Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Lapping   /lˈæpɪŋ/   Listen
Lapping

noun
1.
Covering with a design in which one element covers a part of another (as with tiles or shingles).  Synonyms: imbrication, overlapping.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Lapping" Quotes from Famous Books



... opossum had got near the top of the tree, and out upon one of the branches that grew horizontally. Along this the lynx followed; and had arrived almost within reach of the object of his pursuit, when the opossum, suddenly lapping the branch with her tail, let herself down to the limb below! The lynx appeared for a moment as if about to spring after; but the limb was a slender one, and he was not sure that he might be able to grasp it. He, therefore, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... immensities of the great parks where embowered paths and corners were at certain hours as unexplored as the wilderness. When the Duchess was away or a day of holiday came, there were, more than once, a few hours on the river where, with boat drawn up under enshrouding trees, green light and lapping water, sunshine and silence, rare swans sailing serenely near as if to guard them made the background to the thrill of heavenly young ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... was eating her meat, the waiter said that he would go and get some milk for her. He accordingly went away again; but he soon returned, bringing a little milk with him in a saucer. The kitten, having by this time finished eating her meat, set herself eagerly at the work of lapping up the milk, which she did with an ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... it up from the garage for her. It's a fine, up- to-date car, and now that sis has it she's as happy as a kitten lapping ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose

... dreamed inexpressibly, and then I would feel the insidious lapping of the warm lake, rejoice a moment in the comforting heat, then realise with horror that the temperature was rising slowly but surely, and the inferno would begin all over again. Every joint and muscle was red-hot, each burning breath cut me ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... expect. However, I must make the most of you while you are young. Why, let's see, you will be six weeks old tomorrow, and you can lap every bit as well as I can. Yes, and it's quite a treat to see you lapping, and master thinks ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... the bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... just beginning to unpack when the flames burst out again. It was luridly grand in the twilight, the tongues of flame lapping up house after house, the jets of flame loaded with blazing fragments, the explosions, each one succeeded by a burst of flame, carrying high into the air all sorts of projectiles, beams and rafters paraffine ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... following the tracks which led to the dairy farm. As was his wont, he stepped out briskly along the spoor till he came to the dairy. There he found the bear lying down, and he had slain the sheep, and he was lying on them lapping their blood. Then said Finnbog: 'Stand up, Brain! make ready against me; that becomes you more than crouching over ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... absolutely refusing it, her cloak being thick, mine the reverse, he forc'd it upon me. Sir James a assisting to put my arms into the sleeves.—Nor was I yet enough of the amazon:—they even compell'd me to exchange my hat for his, lapping it, about my ears.—What a strange metamorphose!—I cannot think of it without laughing!—To complete the scene, no exchange could be made, till we reach'd the Abbey.—In this droll situation, we waited for the coach; and getting, in, streaming ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning

... to go back and look at the dark opening between the little trees from which blew the cold wind.... But perhaps the rich man had a beauteous daughter; history is full of the social successes of swine herds. Amyntas felt a strange thrill as the dark lake came before his mind; he almost heard the lapping of the water.... Kings' daughters had often looked upon lowly swineherds and raised them to golden thrones. But he could not help going to look again at the dark opening between the little trees. He walked back and again the cold breath blew against his face; he felt in it the icy ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... to look carefully about. A hundred feet below them the San Miguel, swollen by melting snows, foamed and roared over its boulder-strewn bed. Near the foot of the cliff one of the horses was impaled on a jagged rock; its head and shoulders in the lapping water. In mid-stream and further down the other was pressed by the current against a huge rock that lifted above the flood. No trace of the stage was to be seen. That, broken into fragments by the fall, had been ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... answered with confidence, but for his being equally at home wherever we go. HE does not trouble his head as I do, about the river at night. HE does not care for its creeping, black and silent, on our right there, rushing through sluice-gates, lapping at piles and posts and iron rings, hiding strange things in its mud, running away with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies faster than midnight funeral should, and acquiring such various experience between its cradle and its grave. It ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... for at the sound the priest crouches on himself; he throws the robe from his right arm; and so waits, ready to strike. The light falls on his pale features, the torment of his brow, the anguish of his drawn lips. Beside the lapping lake, and under the golden morning, he stands as Terror in the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... G. Frazer has before now pointed out, there are parallel and over-lapping forms of this cult, the name of the god, and certain details of the ritual, may differ in different countries, but whether he hails from Babylon, Phrygia, or Phoenicia, whether he be called Tammuz, Attis, or Adonis, the main lines of the story are fixed, and invariable. Always ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... bold Sir Bedivere: "I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... letter, Polly turned back to look at the barn where the object of her love was lapping up the gruel. Mrs. Brewster smiled indulgently at her intense young daughter, then reminded her of ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... up from my chair when he said this, just as cool and easy as if he had been talking of rabbits lapping milk. What on earth had I to do with city lions, and such animals? Wild beasts like these are in no part of my mission, ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... reclining prince. The hush grew deeper; but in the stillness Odo became aware of some unseen influence that seemed to envelope him in waves of exquisite sensation. It was as though the vast silence of the night had poured into the room and, like a dark tepid sea, was lapping about his body and rising to his lips. His thoughts, dissolved into emotion, seemed to waver and float on the stillness like sea-weed on the lift of the tide. He stood spell-bound, lulled, yielding ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... thinking to find Barbara. Instead, she sailed into a surging sea of passion. Doria crouched on a sofa hiding her face—the flame, poor little elf in the Nessus shirt, had been lapping her round, and with both hands outstretched she motioned away Jaffery who stood ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... proud that one of her great natural wonders has views like this. You gaze enraptured at the swishing, swirling, lapping mass of water above you, that falls from a series of terrace-like cascades. As it draws nearer, you are impressed by the glorious display of the wild, raging waters around you. How slowly you walk across the bridge, still noting the turbulent mass of water rushing past ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... these particular instruments, was not hypercritical, and so long as the players kept well together, and sounded no discords, their skill was judged to be excellent. The Barcarolle had an attractive swing about it, and a romantic suggestion of gondolas and lapping water and moonlight serenades. As the last notes of the air on the mandoline died away, Winona swept her thumb over the strings of her guitar in a tremendous final chord. It had quite a magnificent and professional ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... last Saturday afternoon of that month. Albert and Madeline were together, walking together along the beach from the knoll where they had met so often. It was six o'clock and the beach was deserted. There was little wind, the tiny waves were lapping and plashing along the shore, and the rosy light of the sinking sun lay warm upon the water and the sand. They were thinking and speaking of the summer which was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... Probably it is, as the author presented it to the Library himself. The Basil Eustathius of 1559, in 3 volumes folio, is as glorious a copy as is Mr. Grenville's of the Roman edition of 1542.[131] It is in its pristine membranaceous attire—the vellum lapping over the fore-edges, in the manner of Mr. Heber's copy of the first Aldine Aristotle,—most comfortable to behold! There is a fine large paper copy of Montaigne's Essays, 1635, folio, containing two titles and a portrait of the author. It is bound in red morocco, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... like hours the young man watched, waiting for the creatures to be done, hoping that they would go away. Fortunately the sphere lay between, and he was not forced to see too much. Only one portion of one of the monsters was visible, lapping out from ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... within the glow of the pavilion's lights, but still so near the lake that we could hear the water lapping the shore. A cadaverous, sandy-haired waiter brought things to eat, and we made brave efforts to appear hungry and hearty, but my high spirits were ebbing fast, and Von Gerhard was frankly distraught. One of the women singers ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... she crept on hands and knees towards me. Her face encountered my hands and rested between them. It was burning hot, and so were her lips, which kissed my palms alternately and thirstily as if she were lapping water. "Forgive me, my lord, forgive me," she urged me. "Oh, I am dreadfully ashamed! Forgive me ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... glorious morning. The sunshine was dancing and sparkling upon the water with a thousand gleaming flashes; the little waves came lapping playfully upon the sand and shingle to our feet, and made sweet music in the recesses of the rocks. We used to call these warm September days our Indian summer, and were wont to fancy that they were never so bright and ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous

... the edge of that water The collar-bone of a hare, Worn thin by the lapping of the water, And pierce it through with a gimlet, and stare At the old bitter world where they marry in churches, And laugh over the untroubled water At all who marry in churches, Through the white thin bone of ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... something occult why he should be singled out to be made miserable on a day like this? Why, among all the men he knew, he must go skulking about, lapping up cold mineral water and cocking one ear to the sounds of human ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... the boat nearing her. She turned to the shore whence she came; the dogs were lapping the water and howling there. She turned again to the centre of the lake. The brave, pretty creature was quite exhausted now. In a moment more the boat was on her, and the man at the oars had leaned ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... few hours in the young city just beginning to stir itself on the sleepy, sunny slopes where the prairies ran into the foothills, stretching one last long tongue far up the valley of the Bow and lapping at the feet of the eternal snows. His original plan had been to spend a day or two in Calgary, "sizing up" the land situation for himself before joining Riles, but the possibilities of the coal mine speculation had ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... springing step peculiar to the thoroughbred. Then like a flash, dropping her brush and laying back her ears and stretching her nose straight out, she would speed away with that quick, nervous, low-lying action which marks the rush of racers, when side by side and nose to nose lapping each other, with the roar of cheers on either hand and along the seats above them, they come straining up the home stretch. Returning from one of these arrowy flights, she would come curvetting back, now pacing side-wise as ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray

... arrahacounes, squirrells, etc. The clawes thrust through they let hang upon the cheeke to the full view, and some of their men there be who will weare in these holes a small greene and yellow-couloured live snake, neere half a yard in length, which crawling and lapping himself about his neck oftentymes familiarly, he suffreeth to kisse his lippes. Others weare a dead ratt tyed by the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... God's fields swept of this warm glow, When purest gold fell softly to the snow— Petals of gold from where there rolled on high A sea of tulips lapping all the sky. The blossoms clung so close I could not see One nook of empty blue ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts

... others buried beneath heaps on heaps of snow, called here snaw-wreaths. For the word snow-wreaths does not mean the lovely garlands hung upon every tree and bush in its feathery fall; but awful mounds of drifted snow, that may be the smooth, soft, white sepulchres of dead men, smothered in the lapping folds of the almost solid wind. Path or way was none before him. He could see nothing but the surface of a sea of froth and foam, as it appeared to him, with the spray torn from it, whirled in all shapes and contortions, and driven ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... would show them to me I would butt their heads together for being such idiots. We were now almost within sight of the General's home and I was not getting along very fast. I was determined to make a break. We were on a hill, where the trees were tall, almost over-lapping the road. To the right ran a path through the briars, a nearer way home. I asked her to wait and she stopped. The sun was down and it was now almost dark. And it was then that I told her that I loved her. I don't know how I acted or what I said, but I know that ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... no mind touch! Never had Dalgard penetrated into the cave cities of the sea folk before without inquiries and open welcome lapping about him. Were they entering a place of massacre where no living merman remained? Yet there was that whistling which had led Sssuri ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... hour, and the air was drowsy and still. The voices and laughter of the nut gatherers came back to them from the deeper woods in the distance, and the crackling of the fire where Bertrand attended to the roasting of the corn near by, and the gentle sound of the lapping water on the river bank came to them ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... stood at the quayside, listening to the water lapping against the iron girders, and straining their eyes to catch a last glimpse of the fleet of fishing boats. Of a sudden from out the blackness others appeared. Old Black Whiskers gave a muttered order, and like a well-drilled army the men were ready again, this time flocking to the side of the quay ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... has granted himself rest and indulgence. Half in his sleep and half in his waking thought he sees the stream rippling below the banks and circling in pleasant eddies by rock and mossy edge, while the water-lilies nestle down their soft cheeks to the lapping water in the sheltered nooks, and the willows bend down and kiss the stream with the swaying tips of their hundred fingers, and little gleams of golden sunshine steal through the branches and touch the soft ripples here and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... consternation, discovered, to its inexpressible joy, that, an enormous jug having been smashed by Bounce along with the other things, the floor was covered in part with a lakelet of rich cream. With almost closed eyes, intermittent purring, quick-lapping tongue, and occasional indications of a tendency to choke, that fortunate animal revelled in this unexpected flood of delectation, and listened to the conversation; but, not being gifted with the ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... was low, low and strange, so regular and so unbroken and insistent, that it arrested, she knew not what. Did it arrest the floating and the swaying in the enfolding sea? Was the drifting slower? She could not rouse herself to think, she wanted to go on. Did she no longer feel the water lapping against her lip? Something was calling to Something still. Once, aeons ago, before the white sea had borne her away, ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... brother, Housed a changeling in his swaddlings For to fret my own poor mother. Pules it in the candle light Wi' a cheek so lean and white, Chinkling up its eyne so wee Wailing shrill at her an' me. It we'll neither rock nor tend Till the Silent Silent send, Lapping in their awesome arms Him they stole with spells and charms, Till they take this changeling creature Back to its own fairy nature — Cry! Cry! As long as may be, Ye shall ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare

... deceptive phenomenon of nature. May it never be the lot of my reader to be misled by the illusive mirage as I have been. How could I mistake vapor for clear, gurgling water? Yet, how many times was I here deceived! Visions of great lakes and broad rivers rose up before me, lapping emerald green shores, where I could cool my parched tongue and lave in their crystal depths; yet to-day those waters are as far off as ever, and exist only in my hopes of Paradise. Not until I stand by the "River of Life" ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... seemed to Francis, in a life which during the last few months had been full of vivid sensations. From outside came the lazy sounds of the drowsy summer morning—the distant humming of a mowing machine, the drone of a reaper in the field beyond, the twittering of birds in the trees, even the soft lapping of the stream against the stone steps. The man whose hand he was holding seemed to Francis to have become somehow transformed. It was as though he had dropped a mask and were showing a more human, a more kindly self. Francis wondered no longer at the halting ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... primrose-tinted butter, white cheeses wrapped in grape-leaves, clotted cream that quivered at a touch, tall pitchers of whey, loppered milk ready for the spoon and buttermilk in new-washed churns. Through the moist freshness of the stone room the brook ran, chuckling and lapping; great stones roughly mortared together made the floor on either side of it; the Dame stood high on wooden clogs and hummed a ballad wherein the birds sang in the morning, but at night the eggs were broken, and the wind was ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various

... silent into the shanty, Pilchard stood and looked at Swan's prostrate form. No sound came to them but the gentle lapping of the waves. Sober as a dove Day hovered in the sky, and that solemn change which is Death was somewhere near, hiding and waiting; and Pilchard and Death and the breaking Day were for one second alone. And Pilchard was overwhelmed with terror. Some spectre had seized him, and he ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... dig a pit six feet long, five feet wide, and thirty inches deep. Make a frame of the same size, with the back two feet high, the front fifteen inches, and the sides sloped from the back to the front. Make two sashes, each three feet by five, with the panes of glass lapping like shingles instead of having cross-bars. Set the frame over the pit, which should then be filled with fresh horse-dung, which has not lain long nor been sodden by water. Tread it down hard; then put into the frame light and very rich soil, six or eight inches deep, and cover ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... schooner onto the deck of the steamship, and carried abroad in safety, while their partners mourned them as dead; of men, dozing in their bunks, startled suddenly by the grinding crash of steel and timbers, and left gazing wide-eyed at the gray sea lapping the side of their berths, where an instant before the tough oak skin of the schooner had been; of men stunned by some flying bit of wood, who, all unconscious, floated on the top of the hungry waves, until as by Divine direction, their inert bodies touched ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... was an impious act to destroy a tree without cause. This nymph of the woods has emerged from the tree-trunk home or from some rocky fastness and taken the urn of a naiad, a sister nymph of brook and fountain, to give drink to the gentle, confident fawn that is her charge. The little animal is lapping the stream that flows from the overturned vase. This study in white marble follows tradition and is regarded chiefly for its gentle grace and careful tooling. It is harmoniously composed and has a beautiful surface. ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... the declining Indian tribes before the protruding line of white settlement, and their ultimate confinement to ever shrinking reservations. In studying increase of population, it sees in Switzerland chalet and farm creeping higher up the Alp, as the lapping of a rising tide of humanity below; it sees movement in the projection of a new dike in Holland to reclaim from the sea the land for another thousand inhabitants, movement in Japan's doubling of its territory by conquest, in order to house ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... the sky of midsummer, and fishes were popping their heads out of the water in every direction. The head of every fish was twice as large as a football, and had two rows of teeth. But Pei-Hang threw a red seed into the waves which were lapping the shore, and in a moment, instead of the wide blue river, a little brook ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below,—the dark and restless waters—the cold and luring waters, as they called. He stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... bent down and rose up again, whispering, lapping against the sides of the boat like little waves. The flax-field before them appeared to be infinite, but presently a white mist enveloped them, and they heard the plashing of real waves, but above the mist they ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... the water lapping against his chin. The taste was brackish, but not entirely salt, and though it stung his lips, the liquid relieved a measure ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... the sea she saw; but such a great, strange, silent sea, for there were no waves. Griselda was seated on the shore, close beside the water's edge, but it did not come lapping up to her feet in the pretty, coaxing way that our sea does when it is in a good humour. There were here and there faint ripples on the surface, caused by the slight breezes which now and then came softly round Griselda's face, but that was all. King Canute might have sat "from then ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... married. Six years. Ten years ago: ninetyfour he died yes that's right the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the inner alderman. Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with selfcovered buttons. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... sound of human voices, and all that I heard was the roar of the motor and the swish of the wind through wires and struts, sounds which have no human quality in them, and are no more companionable than the lapping of the waves to a man adrift on a raft in mid-ocean. Underlying this feeling, and no doubt in part responsible for it, was the knowledge of the fallibility of that seemingly perfect mechanism which rode so steadily through the air; of the quick response that ingenious arrangement of inanimate matter ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... pink, or lavender, regular, 1 to 1-1/2 in. broad, solitary or a pair, borne on elongated peduncles, generally with pair of leaves at their base. Calyx of 5 lapping, pointed sepals; 5 petals, woolly at base; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with 5 styles. Fruit: A slender capsule pointed like a crane's bill. In maturity it ejects seeds elastically far from the parent plant. Stem: 1 to ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... Dedalus coarsely. He has a handsome face, mind you, in repose. You should see that fellow lapping up his bacon and cabbage of a cold winter's day. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... the conditions, Ted felt no nervousness about remaining by himself in the shack and perhaps every premonition of evil might have escaped him had he not been awakened one morning very early by a ripple of lapping water that seemed near at hand. Sleepily he opened his eyes and looked about him. The floor of the hut was wet and through the crack beneath the door a thread of muddy water was steadily seeping. In an instant he was on his feet and as he ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... to listen to the ripple of the water among the grass and pebbles; the tongue and lips of the lake are lapping and whispering all along. It is the merest poetry; but you are so romantic, you ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... you have been untrue to the eternal fidelity which you vowed to me here by this very stream! Oh, but I cannot believe it was thirty years ago, for not a grass-blade or a pebble has been altered; and I perfectly remember the lapping of water under those lichened rocks, and that continuous file of ripples yonder, which are ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... the orrery changing. There were clouds apparently painted on it where no clouds had been. And there was an indication of movement in the green of the forests and the blue of the oceans, as if trees were whipping in the wind and waves lapping the shores. ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... before him. The lock was battered and there had been an attempt to pry loose its staples, an attempt which had left betraying gouges on the door frame. But misused as it had been, the lock yielded to the key and Val went in. Warned by a lapping sound from beneath, it did not take him long to get the chest, relock the door, and head ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... and ears once more, for you are growing sleepy with my long sermon. Watch the sleepy shining water, and the sleepy green mountains. Listen to the sleepy lapping of the ripple, and the sleepy sighing of the woods, and let Lady Why talk to you through them in "songs without words," because they are deeper than all words, till you, too, fall asleep with your head ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley

... the approach. There is a similar beach to the north-east, with admirable bathing in the tepid, brackish waves and a fine view of the long leonine Sierra. The outlying rocks, capped with guano, look like moored boats and awnings. The sea-breeze was delicious; the lapping, dazzling stream made sweet music, and the huge cotton-trees with laminar buttresses gave ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... stretch before him. He stopped, startled, as if he had unexpectedly sighted the heavenly strand, and gazed blinking at the stretch of blue with the wide white shore and the boom of an organ following the lapping of each white crested wave. Those palm trees certainly made it look queer like Saxy's Pilgrim's Progress picture book. Then the panic for home and his business came upon him and he slid weakly down the shallow white steps, and crunched his white feet on the gravel wincing. He had just taken ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... retraced his way without pause till he caught sight of the town chapel glimmering in the sunlight against the darkening horizon above the river. He was almost back where his comrades had left him; so he sat down to rest. The cowherd had driven his cattle back to Three Rivers.[4] The river came lapping through the rushes. There was a clacking of wild-fowl flocking down to their marsh nests; perhaps a crane flopped through the reeds; but Radisson, who had laughed the nervous fears of the others to scorn, suddenly gave a start at the lonely sounds of twilight. ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... summer evenings Sat the little Hiawatha; Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, Heard the lapping of the waters, Sounds of music, words of wonder; "Minne-wawa!" said the Pine-trees, "Mudway-aushka!" said ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow

... ham is not to be served whole, the simplest and most economical way is to begin near the smaller end and cut in very thin slices, on each side of the bone. Divide the slices and arrange them neatly on the dish, one lapping over another, with ...
— Carving and Serving • Mrs. D. A. Lincoln

... skilful freedom of Japanese art the pattern of this decoration seemed to suggest the shrubbery about a spring, for there were strange plants with huge leaves broadly outlined by the golden threads, and in the midst of them water was seen bubbling from the earth and lapping gently over the edge of the fountain. As the returned wanderer thrust his arms into the dressing-gown with its symbolic embroidery on the skirt and sleeves, he remembered distinctly the dismal day when he had bought it in a little ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... while he stood with rifle ready, a large puma, or American lion, emerged from a point a couple of rods away, walked in his stealthy fashion to the edge of the river and began lapping ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... rose from the bosom of the whirling river and stealthily gathered about the island like a beleaguering army of phantoms, and the solemn hush of night was broken only by the loud chirr of the insects and the lapping ripple of the ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... through the parks, watching the young people sitting, two and two, in the shadow. I smiled at the sight, for in fancy I could hear what they were saying. Then I wandered over to the lakefront and stood a long time, with the waves lapping musically against the rocks below, and the moonlight glistening on a million reflectors. The great stretch of water in front, and the great city behind me sang low in concord, while the stars looked down smiling at the refrain. "Be calm, little mortal, be calm," ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... Half-seen forms, mutilated, bleeding, were tearing with teeth and nails at their dreadful prison. Then for a while the smoky cloud involved everything in darkness. A moment after, the red fiery tongues came lapping upward, and a red, glowing halo encircles the fatal wreck. The first and second carriages were already burned. How long would it take the flames to reach the top? How many of the sufferers were yet alive? What power in heaven or earth ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... not differ from the modern accounts; the style of the "ear-rings," however, seems to have interested Strachey greatly,—especially the "wild beast's claws" stuck in, and, above all, "a small greene and yellow-colored live snake, neere half a yard in length, crawling and lapping himself about his neck." Truly, we can scarcely be surprised that the early settlers looked with suspicion on men who wore such unchristian-like ornaments, and that they more than suspected them to be in league with ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... needs to be told what a rush of armed men can be. With speed which was simply desperate they ran up the hill, and, circling to the left, made a ring round the topmost plateau, where stood the King. When the ring was complete, the stream went on lapping round and round till the whole tally was exhausted. In the meantime another Division had followed, its leader joining close behind the end of the first. Then came another and another. An unbroken line circled and circled round the hill ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... appropriating this recent glory of Venetian workmanship in its own family emblem, that there is no present need of distance between him and his rival, and resting upon his oar, as he stands with a proud and graceful bearing of victory, he allows the gondola to glide back into position with the lapping of the water. ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... looked at next day, after 15 hrs., this margin, but not the other, was found folded inwards, like the helix of the human ear, to the breadth of 1/10 of an inch, so as to lie partly over the row of flies (fig. 15). The glands on which the flies rested, as well as those on the over-lapping margin which had been brought into contact with the flies, ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... save by the lapping and plashing waters. Even the crooning hymns of the old negro woman had died away; and the moans of the suffering child, and the sobs of the weary mother, and the eager exclamations of Ada Greene (for such I ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... the little deck of the Juno to keep his blood in stir. There was no moon. The islands and promontories on the great sheet of water were black save for the occasional glow of an Indian camp-fire. There was not a sound but the lapping of the waves, the roar of distant breakers. The great silver stars and the little green stars looked down upon a solitude that was almost primeval, yet mysteriously disturbed by the restless currents in the brain of a man who had little in common ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... few steps he paused to listen, but no sound save that of night-birds and the lapping of little waves on the lake shore came to his ears. The silence was profound, and assured him that even the savages, wearied with long fighting, were snatching a few hours of sleep. On either side of him lay the still smoking ruins of the post, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... the splash and lapping of the waves and the sound of the wind, it was as quiet as the proverbial graveyard. Not a light showed on shore, and the gleam from the search lamp of the Porpoise cut the darkness ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood

... surges up in imperious, impetuous strength. Turn to "See, the heavens smile": note how the resonant swinging chords and that lovely figure playing on the top give one an instant vision of vast, translucent sea-depths and the ripples lapping above. Look at "Come unto these yellow sands" and "Full fathom five": he almost gives us the colour of the sea and the shore. These things did not come by accident, nor do they exist only in an enthusiastic fancy. They ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... nothing while he sped ashore. The keel clashed on the stones. He stood on the forward seat, holding out his hand. They were alone, in the ripple-lapping silence. She rose slowly, slowly stepped over the water in the bottom of the old boat. She took his hand confidently. Unspeaking they sat on a bleached log, in a russet twilight which hinted of autumn. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... semi-circling mass of foliage under the sombre sky, no other houses nor sign of such. He could not even hear the rumbling of the Sydney streets nor the hoarse whispering of the crowded city; not even a single footfall on the road they had come down. For the faint lap-lap-lapping of water filled the pauses, when the puffy breeze failed to play on its leafy pipes. Here a Mazzini might hide himself and here the malcontents of Sydney might gather in safety to plot and ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... cold the physician shivered and went and closed the door, but as he turned again he saw the Pestilence lapping at his mixing, who sprang and set one paw upon Adro's shoulder and another upon his cloak, while with two he clung to his waist, and looked him in ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... still on the sunny side of forty the more remote West has passed from rollicking boyhood to its responsible majority. The frontier has gone to join the good Indian. In place of the ranger who patrolled the border for "bad men" has come the forest ranger, type of the forward lapping tide of civilization. The place where I write this— Tucson, Arizona— is now essentially more civilized than New York. Only at the moving picture shows can the old West, melodramatically overpainted, be shown to the manicured sons and daughters of those, still living, ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... a shelf in the closet. It was on a chair near the door where his mother had put it and then forgotten it. As the key was outside Tim made his exit the way he came in, stopping a moment to look at the milk the cat was lapping with a great deal ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... off the way of the boat a little, for water was lapping over the bows, and even he had tacitly agreed that we were heeling over more ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... and down, listening to the mournful lapping of the waves on the beach, and the sigh of the dripping rain. The stimulus of excited action had passed and they felt heavy and depressed. They could see only a few yards over the lake, and must depend there upon ear to warn them of a new attack that way. The fact added ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... his yacht, but she held her position only for a moment. The tremendous gusts were too much for Edward's nerves, and he luffed up, in order to escape one. The Maud went tearing by her, with the Skylark over lapping her ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... Whiting was inspiriting. It was a beautiful night. There was not a cloud in the sky and no Moon, which made the stars all the brighter. Everything was still, save the constant lapping of the great lake on the sandy shore, but ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... has chosen his mill so as to mark this great fact of windmill nature; how high he has set it; how slenderly he has supported it; how he has built it all of wood; how he has bent the lower planks so as to give the idea of the building lapping over the pivot on which it rests inside; and how, finally, he has insisted on the great leverage of the beam behind it, while Stanfield's lever looks more like a prop than a thing to turn the roof with. And he has done all this fearlessly, though none ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... one glance was sufficient to convince him that the ship was not running any danger. Everything about it presented a normal aspect. The sea, still dark, was gently lapping the sides of the vessel which continued going forward with regular motion. The decks were cleared of passengers. They were all sleeping in their staterooms. Only on the bridge he saw a group of persons:—the captain and all the officers, some ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... The water's lapping whispers stole Into my brain, and there effaced All human memories from my soul,— An atom in ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... he had seen. "It is well," said Arthur; "now, bear me to the water's edge; and hasten, I pray thee, for I have tarried overlong and my wound has taken cold." So Sir Bedivere raised the King on. his back and bore him tenderly to the lonely shore, where the lapping waves floated many an empty helmet and the fitful moonlight fell on the upturned faces of the dead. Scarce had they reached the shore when there hove in sight a barge, and on its deck stood three tall women, robed all ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that drifted her off her moorings, out ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... for old Jack, and as the old fellow's senses of sight and smell failed so that he could not go hunting himself, Jim used to do it for both. Every day he brought Jack mice and squirrels and other game as long as he lived. Then, too, he used to wash Jack, lapping him all over as a mother cat does her kitten. He did this, too, as long as he lived. The feebler old Jack grew the more Jim did for him, and when Jack finally died of old ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... and slumbery Fal seemed nearly a soundless thing. But all the real river-noises were there; the birds were singing endlessly in the groves; the gulls with their hoarse language were flying seawards from the mud-flats of Truro; the water was gently lapping the sides of the boat; and voices could be heard from the distances higher up and lower down the stream. And behind all this prattle of the Estuary hung the murmur ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... and through lowland cradling the treacherous muskeg, spruce-shielded and moss-bedded, he followed the trail of old Shag and his Cow mate. Ever at his flank, one on either side, sped the young Wolves, and, lapping their quarters, loped in easy stride their giant Sire. In the Dog-Wolf's heart were revenge and the prospect of much eating, and the diplomacy that was to save ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser

... by shoutings. Suddenly there boomed out once more, full and unmistakable, the voice of the great drum of Africa. The beating was now rapid and sonorous, and the sound of the drum was accompanied by a savage volume of cries. A mass of shadow appeared at the end of the lane, soon lapping over into the yard in ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... started, but it certainly did look now as though they were in the thick of a tragedy. In the crisp October moonlight the Count's face shone deathly pale; they could see the fingers of his right hand working convulsively; they could hear his labored breathing. Below him was the deep, black water, lapping and rippling as the swirl of the tide sucked it into the dark, slimy recesses among the piles. In its bosom was horrible death. The Count stepped out upon the very edge of the pier and gazed wofully down upon the swelling ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... moment when the eyes of each seem to cry 'O yes!' to the other, and the gates fly back; all the hidden light springs forth, the woods swim round, and the lips meet with a strange shock, while the eyes of the spirit close in a lapping dream of ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... there, though you people may know of some. In The Ontario Plains section south of Lake Ontario is one of our big fruit belts in the State. Some walnuts are also grown here. Consequently this area has in it apple, walnut and cherry maggot flies, and, of course, they will be lapping over in all those areas into surrounding territories. But this gives you an idea, in a general way, of the distribution of the host plants and the flies about which I ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... around me, and all was smooth, placid sea. I looked upwards and saw a cloudless sky, the full moon was almost as bright as the sun itself, so much so that the stars barely showed themselves. Now and then I could hear the gentle lapping of the water against the ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking

... musing, all at once everything became strangely still around him, he heard neither the churning of the propeller, nor the rattling of the rudder chains, nor the lapping of the waves, nor the whistling of the wind, nor any other sound. It seemed to him that the ship had suddenly gone to the bottom, and that he and his mates would never be shrouded or laid in their coffins, but ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... the breeze, Mock the sighing of the willows, Mock the lapping of the billows, Mock not human sympathies; Slow chime, sad chime, mock me not, With that loved voice ne'er forgot, Flooding me with tears blood-hot; ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... as they sat and idly talked, an excellent view of all the land around the bay, and of the pale, clear sunset shining in the western skies. They lay almost motionless in the lapping water: the light breeze scarcely stirred the loose canvas. From time to time they could hear a sound of calling or laughing from the distant fishing-boats; and that only seemed to increase the silence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... dark for a long time. The house was so still, everybody was out—even some of the servants. It was so warm, I raised the windows and I sat here for hours looking out over the lake. I could hear it lapping and washing against the shore—almost like a sea. And it was so still, so still; and I was thinking of the time when I was a little girl back at Barrington, years and years ago, picking whortle-berries down in the 'water lot,' and how I got lost ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... the long notes died away with sweet echoes as if from distant heights. All around us the rank, woody growth was full of murmurs and movements of life, and perfumes from unseen blossoms disturbed one's thoughts with sweet insistence at every gust of wind, and always one heard the lapping of the sea-water through all its countless ways, for well it loves this country of Virginia and steals upon it, like a lover who will not be gainsaid, through meadows and thick woods and coarse swamps, until it is hard sometimes to say, when the tide be in, ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... seemed to be keeping his crew perched along the upper rail, where their weight had the effect of holding the boat with the narrower beam from toppling over on her side. It looked like a close shave, as Jud Elderkin said, with that swift current rushing past on the port quarter, and almost lapping the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... these objects the cotton must be "combed." First, the slivers are passed through several sets of rollers, each set moving faster than the preceding, so that the strands are drawn out fine and thin. In this condition the cotton passes to a doubling frame, and from thence to the lapping frame, a device combining six laps into one and drawing the whole out into one fine, delicate, ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... thing is there as luck, and I should say, that hath so much favour of. God, seeing the wise man saith that 'a prudent wife is given properly of the Lord.' Yet I reckon that the wisest in the world can scarce keep him warm of a winter day by lapping him in his wisdom; and the fairest and sweetest lady shall lack somewhat to eat beside her own sweetness. Could I see my way thereto, trust me, I would not ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... Chapter X, to certain forms of scarfing and lapping pieces. This chapter has to do with a variety of other structural forms, but principally with such as are used in heavy building work, and in cases where neither fish plates nor ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... less into the inside of the joint, and materially impede the current of water. The mouths of the joints are also turned outwards, and form a shoulder, as at B. The intention of this is probably to assist in securing the leather in its place, and to prevent the lapping from slipping. The effects of it are as follows:—First, from the leather being strained over this projection, it becomes liable to be cut by every accidental injury, and very soon cracks and gives way, ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... depth on depth of blue, serene beyond the grating of thorn-pointed leaves, sent his spirit to his red brick house and silent, sunny garden, with the gate in the ivied wall, and the six steps down to the boat and the lapping water. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... the horse's head at right angles from the way they were going, and they pitched onward for another hundred yards. Then they came out upon the hard, smooth sand, and heard the water lapping on the shore. Captain Perez got out once more and walked along the strand, bending forward as he walked. Soon ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... in Kenmore. It was springtime, and the red rocks and hemlocks shone and the water sparkled; she heard it lapping against the tiny islands, so glad was it to be free of the winter's grasp. Some one was dancing to the Spring's Call—a small, graceful thing with a bright red cape flying on the wind, the soft wind of ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... not flattened but 4-sided, curved, gradually enlarging from the tips to the bases, which are decurrent, and on the young twigs completely cover the stem; cones rounded; the scales not lapping 105. Cryptomeria. ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... snake drew near, and watched it throw up its head again as if it was smelling something nice, while its forky tongue darted out greedily. At length its eyes fell upon the milk, and in an instant it was lapping it so fast that it was a wonder the creature did not choke, for it never took its head from the bowl as long as a drop was left in it. After that it dropped on the ground and slept heavily. This was what the princess had been waiting for, and, ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... laugh. "Ottawa! Why, it's some of the big guns at Ottawa that's gettin' the cream of it all. The little fellows are just lapping up the drips. Look at them big concessions they're selling for a song, good placer ground that would mean pie to the poor miner, closed tight and everlastingly tied up. How is it done? Why, there's some politician ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... were heard, save the water lapping among the rocks, and giving out a musical gurgling in ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... where low-hung clouds swept curtainwise to make the compass seem like a lie-begotten trick. There were gorges, hewn when the Titans needed dirt to build the awful Himalayas—shadow-darkened—sheer as the edge of Nemesis. Long-reaching, pile on pile, the over-lapping spurs leaned over them. The wind blew through them amid silence that swallowed and made nothing of the din ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... Glue. Cements. Transparent Cement. U. S. Government Gum. To Make Different Alloys. Bell-metal. Brass. Bronzes. Boiler Compounds. Celluloid. Clay Mixture for Forges. Modeling Clay. Fluids for Cleaning Clothes, Furniture, etc. Disinfectants. Deodorants. Emery for Lapping Purposes. Explosives. Fulminates. Files, and How to Keep Clean. Renewing Files. Fire-proof Materials or Substances. Floor Dressings. Stains. Foot Powders. Frost Bites. Glass. To Frost. How to Distinguish. Iron and Steel. To ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe



Words linked to "Lapping" :   covering, imbrication, overlapping



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org