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Reel

verb
(past & past part. reeled; pres. part. reeling)
1.
Walk as if unable to control one's movements.  Synonyms: careen, keel, lurch, stagger, swag.
2.
Revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis.  Synonyms: gyrate, spin, spin around, whirl.
3.
Wind onto or off a reel.



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"Reel" Quotes from Famous Books



... sketch he prized very much: Connie sitting on the stool before the wheel, her flowing mane of red hair on her rusty black frock, her red mouth shut and serious, running the scarlet thread off the hank on to the reel. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... shaft. The water-wheel moved only in one direction; the pinion on the wheel-shaft drove the spur-wheel, to which the pitman of the pump-bob was attached. On the spur-wheel shaft was a friction-gear, driving the hoisting-reel; this reel was mounted on sliding blocks, so that hoisting was done by putting it in gear, the empty load being dropped by a friction-band. Changing the size of the water-wheel as the pressure increased ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... however, is wanted for aggression as well as endurance; and a mixture composed of pounded glass and rice gluten is rubbed over it. Having been dried in the sun, the prepared string is now wound upon a handsome reel of split bamboo inserted in a long handle. One of these reels, if of first-rate manufacture, costs a shilling, although coarser ones are very cheap; and of the nuck, about four annas, or sixpence worth, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... seems to rock and reel beneath the detonating roll of the volleys, the thunderous rumble of charging feet. The dark, glaring faces of warring demons, the flinging aloft of shields, the groaning and yells, the redness of the sheeting flames, all this ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... sweel, From the fast-whirring reel, With a music that gladdens the ear; And the thrill of delight, In that glorious fight, To the heart of the angler ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... and in bounds the dancer. Stand back and give plenty of room for the gyrations. The lords are enchanted. They never saw such poetry of motion. Their souls whirl in the reel, and bound with the bounding feet. Herod forgets crown and throne,—everything but the fascinations of Salome. The magnificence of his realm is as nothing compared with that which now whirls before him on tiptoe. His heart is in transport with Salome ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... stopped, close by. "Yes'm," he replied. "I'm a-gittin' out de hose to lay de dus' yonnah." He stretched an arm along the cross-bar of the reel, relaxing himself, apparently, for conversation. "Y'all done change consid'able, Miss Airil," he continued, with the directness ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... des flots, par une nuit d'etoiles. Pas un nuage aux cieux, sur les mers pas de voiles. Mes yeux plongeaient plus loin que le monde reel. Et les bois, et les monts, et toute la nature, Semblaient interroger dans un confus murmure Les flots des mers, les feux ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield

... of rapture wilder than Ere palpitated heart of man When flaming at its mightiest. And there's a fierceness in his ire— A maddened majesty that leaps Along his veins in blood of fire, Until the path his vision sweeps Spins out behind him like a thread Unraveled from the reel of time, As, wheeling on his course sublime, The earth revolves ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley

... Gray, "let us forget all about it and wind up the party with a Virginia reel. Tom and Grace must lead it off, and Anne, you and David watch the others so that when it comes your turn you will be ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... Austin's sneering look as he turned to strike a match on a boulder—they knew as well as if they'd been within a yard of him that Scowl had said something "pretty mean." They saw the Colonel make a plunge, and they saw him reel and fall ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... snatchety, up I go,' 'wot time is it old witch?' 'niggers as good as a white man,' 'fee-faw-fum,' 'Chinese mus go,' 'all men is equil fore de law,' 'blitherum, blatherum, boo,' and all the words of madgick wich he cude think of. After a wile it got reel dark, but he kep on a climeing, and pretty sune he see a round spot of dalite over his hed, and then he cum up out of a well in ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... the cannonade, the clash of the onslaught, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the last gasp of him whose life has reached its end. Such is the infernal music of war. See the victim of the conflict reel in the saddle and fall headlong. Cast your eyes on the mangled forms of godlike men, fallen in the midst of fullest life. Come in the night after the battle and look upon the ghastly faces upturned ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... won't trouble you," Keith replied, in a tone that matched hers for cool courtesy. "I'll see him to-morrow, probably." He helped Dorman reel in his line, cut a willow-wand and strung the three fish upon it by the gills, washed his hands leisurely in the creek, and dried them on his handkerchief, just as if nothing bothered him in the slightest degree. Then he went over and smoothed Redcloud's mane and pulled ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... as the boy glanced back he could see that his companion was beginning to reel about like a drunken man, and that his eyes had a peculiar dull, ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... to despair when we were on a sudden relieved by a remission of the wind, which, having hitherto blown strongly against that side of the ship which lay towards the sea, holding it upright against the rock, now slackened, and blowing no longer against our vessel allowed it to reel into deep water, to our great comfort and relief. We had enjoyed so little hope of ever extricating ourselves from this perilous position, that Drake had caused the sacrament to be administered to us as if we had been on the point of death, and now that we were mercifully set free we sang a ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher

... caught a second glimpse of the bridge and the pylon; a moment's oversight had landed us for an instant in Charin. The blackness started to reel down, but my reflexes are fast and I made one swift, scrabbling step forward. We lurched, sprawled, locked together, on the stones of the Bridge of Summer Snows. Battered, and bruised, and bloody, we were still alive, and where ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... is always odjious to an Irishman," said Mr. Dooley, "an' to all reel affectionate people. But me frind Hobson's not to blame. 'Tis th' way th' good Lord has iv makin' us cow'rds continted with our lot that he niver med a brave man yet that wasn't half a fool. I've more sinse ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne

... straight up to her. The foul smell made her head reel. But this was only a woman, after all; and one in great bodily need—dying, she thought. Kitty was a born nurse. She involuntarily straightened the wretched pillows and touched the hot forehead before she spoke: "I came instead of Hugh Guinness. You ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... the Three should catch at last Thy serenader? While there's cast Paul's cloak about my head, and fast Gian pinions me, Himself has past His stylet thro' my back; I reel; And... is it thou ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... in his homage, and thus the reader feels himself called on to worship and in duty bound to scoff. All's well, though, when the homage is latent in the irony. Thackeray, inviting us to laugh and frown over the follies of Mayfair, enables us to reel with him in a secret orgy of veneration ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... girl who used to be, Come down the Old World road with me, And watch the galleons leaping home Deep-laden, through the rainbow foam, And the far-glimmering lances reel Where clashes battle-axe on steel, When the long shouts of triumph ring Around the banner ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... Comacines from Cividale were employed in Croatia. They have the characteristic Lombard furrows and interweavings, and other details met with in different parts of Italy. There are no mouldings, but a slight bead and reel along the interior edge of the arches. One slab shows two birds drinking from a vase in the upper part, and, below, two others apparently going to divide a fish—at each side vine scrolls springing from vases; another is carved with figures of griffins. There are two window-slabs ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... the shrieks and cries of the slaves, the groans of the wounded, the rending and crashing of planks mingled, were well-nigh deafening even to us. Presently there came a crash. The ship seemed to reel, a shudder passed ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... undreamed of, were marshalled round her in close formation shoulder to shoulder. They only waited. An instant's yielding on her part, and they would be on to her, crushing down and in, making her brain reel, her mind stagger under their ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... is the ancient family chest, There the ancestral cards and hatchel; Dorothy, sighing, sinks down to rest, Forgetful of patches, sage, and satchel. Ghosts of faces peer from the gloom Of the chimney, where, with swifts and reel, And the long-disused, dismantled loom, Stands the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... and then— As in that hour—a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced,—and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but beard not his own words, And all things reel'd around him: he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been— But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall, And the remember'd chambers, and the place, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, All things pertaining to that place and hour, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... look so lonesome! All the good times you shall feel As you shout the mighty chorus of the "Old Virginia Reel," And Love shall join the music with the raptures that abound, As we heel-and-toe-it lively and we "swing the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... sought for with much eagerness, and would suck it with great delight; it produced in them the same effects that wine has upon us. It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would howl, and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall asleep ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... am glad it has made you find your tongue; for I began to be afraid that master had got a dumb boy for a herd; and that would not suit me at all. If I find you a brisk, merry fellow, that can sing a song, and dance a reel at times, you shall have a whistle too; and, perhaps I may teach you to make it yourself; but it will all depend upon your good behaviour. If you were always to look as grave as you were when I first saw you, I don't ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford

... with incredible impetuosity, who immediately gave ground. Upon the left of the enemy the resistance, if such behaviour merits the name, was much less, for before the D. of P. was within three score yards of them, Hamilton's dragoons began to reel and run off before they could receive his fire; the foot likewise fired too soon, and almost all turned their backs before the Highlanders could engage them with their swords. In a few minutes the rout was total; ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... perhaps—called for a set of "American dances," an odd thing happened. Everybody then danced contra-dances. The black band, nothing loath, conferred as to what "American dances" were, and started off with "Virginia Reel," which they followed with "Money Musk," which, in its turn in those days, should have been followed by "The Old Thirteen." But just as Dick, the leader, tapped for his fiddles to begin, and bent forward, about to say, in true ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... men catch from this lake in one hour more than a hundred splendid trout, weighing from one to three pounds apiece! They worked with incredible rapidity. Scarcely did the fly touch the water when the line was drawn, the light rod dipped with graceful curve, and the revolving reel drew in the speckled beauty to the shore. Each of these anglers had two hooks upon his line, and both of them once had two trout hooked at the same time, and landed them; while we poor eastern visitors at first looked on in dumb amazement, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... that the Revolution appears even more difficult to treat as a whole at the present day than it did at the time of Thiers and Mignet. The event was so great, the shock was so severe, that from that day to this France has continued to reel and rock from the blow. It is only within the most recent years that we can see going on under our eyes the last oscillations, the slow attainment of the new democratic equilibrium. The end is not yet, but what that end must ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... because the smaller ship can run close ashore to explore. To keep up the spirits of the men, there is much merrymaking. Becalmed off Cape Breton, Sir Humphrey visits the big ship Delight, where the trumpets and the drums and the pipes and the cornets reel off wild sailor jigs. "There was," says the old record, "little watching for danger." Wednesday, August 26, the sounding line forewarned the reefs of Sable Island. Breakers were sighted. The Delight signaled that her captain wanted to shift southwest to deeper water, but Gilbert wanted to ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... generalize events without the fumes of evil, among which they seek for materials in the dark places of national or local history, ever going to their imagination, ever making their heart sicken and faint, and their fancy stagger and reel. The life of these righteous, or at least, not actively sinning men, may be hampered, worried, embittered, or even broken by the villainy of their fellow-men; but, except in some visionary monk, life can never be ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... an appalling sight to see this good and God-fearing old man, his face bruised, his grey hairs dabbled with blood, and his clothes nearly rent from his body, stamp and reel to and fro, blaspheming his Maker and the day that he was born; hurling execrations at his beloved country and the name of Englishman, and the Government of Britain that had deserted him, till at last nature gave out, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... imperial disc Toward the ocean-waters, heaving brisk Before the winds,—but Julio came never: He that was frantic as a foaming river— Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tide Of a great tempest, that have fought and died Along the forest ramparts, and doth still In its death-struggle desperately reel Round with the fallen foliage—he was gone, And none knew whither. Still were chanted on Sad masses, by pale sisters, many a day, And holy ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... some of them would steal his thunder, or perhaps he had a contempt for their serious pose. But to those whom he did not suspect of literary leanings he lied delightfully. That fine boys' book, The Bible in Spain, is, I should say, chiefly lies. I have heard him reel off adventures as amazing as any in the Spanish reminiscences, related as having happened on the very Common which we were crossing. Theodore Watts, who first met Borrow at Hake's, appears to have got on all right with him. But then Watts would get on with anybody. ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... night arrives I am in a highly nervous and excited state. About nine o'clock I begin writing and smoking, and I continue the two exercises, pari passu, until about four o'clock in the morning. Then I reel to bed, half crazy with cigar-smoke and poesy, sleep five hours, and begin the next day as the former. Ordinarily, I sleep from seven to eight hours; but when I am writing, but five,—simply because I cannot sleep any longer at such times. The consequence of this mode of life is that at the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... room were of tiered logs, the bark still on, and the chinking between the logs, plainly visible, was arctic moss. Through the open door that led to the dance-room came the rollicking strains of a Virginia reel, played by a piano and a fiddle. The drawing of Chinese lottery had just taken place, and the luckiest player, having cashed at the scales, was drinking up his winnings with half a dozen cronies. The faro- and roulette-tables were busy and ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... with which he had been slowly rowing the boat, and caught up his pole. Then, as the boys watched, they saw him reel in his line and lift from the water a big fish, which sparkled in the sun as it leaped and twisted, trying to get ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope

... seeing what they are tired of, making the agreeable over an abyss of inward yawning, crowded, jostled, breathing hot air, and crushed in halls and stairways, without a moment of leisure for months and months, till brain and nerve and sense reel, and the country is longed for as a period of resuscitation and relief! Such is the release from labor and fatigue brought by wealth. The only thing that makes all this labor at all endurable is, that it is utterly and entirely useless, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... becomes an 'oly rite. So's I won't bring the fam'ly to disgrace I gits a bit uv coachin' overnight On ridin' winners in this bun-fed race. I 'ave to change me shirt, an' wash me face, An' look reel neat, from me waist up at least, An' sling remarks in at the proper place, An' not makes ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis

... the distant battle-field or brings the dream so near it That, almost, as the rifted clouds around them swim and reel, A thousand grey-lipped faces flash—ah, hark, the heart can hear it— The sharp command that lifts as one ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... years afterwards confessed to the dearest friend he had, that in that moment he had the nearest approach to the thought of murder and hate he ever knew. But before he could reply to Van Shaw's brutality he saw him stagger and reel and throw up his arms on the edge of the rock. He heard him cry out, "For God's sake, Bauer!" and then he fell backward and disappeared over ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon

... always the center of a group of loungers. His nine years seemed to have been crowded full of the wildest of wild adventures and happenings, as well by land as by sea, and, given an appreciative audience, he would reel off his yarns by the hour, in a reckless, devil-may-care fashion that set agape even old sea dogs who had sailed the western ocean since boyhood. Then he seemed always to have plenty of money, and he loved to spend it at ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... skies spun like a mighty wheel, I saw the trees like drunkards reel, And a slight flash sprang o'er my ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... was dressed and had issued forth, David had associated himself with two or three of the numerous Highland loungers who always graced the gates of the castle with their presence, and was capering and dancing full merrily in the doubles and full career of a Scotch foursome reel, to the music of his own whistling. In this double capacity of dancer and musician he continued, until an idle piper, who observed his zeal, obeyed the unanimous call of seid suas (i.e. blow up), and ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... from behind the cantle of his saddle a slender case, from which he produced and fitted together a two-ounce rod. "I'll take it right from your own dooryard in just about two jiffies." He affixed a reel, threaded a cobweb line, and selected a fly. "Just save that bacon fry for a few minutes and we'll have some speckled beauties in the pan before you ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... They found the reel, and "scene fifty-one" did indeed show that section of space in which our solar system is. Seaton stopped the chart when star six four seven three was at its closest range, and there was our sun; ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... whom each of the young men of the party was introduced. In some mysterious manner she was insulated and connected with the concealed electrical machine, so that as each gallant touched her fingertips he received an electric shock that "made him reel." Not content with this, the host invited the young men to kiss the beautiful maid. But those who were bold enough to attempt it received an electric shock that nearly "knocked their teeth out," as ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... log consists of a reel, line, toggle and chip. Usually a second glass is used for measuring time. The chip is the triangular piece of wood ballasted with lead to ride point up. The toggle is a little wooden case into which a peg, joining the ends of the two lower lines of the bridle, is set in such a way that a jerk ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... who with the golden tires of their wheels increase the rain, stir up the clouds like wanderers on the road. They are brisk, indefatigable, they move by themselves; they throw down what is firm, the Maruts with their brilliant spears make everything to reel. We invoke with prayer the offspring of Rudra, the brisk, the pure, the worshipful, the active. Cling for happiness-sake to the strong company of the Maruts, the chasers of the sky, the powerful, the impetuous. The mortal whom ye, Maruts, protected, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... strode Launcelot, and laid The mighty-moulded hand that made Strong knights reel back like birds affrayed By storm that smote them as they strayed Against the hilt that yielded not. Then Tristram, bright and sad and kind As one that bore in noble mind Love that made light as darkness blind, ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... apple-trees near by, which looked as if they might be the last of a once flourishing orchard. They were standing in a row, in exactly the same position, with their heads thrown gayly back, as if they were dancing in an old-fashioned reel; and, after the forward and back, one might expect them to turn partners gallantly. I laughed aloud when I caught sight of them: there was something very funny in their looks, so jovial and whole-hearted, with ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various

... popular is the daefva vadmal (weaving homespun), whose figures are supposed to imitate the action of the shuttle, the beating in of the woof, and other motions used in weaving at an old-fashioned loom. Some of the dances resemble those of Scotland, and one is almost exactly like the Virginia reel as danced by old-fashioned people in the United States. In another, called the "garland," the dancers wind in and out under their clasped hands in imitation of the weaving of a wreath of flowers. All the dances require violent physical ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... opposing clouds. Pois'd by their wings the eastern gales they pass, Which started with them: but their burthen light, Small felt the pressure on the chariot seat: Not what the steeds of Sol had felt before. As ships unpois'd reel tottering through the waves, Light and unsteady, rambling o'er the main; So bounds the car, void of its 'custom'd weight, High-toss'd as though unfill'd. This quick perceiv'd, Fierce rush the four-yok'd steeds, and quit the path Beaten before, and tread a road unknown. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... stepped outside, on the heels of the others, he certainly didn't feel as though treading on air. Instead, he wondered if he were going to reel and totter, so dizzy did he feel over the sudden realization of the responsibilities he had taken ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock

... rest, and every day Hitty's half-delirious brain laid plans of escape, only to be balked by Abner Dimock's vigilance; for if he slept, it was with both arms round her, and the slightest stir awoke him,—and while he woke, not one propitious moment freed her from his watch. Her brain began to reel with disappointment and anguish; she began to hate her husband; a band of iron seemed strained about her forehead, and a ringing sound filled her ears; her lips grew parched, and her eye glittered; the last night of their journey Abner Dimock lifted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... great recall! Swift, O swift, for the squadrons break, The long lines waver, mazed in the gloom! Hither and thither the blind host blunders. Stand thou firm for a dead Man's sake, Firm where the ranks reel down to their doom, Stand thou firm in the midst of the thunders, Stand where the steeds and the riders fall, Set the bronze to thy lips and sound A rally to ring the whole world round. Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us! ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... gathered around the bright little wood fire that the chilly spring evening made necessary in the housekeeper's room. Mrs. Condiment was knitting, Capitola stitching a bosom for the major's shirts and Pitapat winding yarn from a reel. ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... heaves and labors with the shuddering sound; Columns of smoke, that cap the rumbling height, Roll reddening far thro heaven, and choke the light; From tottering steeps descend their cliffs of snow, The mountains reel, the valleys rend below; The headlong streams forget their usual round, And shrink and vanish in the gaping ground. The sun descends; but night recals in vain Her silent shades, to recommence her reign; The bursting mount gapes high, a sudden glare Coruscates wide, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... betwixt the sheltering nesses the ocean-wind is laid: No whit they brook delaying: but their noblest and their best Toss up the shaven oar-blades, and toil and mock at rest: Full swift they skim the swan-mead till the tall masts quake and reel, And the oaken sea-burgs quiver from bulwark unto keel. It is Gunnar goes the foremost with the tiller in his hand, And beside him standeth Knefrud and laughs on Atli's land: And so fair are the dragons driven, that by ending of the day On the beach by the ebb ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... days! till learning fly the shore, Till birch shall blush with noble blood no more, Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play, Till Westminster's whole year be holiday, Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, And Alma ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... with the opposite files of spearmen. Then came the charge of the cavalry, which—notwithstanding they were thrown into some disorder by the fire of Pizarro's arquebusiers, far superior in number to their own—was conducted with such spirit that the enemy's horse were compelled to reel and fall back before it. But it was only to recoil with greater violence, as, like an overwhelming wave, Pizarro's troopers rushed on their foes, driving them along the slope, and bearing down man and horse in indiscriminate ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... keeping—a sanded floor, a chest of drawers, with a small looking-glass, ornamented by a sprig of asparagus, a dresser of rough pine shelves on the right of the fireplace, and a cupboard on the left, a half-dozen chip-bottomed chairs, a spinning-wheel, and a reel and jack, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... leeze me on my spinnin'-wheel, [Blessings on] O leeze me on my rock and reel; [distaff] Frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, [top to toe, clothes, comfortably] And haps me fiel and warm at e'en! [wraps, well] I'll set me down and sing and spin, While laigh descends the simmer sun, [low] Blest wi' content, and ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... wheel and lifting keel, And smoking torch on high, When winds are loud and billows reel, She thunders foaming by; When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green That skirts her ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... notorious profligacy of his character; nothing of the reckless extravagance with which he has wasted an ample fortune; nothing of the disgusting intemperance which has sometimes caused him to reel in our streets;—but I aver that he has not been faithful to our interests,—has not exhibited either probity or ability in the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... romance—for nowhere on this earth do the stars shine so sweetly as down between the precipices of shame to the black floor of the slum's abyss. Spenser, stooped and shaking, rose abruptly, thrust Susan aside with a sweep of the arm that made her reel, bolted into the street. She recovered her balance and amid hoarse croakings of "That's right, honey! Don't give him up!" followed the shambling, swaying figure. He was too utterly drunk to go far; soon down he sank, a heap of rags and ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... would be happier, an' feel safer, politically speakin', if they had among 'em a aristocracy to which they could look up to in times of trouble, as their nat'ral born gardeens? I ask yer this because I want to know for myself what are the reel sentiments ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... With friars and abbots to cope, By a nod, if you please, you can make me a Prior— By a word you render me Pope. If you'd eat, I'm a Crab; if you'd cut, I'm your Steel, As sharp as you'd get from the cutler; I'm your Cotton whene'er you're in want of a reel, And your livery carry, as Butler. I'll ever rest your debtor If you'll answer my first letter; Or must, alas, eternity Witness your taciturnity? Speak—and oh! speak quickly Or else I shall grow sickly, And pine, And whine, And grow yellow and ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... States Government, Mr. St. Clair explained, was assisting him and the Apollo Film Company in producing the eight-reel film entitled ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... her waist. Only for an instant; the next, with all the blood of all the Dantons flushing her cheeks, she had sprung back and struck him a blow in the face that made him reel. The blood started from the drunken soldier's nose, and he stood for a second stunned by the surprise blow; the next, with an imprecation, he would have caught her, but that something caught him from behind, and held him as in a vise. A big dog had come over the fields in vast bounds, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... really afraid that it must be a tornado. Ah," she continued, emotion catching at her voice, "heaven help all poor souls at sea! How the wind must whistle through the cordage! how the marlin-spikes must quiver, and the good ship reel on such a night!" She looked up at a cloudless sky, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... parliamentary tact and intellectual vigor; and I do not think that an hour of my life ever glided so insensibly away as while I listened to that debate. Blows fell fast and heavy. I saw Judge Barbour, who, though president of the Convention, as the house was in committee, engaged in the debate, fairly reel in his seat from one of Judge Marshall's massy blows, which he returned presently with right good will; but Tazewell, if I may use a figure which presented the pith of the argument of one side, and which was frequently used by both,—Tazewell fairly "sunk the boat" under the Chief Justice. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... around the long sewing table under the trees, when the ladies' aid was at work with needle and tongue, should be the principal incident of this reel devoted to ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... Trial Champion among Spaniels. Other good Clumbers who earned distinction in the field were Beechgrove Minette, Beechgrove Maud, the Duke of Portland's Welbeck Sambo, and Mr. Phillips' Rivington Honey, Rivington Pearl, and Rivington Reel. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... away, and by vigorous work succeeded in reaching one of them, although our canoe was half full of water. Then could we enter into David's words, as for life we struggled, and our little craft was tossed on the cross sea in our efforts to reach a place of safety: "They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... begin to do as well as you on a trade of that kind, Mr. Rogers," I answered, off the reel, "for I don't suppose they will be anxious ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... large mouth, and did she not lack half a score or a dozen front teeth she might pass and make a figure among the fairest. I say nothing of her lips, for they are so thin that, were it the fashion to reel lips, one might make a skein of them; but, being of a different color from what is usual in lips, they have a marvellous appearance, for they are streaked with blue, green, and orange-tawny. Pardon ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... breath he watched till the kopje was blotted from his sight, and the demons of the storm came shrieking back. Then suddenly there came a crash that shook the world and made the senses reel. He heard the rush and swish of water, water torrential that fell in a streaming mass, and as his understanding came staggering back he knew that the first, most menacing danger was past. The cloud had burst ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... this instant it seems to gleam in the sun-light, and sends a pang to our hearts. But no; it is the white smoke of their guns, while cannoneers and infantry simultaneously fire on the confident assaulters, who stagger, reel under their death-dealing volley, and in a moment the Federal lines are broken and they retreat in masses under cover. A loud and wild cheer succeeds the breathless stillness that prevailed amongst us, and is answered exultingly by the heroic ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman

... very dreamy now for a time. His head throbbed and felt confused, and a sickly, deathly sensation made his brain reel. By degrees this passed away, and he lay gazing at the strange opalescent something through which he felt that he had passed, and by degrees he realised that he was watching the great curtain of mist made glorious by the sunshine, ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... large moth, Aristotle gives us an account which has been a puzzle to many. This begins as a great grub or caterpillar, with (as it were) horns; and, growing by easy stages, it spins at length a cocoon. There is a class of women who unwind and reel off the cocoons, and afterwards weave a fabric with the thread; and a certain woman of Cos is credited with the invention of this fabric. This is, at first sight, a plain and straightforward description of the silkworm; but we know that it was ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... shouted, "One more trial now!" As if ashamed of the heedless fall, He gathered his strength once more for all, And, galloping down a hillside steep, Gained on the troopers at every leap; No more the high-bred steed did reel, But ran his best for ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... advisability of reaching there to-day, if possible. The morning is ushered in with a stiff head-wind, and the fever leaves me feeling anything but equal to pedalling against it when I mount my wheel at early daybreak. By sheer strength of will I reel off mile after mile, stopping to rest frequently at ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... to habitations, what's these to a street in Lunnun? Begin on the starboard hand, for instance, as you walk down Cheapside, and count as you go; my life for it, you'll reel off more houses in half an hour's walk than are to be found in all that there village yonder. Then you'll remember, sir, that the starboard hand only has half, every Jack having his Jenny. I look upon Lunnun as the finest sight ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... of wind-blown, wind-carved peaks lifted in sombre defiance against the stars. It brooded darkly over the lower slopes, like an incubus it dominated the other spines and ridges, its gorges filled with shadow and mystery, its precipices making the sense reel dizzily. And somewhere up there high against the sky, alone, suffering, perhaps dying, a man had waited through the slow hours, and still awaited their coming. How slowly she and Norton were riding, how heartless of her to have ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... discipline of this body of brave and intelligent men. Insulated wires—insulated so that they would transmit messages in a storm, on the ground or under water—were wound upon reels, making about two hundred pounds weight of wire to each reel. Two men and one mule were detailed to each reel. The pack-saddle on which this was carried was provided with a rack like a sawbuck placed crosswise of the saddle, and raised above it so that the reel, with its ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... in your bundle, you returned to the ward to attend to other (and generally less entertaining) duties until such time as it was proper to repair to the Clean Linen Store. The staff of the Clean Linen Store, a huge department whose system of book-keeping is enough to make the brain reel (for here sheets, etc., are dealt with not in dozens but in thousands), had in the interim received your chit from their colleagues of the Dirty Linen Store. These latter, rashly or otherwise, had guaranteed ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... according to the present system of the Public Schools, and rest assured we shall soon have a hell upon earth—society will be stabbed to the heart by the ruffian assassin called godless Public School education—it will reel, stagger, and sink a bleeding victim to the ground, expiring, like the suicide, by the wound itself has inflicted. I truly believe that if Satan was presented with a blank sheet of paper, and bade to write on it the most fatal gift to man, he would simply ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... "that you Croesuses make a half-pay Major of Artillery's head reel. If I were like you, I should go into a shop and buy a super-dreadnought, and stick a card on it with a drawing pin, and send it to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I said to myself: we couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it made me reel when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy in a marching regiment! Better men grow old and gray in the service before they climb to a sublimity like that. And who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate shoulders? ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... for flight was open to him did the strength of Hervey desert him. A nightmare weakness was in his knees so that he could hardly reel to his feet and he moved with outstretched hands towards the door until his toe clicked against his fallen revolver. He paused to scoop it up and turning back through the door, he realized suddenly that Red Jim had not ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... than those of plying her with the bottle, until her distinguishing faculties should be overpowered, he promoted a quick circulation. She did him justice, without any manifest signs of inebriation, so long, that his own eyes began to reel in the sockets, and he found that before his scheme could be accomplished, he should be effectually unfitted for all the purposes of love. He therefore had recourse to his valet-de-chambre, who understood the hint as soon as it was given, and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... quake, shiver, totter, brandish, joggle, quaver, shudder, tremble, flap, jolt, quiver, sway, vibrate, fluctuate, jounce, reel, swing, wave, flutter, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... were thus spread to the wind, working on a radius of fifteen feet. The horizontal drive wheel had a diameter of ten feet, carried eighty-eight wooden cogs which engaged a pinion with fifteen leaves, and there were nine arms on the reel at the other end of the shaft which drove the chain. The boards or buckets of the chain pump were six by twelve inches, placed nine inches apart, and with a fair breeze ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... overseer turn wildly, clap his hands to his head, and fall; to hear a shriek from Del that froze her blood; to see the solid ceiling gape above her; to see the walls and windows stagger; to see iron pillars reel, and vast machinery throw up its helpless, giant arms, and a tangle of ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... won't be. Jest polished up. Skin slicked up, hair fixed to the style, nails trimmed an' shined. Culchured. Inside you'll be yore real self. You can't take the gold out of a bit of ore any more than you can change iron pyrites inter the reel stuff. But, if the gold's goin' to be put into proper circulation, it's got ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... country-lasses find a pleasing care In soft, warm wool their snowy flocks have bred; The distaff, skein and spindle they prepare, And reel, with firm-set thumb, ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... rogue's thrust, Duke Joc'lyn blithely parried Right featly with the quarter-staff he carried. Then 'neath the fellow's guard did nimbly slip And caught him in a cunning wrestler's grip. Now did they reel and stagger to and fro, And on the ling each ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... whole body trembling, his mind all agony, his cheeks cold and pale, his eyes languishing, his tongue refusing to give utterance to his pressure, and his legs to support his body; and much ado he had to reel into Antonet's, chamber, where he found the maid dying with grief for her concern for him. He was no sooner got to her bed-side, but he fell dead upon it; while she, who was afraid to alarm her lady ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... delicate plant and creeping thing was poisoned by their breath, and the larger animals were devoured in the flap of a bird's wing. With them came terrific lightnings that rent the trees and cleft the solid rock, and thunders which caused the earth to reel like a man who had drank many times of fire-water. Nearer and nearer they approached, and now the chosen residents of this fair plain were filled with alarm for their lives, and at once began to build fortifications against the terrible intruders. The snakes, who appeared to ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... that I could have tried on the instant the temper of the trout that had just broken the surface within easy reach of the shore. But I had anticipated this moment coming along, and had surreptitiously undone my rod-case and got my reel out of my bag, and was therefore a few moments ahead of my companion in making the first cast. The trout rose readily, and almost too soon we had more than enough for dinner, though no "rod-smashers" had been seen or felt. Our experience the next ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... his party passed down the whole length of the room, and retired through an upper door. As soon as they were gone the negro fiddlers, six in number, led by Jovial, entered, took their seats, tuned their instruments, and struck up a lively reel. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Randall felt his brain reel as he gazed at that mind-shattering thing. The Martian Master—this great head with three bodies! Reason told Randall, even as he strove for sanity, that the thing was but logical, that even on earth biologists had formed multiple-headed creatures by surgery, and that ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... characteristic scream, the reel shrilled out, and the fish took nearly a hundred feet of line, but the angler held the brake so hard that the strain rapidly exhausted the fish, and when it turned toward the boat, the professor's deft fingers ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... deservedly at her ease. By finely succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and lay lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed with severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel was ready at her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and innocently rested her head against the leafy and flowery wall of the arbor. Was it thought that gradually closed her eyes again? or was it sleep? In either case, Susan was ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins

... feet had Dick gone when he felt a sudden, violent tug. With the true patience of the trout fisherman, Dick didn't become at all excited. His hand on the reel, he let the line fly out as the finny ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... road among the hills that shut it in. The rocky sides of the knolls were seamed by ravines and covered with banks of stones and short brush, through which it was very difficult to force a passage. Then one day, Blake, who felt his head reel, ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... was finished. He had told it straight off the reel, like a story learnt by heart and incapable of revision in ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... promise. When the sun first came in view, there was not a cloud on the face of the sky. In the space of a breath, thick darkness overspread the earth, rendering it as dark as the darkest night, and the thunders rolled so awfully, that the very earth seemed to reel like a man who has drunken twice of the fire-eater, which the brothers of our friend sell us in the Village of the High Rock.[A] But what astonished our people most was, that no lightning accompanied ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... and his clever punt. I left the pottering Cather to put ship-shape his cabin (as he now called it) for himself—a rainy-day occupation for aliens. In high delight I put out with Moses Shoos to the Off-and-On grounds. Man's work, this! 'Twas hard sailing for a hook-and-line punt—the reel and rush and splash of it—but an employment the most engaging. 'Twas worse fishing in the toss and smother of the grounds; but 'twas a thrilling reward when the catch came flopping overside—the ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... hope to buy, Their phantoms round me waltz and wheel, They pass before the dreaming eye, Ere Sleep the dreaming eye can seal. A kind of literary reel They dance; how fair the bindings shine! Prose cannot tell them what I feel,— The Books that ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang

... of the self-control she has taught herself, Lady Baltimore's self-possession gives way. Her brain seems to reel. Instinctively she grasps hold of the back of a tall prie-dieu ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... the gleam of snow-fields, bright As burnished shields of tempered steel, And round each sovereign lonely height I watch the storm-clouds vault and reel, Heavy with hail and trailing Veils ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... ships, Who do business in great waters, They see the works of the Lord, And his wonders in the great deep. When he speaks, the tempest rises, And tosses the waves on high. Up to heaven, then down they go, Their courage melts at the danger, They stagger and reel like drunkards, And their skill is all exhausted. Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, And he saves them from their distresses. He makes the tempest a calm, And the waves of the sea are still. They are glad when the waves go down; To the haven ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... hentertaned that they wood have to cum again shortly; but they are bold plucky gents, is the men of the Copperashun, and they one and all xpressed their reddiness to do it at the call of dooty. Besides, we had sich a reel Commodore a board as made us all quite reddy to brave the foaming waves again. Why, he guv out the word of command, whether it was to "Port the Helem," or to "Titen the mane braces," as if he had bin a Hadmiral at the werry least, and his galliant crew obeyed him without ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... questions right off the reel, Cole. Mebbe I could guess at one or two answers, but they likely wouldn't be right. F'r instance, I could guess that he was here in this room from the time my uncle was killed till ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... packed up; for travelling... stars too close, really... why, the sun's a star, too close to be seen properly; the earth's a star, too close to be seen at all... too many pebbles on the beach; ought all to be put in rings; too many blades of grass to study... feathers on a bird make the brain reel; wait till the big bag is unpacked... may all be put in ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?" asked her father. "Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite cannie: she ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... was so quietly authoritative that she obeyed instantly, and when he lifted her from the sofa, she took his arm, and walked towards the door. Before they had crossed the hall, he felt her reel and lean more heavily against him, and silently he took the thin form in his arms, and carried her ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... victory at Gettysburg; and as I rode forward over that field of green clover, made red with the blood of both armies, I found a major-general among the dead and the dying. But a few moments before, I had seen the proud form of that magnificent Union officer reel in the saddle and then fall in the white smoke of the battle; and as I rode by, intensely looking into his pale face, which was turned to the broiling rays of that scorching July sun, I discovered that he was not dead. Dismounting from my horse, I lifted his ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... until it was forced out of place by a violent effort. The ball was seven inches in circumference, and covered with mucus, but otherwise unchanged. Breisky is accredited with the report of a case of a woman suffering with dysmenorrhea, in whose vagina was found a cotton reel which had been introduced seven years before. The woman made a good recovery. Pearse mentions a woman of thirty-six who had suffered menorrhagia for ten days, and was in a state of great prostration and suffering ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... not ye many masters." Truly this is the root of all contentions and strifes. It is this which rents all human and Christian society. This looses all the pins of concord and unity. This sets all by the ears, and makes all the wheels reel through other. The conceit of some worth beyond others, and the imagination of some pre-eminence over them, even in the best creatures—he best, and he best, that is the plea, he greatest, and he greatest, that is the controversy. As bladders ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... bite at length. The pole bent almost double and the reel played back and forth rapidly as the fisher wore down his victim. Finally he came close to the edge of the stream, dipped his net into the water, and jerked it up at once bearing a twisting, shining ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... and, gathering himself together, sprang straight at Morella as springs a starving wolf. The blue steel flickered in the sunlight, then down it fell, and lo! half the Spaniard's helm lay on the sand, while it was Morella's turn to reel backward—and more, as he did so, he let fall ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... gets enthusiastic over anything it ain't any flash in the pan. It's apt to be done, and done right. She tells me what to do right off the reel. And you should have seen me blowin' that five hundred like a drunken sailor. I charters a five-piece orchestra, gives a rush order to a decorator, and engages a swell caterer, warnin' Tessie by wire what to expect. Vee tackled the telephone work, and with ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... me—I am not a coward. If I were really in a like scene fear would be the least of my emotions; but in the dream I tremble and am afraid. Slowly, silently, the door opens, the men of the dark enter, wall and windows begin to reel. I hear a quick, loud cry, rending the silence and falling into a roar like that of flooding waters. Then I wake, and my dream is ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... e'er fat Falstaff, wreathing 'neath his cup Of glorious sack, unable to reel home, Sit on thy breast, and give his fancy up, The all that wine had given pow'r to roam, And left the mind in gay, but dreamy talk, Wakeful in wit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various

... forget. His light hair was very long and silky, coming down over his coat. His beard had been prepared in holy land, and was patriarchal. He never shaved and rarely trimmed it. It was glossy, soft, clean, and altogether not unprepossessing. It was such that ladies might desire to reel it off and work it into their patterns in lieu of floss silk. His complexion was fair and almost pink; he was small in height and slender in limb, but well-made; and his voice was of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Maudina, too. Being, as I said, kind of green concerning men folks, and likewise taking to poetry like a cat to fish, she just fairly gushed over this fraud. She'd reel off a couple of fathom of verses from fellers named Spencer or Waller, or such like, and he'd never turn a hair, but back he'd come and say they was good, but he preferred Confucius, or Methuselah, or somebody so antique that she nor ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... a terror in the joy. The wide vacancy of the air dazed them,—a glance downward made their brains reel. But when a great wind filled their wings, and Icarus felt himself sustained, like a halcyon-bird in the hollow of a wave, like a child uplifted by his mother, he forgot everything in the world but joy. He forgot Crete and the other islands that he had passed over: he saw but vaguely that winged ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody

... it had not interrupted a fiddler, who had lately begun playing by the door of the tent, nor the four bowed old men with grim countenances and walking-sticks in hand, who were dancing "Major Malley's Reel" to the tune. Behind these stood Pennyways. Troy glided up to him, beckoned, and whispered a few words; and with a mutual glance of concurrence the two men went into the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... his mother's; she hasn't much either; and if Richard should lose what he put in with Val, he couldn't marry for years, probably. That's what made him so obstinate about it. No; if I ever marry right off the reel it's got to be ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... there was music, and the dances of old Ireland—the reel and the lilt. And when last of all came the Irish jig, the old woman put her basket down on ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... was wound onto the pillar as much as he possibly could be, and as tight—like cotton on a reel—the Princess stopped running, and though she had very little breath left, she managed ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... Copas," said Brother Bonaday slowly, his eyes fixed now on the reel, the whirring click of which drew his attention, so that he seemed to address his speech to it. "It is very kind, and I thank you. But I hope the Master will not refuse: though, to tell you the truth, there is another ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... deep breaths of the dawn and thunder, And the whole of my heart grows young again. For our Chiefs said "Done," and I did not deem it; Our Seers said "Peace," and it was not peace; Earth will grow worse till men redeem it, And wars more evil, ere all wars cease. But the old flags reel and the old drums rattle. As once in my life they throbbed and reeled; I have found ray youth in the lost battle, I have found my heart on the battlefield. For we that fight till the world is free, We are not easy in victory: We have known each other too long, ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton

... these yer niggers," said Sam to himself, "now I've got a chance. Lord, I'll reel it off ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... thought for one moment that there was any danger of my becoming a Cicero or any other Latin worthy I'd go drown myself!" Van cried, startled at the mere thought. "I'm not so worse, though, am I? I'd no idea I could reel it off like that." ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... thrilled him; it would have been truer to say a wild joy, only that it held a pang of remorse for itself. So she had lain at the Hotel du Chalet when he had left her for that long walk over the crisp mountain snow. And when he had returned, she—what She? No, his brain did not reel on the verge of madness; it merely accepted under the compulsion of knowledge a truth of those truths that are too profound to admit of mere external proof. For our reason plays at the edge of the universe as a little ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... was over, the piper—to the discomfort of Mr. Sercombe's English ears—began his invitation to the dance, and in a few moments the floor was, in a tumult of reels. The girls, unacquainted with their own country's dances, preferred looking on, and after watching reel and strathspey for some time, altogether declined attempting either. But by and by it was the turn of the clanspeople to look on while the lady of the house and her sons danced a quadrille or two with their visitors; after which the chief and his brother pairing with ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... violin All one it is who joins the reel, Drops from the dance, or enters in; So that the never-ending wheel Cease not its mystic course to spin, For weal or ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne



Words linked to "Reel" :   eightsome, square dance, square dancing, wrap, shuttle, revolve, walk, film, fishing rig, go around, fishing tackle, wind, whirligig, roll, fishing gear, highland fling, longways, dance music, rotate, rig, fishing pole, twine, fishing rod, filature, winder, photographic film, tackle, longways dance



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