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Leap

verb
(past & past part. leapt or leaped; pres. part. leaping)
1.
Move forward by leaps and bounds.  Synonyms: bound, jump, spring.  "The child leapt across the puddle" , "Can you jump over the fence?"
2.
Pass abruptly from one state or topic to another.  Synonym: jump.  "Jump to a conclusion" , "Jump from one thing to another"
3.
Jump down from an elevated point.  Synonyms: jump, jump off.  "Every year, hundreds of people jump off the Golden Gate bridge" , "The widow leapt into the funeral pyre"
4.
Cause to jump or leap.  Synonym: jump.



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"Leap" Quotes from Famous Books



... the way of helping and saving men.—The world's way was to leap into the seat of power at any cost, and from the height of universal authority administer the affairs of the world. But Christ knew better. He saw that He must take the form of a servant, and humble Himself to the lowest. If He would save men, He cannot ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... Killowen keep Running down the vaulted way, To the cellar dark by day, Took the ten steps at a leap. ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson

... bench by the side of the table, besides paying double as much for the country wine he had drunk as if it had been fine Falernian and without asking for his reckoning. The host looked at him in astonishment when, finally, he sprang with a grand leap on to the back of the tall beast, without laying his hand on it; and it seemed even to Publius himself as though he had never since boyhood felt so fresh, so extravagantly happy as at ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... getting a bit degoutee of Jazz bands and steps. When ces autres get hold of anything it always begins to leave off being amusing. There's really a new step, however, the Peace Leap, that hasn't yet been quite use and spoilt by the outlying tribes. The origin of it was a little funny. Chippy Havilland was at one of Kickshaw's Jazz dinners one night, where people fly out of their seats to one-step and two-step between the courses and during the courses and all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various

... his members, that gentleman bounded forth into space, struck the earth, ricocheted, and brought up with his arms about a palm. His mind was quite a stranger to these events; the expression of anguish that deformed his countenance at the moment of the leap was probably mechanical; and he suffered these convulsions in silence; clung to the tree like an infant; and seemed, by his dips, to suppose himself engaged in the pastime of bobbing for apples. A more ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... should grow colder, this considerate gentleman allows us to hear from him almost daily. To be sure he is like some great antediluvian grasshopper, and seems capable of spanning this almost boundless continent at a leap. He is in Maine in the morning—he is making a speech in Minnesota when the evening shades prevail; but wherever he is, the roll of his eloquence reaches us, and however busy he may be, he is never too busy to write letters to tho newspapers. The great man comes very near to solving the problem ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various

... to face with a man, who stood looking at her with friendly eyes, which in their earnest expression and grave dark brows curiously resembled the eyes of the picture. Her heart gave one leap, and then seemed to stand still. There could be only one man in the world with such a face as that, and in that house. Yes, it was a modified copy of the portrait—younger, the features less rugged, the skin paler and less tawny, the expression less intense. Yet even here, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... gravity becoming his age and size, and seemed to consider himself called upon to preserve a great degree of dignity and decorum in our society. As he jogged along a little distance ahead of us, the young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry at his ears, and endeavor to tease him into a gambol. The old dog would keep on for a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now and then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his young companions. At ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... less disturbed by this than were other Tory leaders. He had long before, in his historical novels, advocated an aristocratic leadership of democracy, as against the middle class. Derby called the Bill "a leap in the dark," but ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... sell," he suggested lightly; and glancing up at Perucca's face, saw something there that made him leap to his feet. "Hulloa! ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... the flanks and to the high tops, who were to give a signal if they espied anything anywhere; ordering them to burn everything inflammable which lay in their path.) "As for ourselves," he continued, "we need not look to find cover in any direction; for it is a long step back to Heraclea and a long leap across to Chrysopolis, and the enemy is at the door. The shortest road is to Calpe Haven, where we suppose Cheirisophus, if safe, to be; but then, when we get there, at Calpe Haven there are no vessels for us to ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... recited the decree again. A shout of joy followed it, so loud that it was heard as far as the sea. The whole assembly rose and stood up; there was no further thought of the entertainment; all were only eager to leap up and salute and address their thanks to the deliverer and champion of Greece. What we often hear alleged, in proof of the force of human voices, was actually verified upon this occasion. Crows that were accidentally flying over the course, fell down dead into it. The ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... still a standing joke with Fritz. "I'm sure when they rushed at me so fiercely they seemed quite as awful as the sight of that big brute up there on the cliff, who looked just as if he were going to leap down on us." ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... he picked up his cap and ran aft, and with one desperate leap reached the wharf in safety, when he turned and danced as before with rage, and his last audible words were, "Be gar, I shall go to the sperm court ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... to her room, her heart was beating wildly. This sudden plunge into the unknown was blinding, even though she longed to make it. Having come to the edge of the precipice she feared the leap, in spite of the conviction that life-long happiness ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... sublimity of gods can feel; To shudder not at yonder dark abyss, Where phantasy creates her own self-torturing brood, Right onward to the yawning gulf to press, Around whose narrow jaws rolleth hell's fiery flood; With glad resolve to take the fatal leap, Though danger threaten thee, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... filling her sheet with a loud paean of sincere rejoicing. To Kate, down in Westmoreland, it had seemed that her brother had already done everything. He had already tied Fortune to his chariot wheels. He had made the great leap, and had overcome the only obstacle that Fate had placed in his way. In her great joy she almost forgot whence had come the money with which the contest had been won. She was not enthusiastic in many things;—about herself she was never so; but now ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... me, should appeal to those who, at the present time, are agitating for that very thing. Had the legislators and the people of 1838 been as wise and clear-headed as the poor artist-inventor, a great leap forward in enlightened statecraft would have been undertaken at a cost inconceivably less than would now be the case. Competent authorities estimate that to purchase the present telegraph lines in this country at their market valuation would cost the Government in the neighborhood of $500,000,000; ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... length to turn in the water, the thresher darted, here, there and everywhere, like an eel—just getting out of his reach when the other thought he had got him and had opened his ponderous jaws to crush him. It was at this moment that his agile tormentor, seizing his opportunity, would leap out of the water and give the whale a "whack" on his side behind the fin, one of his tenderest spots, the blow resounding far and wide over the water and probably leaving a weal if not an indentation ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... the rifle, And smite with spear and knife, Let no base cunning stifle Each lesson of your life: How won your gallant sires The country which ye keep? By soul, which still inspires The soil on which ye weep! Leap up! their spirit fires, And rouse ye from ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... nature that they must ever stand as obstacles to the straightforward view of sensitive eyes upon the natural world. Wordsworth shows us the ruins of an aspen-wood, a blighted hollow, a dreary place forlorn because an innocent creature, hunted, had there broken its heart in a leap from the rocks above; grass would not grow, nor shade linger ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell

... the occasion to give their families a holiday. Some occupied benches in front of the stand, though a larger number were seated around in groups, within hearing of the speaker, but paying very little attention to what he was saying. A few were whittling—a few pitching quoits, or playing leap-frog, and quite a number were having a quiet game of whist, euchre ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... British marines, headed by Captain Snipes and Lieutenant Matson, leap from boats and rush toward them as they stood on ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... day for leaping stockades and six-barred fences. He lived to be twelve years governor of Tennessee and the idol of a whole people. She shared all his love and all his honors; but in her highest estate she was never ashamed of her lowly days, and never tired of relating her desperate leap at Watauga; and, even in her old age, she would merrily add, "I would make it again—every day in the week—for such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... Empire, whose mortars loom threatening from one coast of the Channel, whose flag floats over the two greatest harbors of Europe and over the Congo basin—England would have to come into a friendly agreement as a power of equal strength, entitled to equal rights. If it is unwilling to do so? Lion, leap! On our young soil we await thee! The day of adventure wanes. But for the German who dares unafraid to desire things the harvest labor of heroic warriors ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... in the Empire.*—The key to the politics of Austria is afforded by the racial composition of the Empire's population. In our own day there is a tendency, in consequence of the spread of socialism and of other radical programmes which leap across racial and provincial lines, toward the rise of Austrian parties which shall be essentially inter-racial in their constituencies. Yet at the elections of 1907—the first held under the new electoral law—of the twenty-six party affiliations which succeeded in obtaining ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... deadly level, but before he could fire, Ashton-Kirk was seen to leap into the hall like a panther. There was a short, sharp blow, with all the power of the lithe body behind it; Fenton's grasp relaxed and he fell to the floor. The watchers saw Mary totter, and noted Ashton-Kirk catch her in ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... Pipistrello, five-and-twenty years old, and strong as you see, and good to look at, the women have said. I can leap and run against any man, and I can break a bar of iron against my knee, and I can keep up with the fastest horse that flies, and I can root up a young oak without too much effort. I am strong enough, and my life is at the full, and a day's sickness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... "The leap of the winged lion is much curtailed, excellent Sir, or these things might not be! It is no longer in our power to persuade, or to command, as of old; and our canals begin to be encumbered with slimy weeds, instead of well ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... splashes, but damp and dribbling. I am almost ashamed to like such miseries so much. The forecastle is under water with every lurch, and the motion quite incredible to one only acquainted with steamers. If one can sit this ship, which bounds like a tiger, one should sit a leap over a haystack. Evidently, I can never be sea- sick; but holding on is hard ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel; And at night they sleep In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore;— Like spirits that lie In the azure sky. When they love ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... interest. It may be laid down in principle that the flying animal begins as a leaping animal. The "flying fish" may serve to suggest an early stage in the development of wings; it is a leaping fish, its extended fins merely buoying it, like the surfaces of an aeroplane, and so prolonging its leap away from its pursuer. But the great difficulty is to imagine any part of the smooth-coated primitive insect, apart from the limbs (and the wings of the insect are not developed from legs, like those of the bird), which might have even an initial usefulness in buoying the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... stadium had grown oppressively still; then broke into along "ah!" Twenty thousand sprang up together as Scolus the Thasian leaped. His partisans cheered, while he rose from a sand-cloud; but ceased quickly. His leap had been poor. A herald with a pick marked a line where he had landed. The pipers began a rollicking catch to which the athletes involuntarily kept ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson mantle, as in Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved in purest ivory, leans from ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... rose-wreath with a greener flower' To do my master's bidding, that's to give Life to yourself, who only think you live. But listen! Have you seen the nine waves roll Monotonous upon the shoal, Rising and falling like a maiden asleep; Then with a lift and a leap The ninth wave curls, and breaks upon the beach, And rushes up it, swallowing the sand? I am that ocean.... Now, ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley

... down this sweet saying of her in Grim's commendations. She hath made my heart leap like a hobby-horse! O Joan, this speech of thine will I carry with me even ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... immediately to leave the body and follow after him. So it is a very beautiful stroke of art in this poem to represent the touch of the hand of great love as having the magical power of the golden rod of Hermes. It is as if the poet were to say: "Should she but touch me, I know that my spirit would leap out of my body and follow after her." Then there is the expression "crescent-browed." It means only having beautifully curved eyebrows—arched eyebrows being considered ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... heaven, methinks it were an easy leap To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... came in a female voice from the carriage, and the young bridge tender saw that both Mrs. Carrington and her daughter were preparing to leap out. ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield

... where the far-off sand-bars lift Their backs in long and narrow line, The breakers shout, and leap, and shift, And send the sparkling brine Into the air, then rush to mimic strife: Glad creatures of the sea, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... up. This is no new way to beget more sorrow; Heaven knows I have too many; do not mock me; Though I am tame and bred up with my wrongs, Which are my foster-brothers, I may leap Like a hand-wolf into my natural wilderness, And do an out-rage: pray ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Indeed they were but half round in such fashion that they blocked the pathway from side to side, when a wild yell of 'Jahveh' broke upon our ears, and from round the bend, a few paces away, rushed a horde of fierce, hook-nosed men, brandishing knives and swords. Scarcely was there time for us to leap behind the shelter of the chariot and make ready, when they were ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... When, after an assiduous and inglorious apprenticeship, you can wheel a galloping horse round in his own length, without paraboling over his head, or turning him upside down—when you can take him safely across any leap he is able to clear—when you can send him at his uttermost, with perfect safety, through forest or scrub—you are scarcely one step nearer to the successful riding of an equine artist that has sworn to get you off, or perish. Scarcely one step nearer than you were at first, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... fly to it because you have been trained that way—to be direct and daring. But I am made differently. Life has taught me; it is in my blood and bone to stop and question, to look so long that at last I lose the will to choose, or to leap. There are some of us like ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... Christians all, And let us leap for joy, And dare with trustful, loving hearts, Our praises to employ, And sing what God hath shown to man, His sweet and wondrous deed, And tell how dearly He ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... would carry the flames and give them fresh fuel to feed on, remained. Not far beyond, too, were several great haystacks, and in other fields the hay had been cut and was piled ready for carrying into the barns the next day. If the fire, with a good start, ever did leap across the cleared space from the woods it would be hard, if not impossible, to prevent it from spreading thus right up to the outhouses, the barns, and the farmhouses themselves. Moreover, there was no water here. There were the courses of two little brooks ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... sun went down on the 14th of October, he had led his troops with fixed bayonets, under a heavy and constant fire, over abatis, ditch, and palisades; then, mounting the parapet, he leaped into the redoubt. Washington saw the impetuosity of the attack in the face of the murderous fire, the daring leap to the parapet with three of his soldiers, and the almost fatal spring into the redoubt. "Few cases," he says, "have exhibited greater proofs of intrepidity, coolness, and firmness." Three ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... book is but the vesture of her spirit; So too thy poet, that feels the living coal Flame on his lips and leap to song, shall know, To whom the glory, whose the unending merit; Nor faltering shall his utterance be, nor slow The mute ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap On one hand into fratricidal fight, Or, on the other, yield eternal right, Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound? What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage-ground Our feet are planted: let us there remain In unrevengeful calm, no means untried Which truth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... A short leap and his hands closed on the copper drain. The muscles of his wiry arms flexed, and the lean figure raised himself foot by foot to the eaves, where a pull and press up brought him over the edge. Stooping, he padded to the side ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore

... moments the beings manning the marauder had to a large extent recovered from the shock of the attack and were fighting back. In a moment—just before the ship passed over the horizon and out of sight—the Terrestrians saw the great props that had been idle, suddenly leap into motion, and in an instant the giant had left its attackers behind—fleeing from its ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... the shadowy coverts of the underwood, while the birds awoke with unwelcome song above, and the fresh morning wind, playing among the boughs, made me suspect a footfall at each turn. My heart beat quick as I approached the palings; my hand was on one of them, a leap would take me to the other side, when two keepers sprang from an ambush upon me: one knocked me down, and proceeded to inflict a severe horse-whipping. I started up—a knife was in my grasp; I made a plunge at his raised right arm, and inflicted ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... is rocking in space! And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, And the blasts of the winds universal leap free And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, And aether goes mingling in storm ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... beside his unconscious companion, occasionally calling to some hardy swimmer who came near, and expecting soon to see the rescuing vessel approach. Velo opened his eyes, felt the lap of the waves round his shoulders, and gave a convulsive leap out of the sea. ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... the further end of the apartment. Matravers remained a somewhat conspicuous figure in the doorway looking from one to another of the little parties with a smile, half amused, half interested. Suddenly his face became grave,—his heart gave an unaccustomed leap! He stood quite still, his eyes fixed upon the bent head and white shoulders of a woman only a few yards away from him. Almost at the same moment Berenice looked up and their eyes met. The colour left her cheeks,—she was ghastly pale! A sentence which she had just begun died away upon her ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... saw him so fascinated with any one before," explained the lady as she once more adjusted his leash. But that afternoon, as I waited in the trap for Mr. Jackson before the post-office, the beast seemed to appear from out the earth to leap into the trap beside me. After a rather undignified struggle I ejected him, whereupon he followed the trap madly to the country club and made a farce of my golf game by retrieving the ball after every drive. This time, I learned, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... at the Messines Ridge was completely and wonderfully successful, due to the explosion of seventeen enormous mines under the German positions, followed by an attack "in depth," divisions passing through each other, or "leap-frogging," as it was called, to the final objectives against an enemy demoralized by the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... Better success followed than he expected. He had started toward the head of the stream and had clambered along less than a hundred yards, when he reached a place where it was so narrow that he was confident of his ability to leap across. ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... board the boat. And so indeed he was, for I had no sooner clapped the glass to my eye than there I saw him, sitting in the stern in his brave blue coat, and at the sight of him my heart gave a great leap for joy. We opened our seaward gate at once, and in a moment Marjorie and Lancelot and I were racing to the strand, followed by half a dozen others, leaving the stockade well guarded, and orders to shoot Jensen on the first sign of any return ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Morton said nothing, but he would let no one put a foot before him. He still pressed forward among the rocks, and at last came to a spot from whence he might have sprung at one leap into the ocean. It was a broken cranny on the sea-shore into which the sea beat, and surrounded on every side but the one by huge broken fragments of stone, which at first sight seemed as though ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope

... finer horsemen than the daring Circassian mountaineers, who are ready to dash at full speed up or down precipitous steeps, to leap chasms, or to swim raging torrents. In an instant, also, they can discharge their weapons, unslinging the gun when at full gallop, firing upon the foe, and as quickly returning it to its place. They can rest suspended on the side of the horse, leap to the ground to pick up a fallen weapon, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... of the loosened planks, and made a chasm, over which the following section, led by Lieutenant Carrington, leaped with difficulty. In doing this some other planks were thrown off, and the horses of the third section refused to take the leap. At this time Lee came up, and every effort was made to replace the planks, but without success. The creek was too deep and miry to afford foot hold to those who attempted to raise them from ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Sommers had not seen until his coming to Chicago. At a first glance, then, he could feel that in the son the family had taken a further leap from the simplicity of the older generation. Incidentally the young man's cool scrutiny had instructed him that the family had not committed Parker Hitchcock to him. Young Hitchcock had returned recently to the family lumber yards on the West ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... and reached over to pick up Glynnis' discarded food container. She drew away from him, bracing herself as if to leap and run. He stopped himself and froze where he stood for a ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page

... and home again; the starting-post being also the winning-post, and the flags, which were placed on every fence which the horses were to pass, were to be passed on the left hand of the rider both going and coming; so that although the horses had to leap the same fences forward and backward, they could not come over the same place twice. In the last field before they turned, was a brook seventeen feet clear from side to side, with good taking off both banks. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... again, as it towered there above them, as though she expected it to open and the monster of the coolies' imagination leap out. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various

... sunset color, the brooding shadows, the rising masses of cloud, darkening as they came: I have, indeed, forgotten, and strangely so, the appearance of sea and sky at that moment. "You would not look," I accused the maid, "when I leaped the brook. I leaped the brook as other men may leap it; but you would not look. You would not look when I climbed the hill. Who helped you up the Lost Soul turn? Was it I? Never before did I do it. All my life I have crawled that path. Was it the club-footed young whelp who helped you?" I demanded. "Was it that crawling, staggering, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... mother; send me. I'll go and take care of him. Let me go, Stivy, that will be the best plan." As he said this Phonny, using his hoe for a vaulting pole, began to leap about the yard with delight ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott

... and nods towards a pretty little lead-paned window, through which we see a village sleeping under cloudy moonlight go flashing by. Then a skylit lake, and then a string of swaying lights, gone with the leap of a ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... came about, it was with a leap and bound that seemed almost to capsize the craft. Janice had never traveled so fast before—or so she believed. It fairly took her breath, and she clung to the ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long

... master made several efforts to direct the attention of his dogs towards the fox but failed; at length he approached so near the artful object of his pursuit as to see him breathe. Even then no alarm was exhibited; and the gentleman seizing a club, aimed a blow at him, which Reynard evaded by a leap from his singular lurking-place, having thus for a time effectually eluded ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... men. Thou must storm the breach in the mouth of batteries loaded with death and destruction, while, every step thou movest, thou art exposed to the horrible explosion of subterranean mines, which, being sprung, will whirl thee aloft in air, a mangled corse, to feed the fowls of heaven. Thou must leap into the abyss of dreadful caves and caverns, replete with poisonous toads and hissing serpents; thou must plunge into seas of burning sulphur; thou must launch upon the ocean in a crazy bark, when the foaming billows roll mountains high—when the lightning flashes, the thunder roars, and the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... Eden Place, and to look upon her was to love her madly, since she earned seventy-five dollars a month, while the little manicure could barely eke out a slender and uncertain twenty. In such crises the heart can be trusted to leap in the right direction and beat ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... than distress and pity, caused his heart to leap. But he was too wise to speak, and, that she might not read the hope in his eyes, turned quickly and left her. He had not crossed the grounds of the agency before he had made up his mind as to the reason for ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis

... I could not see Tom Thornton, but I concluded that he was still watching for me on the main deck. The space between the top of the paddle-box and the roof of the storehouse was not more than three or four feet, and I concluded that a girl as resolute as Kate Loraine would leap across the gulf without difficulty. I went to her state-room, and gave the four raps. She was glad enough to see me, and taking her valise I told her to follow me. I waited till I heard the order given to haul in the plank, and then led Kate up the rude steps on ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic

... out of his burning eyes at the girl. For a single moment she had raised her head, had met his fierce inquiry with a certain wistful pathos, puzzling, an incomplete sentiment. Now she, too, was sitting as though in an attitude of waiting. Burton felt his heart suddenly leap. What might lie beyond the wall was of no account. He was a man with only a few brief months to live, as he had come to understand life. He would follow the eternal philosophy. He would do as the others and make ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I one of yonder trees, I would cast off my foliage with a quiver, And leap to thee! O ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... distance of the dead, the living must know the facts, and understand the ideas which informed and inspired the dead. Thought and attention are scarcely to be reckoned among necromantic arts, but thought and knowledge "can make these bones live," and stand upon their feet, if they do not leap and sing. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... preface to be a Short Cut to Culture; and he would read with what at that time, it being new to them, seemed to the twins a strange exotic pronunciation, Wordsworth's "Ode to Dooty," and the effect was as if someone should dig a majestic Gregorian psalm in its ribs, and make it leap and giggle. ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... countless red tongues lapping the beams he is going to crunch presently, and his hot breath warping the panels and cracking the glass and making old timber sweat that had forgotten it was ever alive with sap. Run for your life! leap! or you will be a cinder in five minutes, that nothing but a coroner would take for the wreck ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... sprang upon the slippery rock and snatched the gold. With one wild leap he plunged into ...
— Opera Stories from Wagner • Florence Akin

... pretty she was, balanced there, her hand on his shoulder, ready for a leap, lest the heavy canoe, rolling over in the froth, strike her under the smother of foam and water. . . . How marvellously pretty she was. . . . Her hand on ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... sure your conscience tells you so every time you think of me. At Genoa, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, I received the last letter from you; by your not writing to me since, I imagine you propose to make this a leap year. I should have sent many a scold after you in this long interval, had I known where to have scolded; but you told me you should leave Geneva immediately. I have despatched sundry inquiries into England after you, all fruitless. At last drops in a chance letter ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... something about a dream of yours which had become a vision," said the doctor, with his fingers on his patient's wrist, as before. He felt the artery leap, under his pressure, falter a little, stop, then begin again, growing fuller in its beat. The heart had felt the pull of the bridle, but the spur had roused ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... difficulty any decision in favor of war would be a leap in the dark, an act of inconceivable political blindness. It would be, to adopt a rough, but inevitable, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Doddington replied, that he saw no objection to this step; and that if Bute thought there was, he might put it into hands that would resign it to him when he thought proper to take it. But Bute was not disposed to try the duke too much, nor to risk too bold a leap at once: so all ill humours were concealed under a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... hands quickly, but all the time I was calculating what chance I had to leap for my gun or dash out the light. I was trapped. And fury, like the hot teeth of a wolf, bit into me. That leveled gun, the menace in Sampson's puzzled eyes, Wright's dark and hateful face, these loosened the spirit of fight in me. ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey

... to get the exact location of the other man, Joe flung open the door and made a flying leap in the other's direction. The man was leaning over, and Joe landed ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... balloon collapsed more and more, and its concavity forming a parachute, forced the gas against its sides and accelerated its motion. 'Adieu, my friend,' said the Doctor. 'May God preserve you!' He was about to have taken the leap, when Blanchard detained him. 'One resource remains to us! We can cut the cords by which the car is attached, and cling to the network? perhaps the balloon will rise. Ready! But the barometer falls! We remount! The wind freshens! We are saved!' The voyagers perceived Calais! Their joy became ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne

... I'm it," I burbled, with a leap to catch the tell-tale square of white as it reluctantly came down. But I was too late. Sir John Biddell and Harry Snell, the newspaper man, came gallumping up on their camels before I could stuff ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... favour was not so favourably received by Tallyho, and, determined to make his escape, he gave Moll a violent fling from him, overturned her and her basket, knock'd down two of the Chimney-sweepers, and then with a leap as if he had been springing at a five-barred gate, jumped over his late companion, who lay sprawling among the flue-fakers, and effected his purpose, to the inexpressible amusement of those, who, after enjoying a hearty laugh at him, now transferred ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... his leager-lion's skin T' a petticoat, and made him spin; Seiz'd on his club, and made it dwindle 355 T' a feeble distaff, and a spindle. 'Twas he that made emperors gallants To their own sisters and their aunts; Set popes and cardinals agog, To play with pages at leap-frog. 360 'Twas he that gave our Senate purges, And flux'd the House of many a burgess; Made those that represent the nation Submit, and suffer amputation; And all the Grandees o' the Cabal 365 Adjourn to tubs at Spring and Fall. He mounted Synod-Men, and rode 'em To Dirty-Lane and Little ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... writers have supposed the island to have been once connected with the mainland by an isthmus stretching from Gurnet, near Cowes, to Leap, on the Hampshire roast; but nothing decisive has yet been advanced in support of ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... that this is Leap Year? Do you begin to feel the glorious flood of liberty which it lets in upon the female women of this country? As a society and as individuals, let us press forward to the mark of the prize—I ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... moment the man leaped to the next level, sending off a beam which struck the wall two feet from Rynason; he felt the stinging vibration against his body as he lay flat. Slowly he sighted the disintegrator at the top of the level under which the man had crouched for cover, and waited for his next leap. Within him he felt only a bitter cold which matched ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr

... and Paul's leap so shook the frail structure which Johnny had built that the curtain came down with a thud, tearing away from its fastenings above, and the poor ghost was made doubly a prisoner by this ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... declaring that the Dardanelles expedition presented "a great, a unique opportunity," which he prayed, "God grant that Greece may not miss." [5] His successors had no wish to miss the opportunity—if such it was. But neither had they any wish to leap in the dark. M. Gounaris and his colleagues lacked the Cretan's infinite capacity for taking chances. Even in war, where chance plays so great a part, little is gained except by calculation: the enterprise which is not carefully ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... period of conjugation in the plasmodia, which were animal micro-organisms? If he had borne in mind the complete cycle of the protozoa, he would have recognized them. But evidently Morel's theories of the degeneration of man had made a much livelier impression on his imagination; and his leap from these remote theories to his interpretation of the plasmodia seemed an achievement of "genius." It may be said that this "feat of genius," this visionary generalization, prevented Laveran from seeing the truth. A form ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... of that sentence, for, with a leap, Polly had the floor. Her eyes flashed, and her voice was tense with ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... force of paternal affection. When I light on such a character as Bailie Jarvie, or Dalgetty, my imagination brightens, and my conception becomes clearer at every step which I take in his company, although it leads me many a weary mile away from the regular road, and forces me leap hedge and ditch to get back into the route again. If I resist the temptation, as you advise me, my thoughts become prosy, flat, and dull; I write painfully to myself, and under a consciousness of flagging which makes me flag still more; the sunshine with which fancy had ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... of the canon, a little below the Diamond Cascade, a glittering side stream makes its appearance, seeming to leap directly out of the sky. It first resembles a crinkled ribbon of silver hanging loosely down the wall, but grows wider as it descends, and dashes the dull rock with foam. A long rough talus curves ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterward asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... Jersey City now, aren't we, Madge?" exclaimed Eleanor, making a leap for her bag, which promptly tumbled out of the rack above and fell directly on the head of a young man who was walking down the aisle of ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... has ever some regard also to the choice of his amusements. If at cards, he will not be seen at cribbage, all-fours, or putt; or, in sports of exercise, at skittles, foot-ball, leap-frog, cricket, driving of coaches, &c. but will preserve a propriety in every part of his conduct; knowing, that any imitation of the manners of the mob, will unavoidably stamp him with vulgarity. There is another amusement too, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... "Leap on the crupper!" I cried to my brother at the moment when the horses, now no longer under control, arrived at full gallop on the lances of the Iron Legion. Immediately we arrived within range we hurled our iron ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... fired, which were all taken as parts of the performance. On the mountains of Tierra del Fuego, I have more than once seen a guanaco, on being approached, not only neigh and squeal, but prance and leap about in the most ridiculous manner, apparently in defiance as a challenge. These animals are very easily domesticated, and I have seen some thus kept in Northern Patagonia near a house, though ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... September, April, June, and November, All the rest have thirty-one, Except February alone, Which has but twenty-eight in fine Till leap-year gives it twenty-nine." ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell

... fluttering on the yards to show where the sails had been blown away, and every now and then the staysail would flap like a gun going off, to show it wanted to follow them. But for all we lay head to sea, we were moving backwards, and each great wave as it passed carried us on stern first with a leap and swirling lift. 'Twas over the stern that Elzevir pointed, in the course that we were going, and there was such a mist, what with the wind and rain and spindrift, that one could see but a little way. And yet I saw too far, for in the mist to which we were making a sternboard, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... furrowed sand, strewn with fragments of trailing seaweed, broken shells, and snakelike ribbons of sea-grass. Gulls, with pointed wings, flying with a plaintive cry on the wind out of the remote depths of the air, soared up, white as snow against the grey cloudy sky, fell abruptly, and seeming to leap from wave to wave, vanished again, and were lost like gleams of silver in the streaks of frothing foam. Several of them, I noticed, hovered persistently over a big rock, which stood up alone in the midst of the level uniformity of the sandy shore. Coarse seaweed was growing in irregular ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... an innovator, because I do not like in conversation such new and unauthorized words as littest, leaptest, curstest; or a corrupter of the language, because I do not admire in poetry such unutterable monstrosities as, light'dst, leap'dst, curs'dst? The novelism, with the corruption too, is wholly theirs who stickle for these ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... it, too, and reined up to listen. Tim thrust into my hand the 30-30 Winchester he was carrying together with a box of cartridges. Then with a leap like a tiger he gained the rim of the barranca. Once there, however, his forces seemed to desert him. He staggered forward calling in a weak voice. I could hear the volley of rapid questions shot at him by the men who immediately surrounded him; and his replies. Then somebody fired a revolver ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... in his arms, and swear to her that he would never consent to her terms, no one but herself could know. It had been her last expedient to revive the old love, to rekindle the dead ashes of the smouldering fire. Surely, if there was but a spark of it left, it must leap up into life and vitality again at her words. But, as she watched him, her heart, that had beat so wildly, sank cold and colder within her. She felt that his heart was gone from her; she had cast her last die and lost. But, for all that, she was not minded ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... much displeased, threatening him that his horses should suffer for it. And so it happened; for all those horses, being four in number, died within a short time after. Since that time he hath had great losses by sudden dying of his other cattle. So soon as his sows pigged, the pigs would leap and caper, and immediately fall down and die. Also, not long after, he was taken with a lameness in his limbs that he could neither go ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... behind, he heard swift feet. It was coming, it was gaining, but he was at the door, through it and had slammed it safely behind him. A leap, a bound, and he was through the ante-chamber, and, as the door behind him opened, he was slipping out into the passageway. He went down the stairs in great jumps. Thank God! he had left the street door unlocked. But already the sound ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... soon after received; and proved satisfactory. It was evident from these, that had he not let go in the right time, he would have been compelled to make a leap, that would have left him no opportunity for explaining the nature ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... tall, stately looking youth appeared to command from these few the deference due a Chief. He was leaning against the old tree, looking for the first time on the great sheet of falling waters, where soon himself and followers would probably end their tortures by a welcome leap. Their noble bearing had attracted the eye of the Sachem's daughter, the Gentle Fawn; she, with a few young Indian girls, half hid among the whortleberry bushes growing luxuriantly around the smaller wigwams of the camp, were dividing their attention between the stately captives and weaving ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... horrible crisis, Anton Lundt, who was stationed on the quarter-deck, stepped up to the captain, stripped to the waist, all begrimed with powder, and sprinkled with the blood of his messmates, and said: 'I will leap overboard with a line, and swim ashore to that battery, and then you can bend a hawser to the line; and when we have hauled and secured it ashore, you will heave upon it, and get the ship back to her moorings!' The captain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... purpose or design.[1153] He of whom no creature is frightened in the least is himself, O ascetic, never frightened by any creature. He, on the other hand, O learned man, of whom every creature is frightened as of a wolf, becomes himself filled with fear as aquatic animals when forced to leap on the shore from fear of the roaring Vadava fire.[1154] This practice of universal harmlessness hath arisen even thus. One may follow it by every means in one's power. He who has followers and he who has wealth may seek to adopt it. It is sure to lead also to prosperity ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... life was an easy one till bedtime, would be very far from the truth. Strange to say, David did not go to the closet once. To be sure, there was a narrow escape that made Joel's heart leap to ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... not tonight—not tonight, monsieur. He is so gay and friendly to me whenever he sees me. But when one of the staff does that which is not down in the book, I become alarmed. Monsieur bangs the table till the cruet-stoppers leap out, and his eyes are unpleasant. Yes, he is the master. He rises, and shakes his forefinger at the unfortunate till his hand is a quivering haze and his speech a blast. "Ou—e—e—eh!" cries the skipper at last, when the unfortunate is on ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... conduct of the Derby Ministry on this question, and although Lord Stanley took only a subsidiary part in it, he cannot escape his share of the responsibility. The difficulty of the position of the eldest son of the Prime Minister who was taking this 'leap in the dark' was very great, and it must be remembered that he had long been identified with the more democratic wing of his party. After the great agitation that followed the downfall of the Russell ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... the table, with no stamp on it: he took it up. It contained but one line; that line made his heart leap: ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... conjoin the building instinct and the migratory, the monogamy of several species, and the pairing of almost all; and we shall have collected new instances of the usage (I dare not say law) according to which Nature lets fall, in order to resume, and steps backward the furthest, when she means to leap forwards with the ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... leap from the thicket," he said quietly. "I feared he was going to land directly on you. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... pursued by the brute could—if he were sufficiently agile—leap upon the narrow ledge, seize the rope-ladder and climb up it until he reached the safe haven of the niche, and could draw the ladder in after him. And fear of death doth lend a ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... heard responsive shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... tale for me Of Julius Caesar, or of Venus; From him I learn'd the rule of three, Cat's cradle, leap-frog, and Quae genus: I used to singe his powder'd wig, To steal the staff he put such trust in; And make the puppy dance a jig, When he began to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various

... reading line— small and slight, but brave as a lion. Congenial habits made us intimate, and I loved him like a brother—better than a brother—as a dog loves his master. In all our rows I covered him with my body. He had but to say to me, 'Leap into the water,' and I would not have stopped to pull off my coat. In short, I loved him as a proud man loves one who stands betwixt him and contempt,—as an affectionate man loves one who stands between him and solitude. To cut short a long story: my friend, one dark night, committed an outrage ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... a revolution so mighty. But all this, for the sake of pursuing the assumption, let us agree to waive. In reality, there are two separate stations taken up by the war denouncers. One class hold, that an influence derived from political economy is quite equal to the flying leap by which man is to clear this unfathomable gulph of war, and to land his race for ever on the opposite shore of a self- sustaining peace. Simply, the contemplation of national debts, (as a burthen ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... knew Nance was out on such a night—on some errand, or in at a neighbour's—to crouch in the hedge and leap silently out upon her was huge delight; and it was well worth braving the grim possibilities of the hedges in order to extort from her the anger in the bleat of terror which, as a rule, was all that her paralysed heart permitted, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... trellised vineyards. And just about where the vineyards begin, you come upon two wayside posts, one of them inscribed "Schweiz" or "Oesterreich," the other bearing the magic word "Italia." If your heart does not leap at the sight of it you may as well about-turn and get you home again; for you have no sense of history, no love of art, no hunger for divine, inexhaustible beauty. For all these things are implicit in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... pleasure of youth in dancing. Dancing, as I have pointed out to you many times, may be considered in two ways: first, as the mere fling of high spirits, young animals skipping and leaping, as kids in a meadow, and with no thought save to leap the highest, and prance the furthest; but second, and more truly, I must think, to show to advantage the grace (if any) and perfection of the human body, which we take to be the work of a divine hand, and the beauty of ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... leap to His place flaring from under, He the Compeller, the Sun, bared to our wonder. Nay, not a league from our eyes blinded with gazing, Cleared He the gate of the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling



Words linked to "Leap" :   elevation, change, hop, ricochet, resile, quantum jump, bounce, move, transition, leap day, caper, burst, capriole, rebound, recoil, overleap, ski jump, saltate, reverberate, increase, leap second, jump off, jumping, distance, pounce, leaping, skip, hop-skip, quantum leap, curvet, vault, pronk, switch, take a hop, shift, galumph



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