abundantly armed with various weapons. Next to him were those mighty car-warriors Virata and Drupada; and next to them was Nila armed with envenomed weapons. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... to the wind, on the starboard tack, just in time to avoid plunging headlong upon a reef projecting from the northern extremity of a small island, of the existence of which Dyer declared himself to be utterly ignorant. Luckily for the adventurers, there was a half-moon riding high in the sky, which, together with the highly phosphorescent state of the sea, and the admirable look-out which was being maintained by George's orders, enabled them to detect the danger in time to ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... my lady—a half-moon," said the porter approaching with that leisureliness which characterizes railway ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... merchandise had been piled up in heaps, close to where each of the owners would sleep, some on the open ground, some in tents erected by their servants. The evening meal had been cooked and eaten. The half-moon had risen, and at a little distance from the fire a troupe of musicians was performing—zithers were playing, cymbals clanking, tum-tums beating. From the peculiar rhythm of the drums, which all we thugs knew well, we were made aware that ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... sufficiency about its furnishings. Yet there was a certain dignity about it; it was unmistakably a best room, and not a place where one might make a litter or carry one's every-day work. You felt at once that somebody valued the prim old-fashioned chairs, and the two half-moon tables, and the thin carpet, which must have needed anxious stretching every spring to make it come to the edge of the floor. There were some mourning-pieces by way of decoration, inscribed with the names of Mrs. Patton's departed ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... of the whole fleet." To this Captain Douglas, in his report of the occurrences, adds the suggestive particular that the Carleton, by a lucky slant of wind, fetched "nearly into the middle of the rebel half-moon, where she anchored with a spring on her cable." The position was one of honorable distinction, but likewise of great exposure. Her first officer lost an arm; her captain, Lieutenant Dacres, was so severely wounded that he was about to be thrown overboard as dead; and Pellew, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... again put on his cap, a sort of head-piece that swelled over a peak shaped like a half-moon, the model of which he had taken from ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... tinkle of a sheep-bell. That morning he had come to the weekly market with Auld Jock, a farm laborer, and the Grassmarket of the Scottish capital lay in the narrow valley at the southern base of Castle Crag. Two hundred feet above it the time-gun was mounted in the half-moon battery on an overhanging, crescent-shaped ledge of rock. In any part of the city the report of the one-o'clock gun was sufficiently alarming, but in the Grassmarket it was an earth-rending explosion directly ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... December 21st, we are very apt to get into the Mayflower and sail around the New England coast. I think it will be good for us to-night to take another boat quite as good, and sail around New York harbor in the Half-Moon. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... eating his solitary, well-cooked dinner in his comfortable and handsome house, a house situated in one of the half-moon terraces which line and frame the more aristocratic side of Regent's Park, and which may, indeed, be said to have private grounds of their own, for each resident enjoys the use of a key to a portion of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... going very well with him. For one thing, the Half-Moon Trust Company had finally terminated all dealings with the gorgeous marble-pillared temple of high finance of which he was a director. For another, he had met the men of the West, and for them he had done things which he did not always care to think about. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... on high ground near the river, with quite a drive (in at one gate and out at the other) sweeping past the steps. Between the two gates was a half-moon of shrubs, to the left of the steps a conservatory, and to their right the walk leading to the tradesmen's entrance and the back premises; here also was the pantry window, of which more anon. The right house was the residence of an opulent stockbroker ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... front seat, both under the age of thirty, the one sitting on the right and acting as driver was tall, showily dressed, and of a haughty, aristocratic air; while his sharp features, which set out in the shape of a half-moon, the convex outline being preserved by a retreating forehead, an aquiline nose, and a chin sloping inward, combined to give him a cold, repulsive countenance, fraught with expressions denoting selfishness and insincerity. The other occupant of the same seat ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... place, and I was adopted into the chief's family. My mother used me kindly whilst she lived. After ten years she sickened and died. Since that time I have lived with the chief, my father. I have planted these flowers in rows to imitate the shores of the lake where I was born. That long half-moon curve you see was a wide, open bay, and that short turn yonder ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes

... general finish of the face has a great effect upon the eye. This old-fashioned brass-faced one we have here, with its arched top, half-moon slit for the day of the month, and ship rocking at the upper part, impresses me with the notion of its being an old cynic, elevating his brows, whose thoughts can be seen wavering between ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... I do—in Half-Moon Street. I'll engage two rooms for you. And as for to-morrow, I can spare you quite well. In fact I shall probably manage better alone. Can't you go up by that nice early morning train, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... ferny coasts, The river gazed at our strong, free ghosts, And with rocky fingers shed Apart the silver curls of its head; Laid its murmuring hands, On the reedy bands; And at gaze Stood in the half-moon's of brown, still bays; Like gloss'd eyes of stags Its round pools gaz'd from the rusty flags, At our ghostly crests At the bark-shields strong on our phantom breasts; And its tide Took lip and tongue and cried. "I have push'd apart The ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... a slope that had been eroded concave. It was at the very top of the half-moon angle, upside down, standing Ekstrohm on his head. Since he was not strapped into ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon

... see where I could find a place convenient for my abode. I fixed upon a rock in the evening, marked out a half-moon, intending to erect a wall, fortified with piles, lined within with pieces of cables, and ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... hand is rounded and plump, soft, white and dimpled, with tapering finger tips and filbert-shaped nails, snowing the little half-moon. ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... was still lit with that strange light—half-sun, half-moon, light. I felt refreshed, and the tired, weary ache had left me. I went slowly across to the window, and looked out. Overhead, the river of flame drove up and down, North and South, in a dancing semi-circle of fire. As a mighty ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... it was indeed lovely. High in the heavens floated a bright half-moon, across whose face the little white-edged clouds drifted in quick succession, throwing their gigantic shadows to the world beneath. All silver was the sleeping sea where the moonlight fell upon it, and when this was eclipsed, then it was all jet. To the right and left, up to the very borders ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... irregular partitions. For a full moon, cut a round hole in your scene, cover it with some translucent material, and hold a lamp behind it; the blue-glass shade must be up before the footlights. A similar hole, or, if low on the horizon, a half-moon-shaped one, with a crimson transparency, will do for a setting sun—then the rose-coloured glass will be ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the hill to Swan Lake, and have dined beside Half-moon Pond, and have "laid our course," as the sailors say, by our map and the sun, straight through the Scrub to visit Lake Ella, we come out upon the heights above Lake Hutchinson. The dark greens of the foreground soften into deep-blue shadows in the middle distance. Lake Hutchinson sparkles, a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... now to reach the house and shut the night outside, for every moment the cold and dark were growing heavier; the snow rasping under their feet, as its crust cracked; overhead, the sky-air frozen thin and gray, holding dead a low, watery half-moon; now and then a more earthy, thicker gust breaking sharply round the hill, taking their breath. It was only a step, however, and Tom was holding the house-door open, letting a ruddy light stream out, and with it a savory smell of supper. Tom halloed, and that blue-eyed pudge of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... in, And cuts me from the best of all my land, A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... Lander's lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts that engirdled it—an empty wilderness the mettlesome team swung across, and during the first few minutes the cold struck through them with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half-moon hung low above it, coppery red with frost, and there was no sound but the crunch beneath the runners, and the beat of hoofs that rang dully through the silence like ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... and taken by Lord Grey, of Groby, and Sir John Gall, of Hopton—brave officers in the service of the parliament, who, according to Whitelock, voted them a letter of thanks for this and other services. The assault was begun on the east side, with cannon planted on Pentridge Common, and a half-moon battery raised for its defence in this quarter was soon carried; but a breach being found impracticable, the cannon were removed to a wood on the opposite side. They soon opened a considerable breach in the wall, and captured the place. Colonel Dalby, who was the governor, was killed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various

... dear, that when Francois woke me at a very early hour on this eventful morning, while the keen stars were still glittering overhead, a half-moon, as sharp as a razor, beaming in the frosty sky, and a wicked north wind blowing, that blew the blood out of one's fingers and froze your leg as you put it out of bed;—shall I tell you, my dear, that when Francois called me, and said, "V'la vot' cafe, Monsieur Titemasse, buvez-le, ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... temper, and I shrink from suffering as from death. I would rather bear it than see it. Society always provides its good Samaritans; and you are one of them. Don't look modest. I went once through some of those damnable alleys near Half-Moon Court, the agreeable place where you spend so much of your leisure. I was looking for a subject to paint. For curiosity, I asked an urchin if he knew you. He flung his ragged cap twenty feet into the air, turned a somerset, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp



Words linked to "Half-moon" :   nail, phase of the moon, area, first quarter, region, last quarter, month



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