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Springy

adjective
(compar. springier; superl. springiest)
1.
Elastic; rebounds readily.  Synonyms: bouncy, live, lively, resilient.  "A lively tennis ball" , "As resilient as seasoned hickory" , "Springy turf"
2.
(of movements) light and confidently active.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Springy" Quotes from Famous Books



... worked with all her might to provide in advance against it. But the bushes and leaves were not all that she had brought. She had collected also a large quantity of gray moss with which to make a carpet for the springy floor. ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston

... madly at them yelling "Fag!" When somehow something gives and your feet drag. You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain And find ... you're digging tunnels through the hay In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day. Oh, springy hay, and lovely beams to climb! You're back in the old sailor suit again. ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... had not attained to that age when the sinews become too much relaxed for active exertion, but was yet springy and agile, and was enabled to keep ahead of his pursuer. Despairing of overtaking him, by reason of his great speed, the savage hurled a tomahawk at his head. It passed harmless by; and the old gentleman ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... to us with a pleasant smile on his face, as if he were lightly amused with himself; and we came up and looked at him. He was rather short, about John Fry's height, or may be a little taller, but very strongly built and springy, as his gait at every step showed plainly, although his legs were bowed with much riding, and he looked as if he lived on horseback. To a boy like me he seemed very old, being over twenty, and well-found in beard; but he was not more than four-and-twenty, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... Arizona, which blots out garish day with a cloak of violet, purple-edged where the hills rise vaguely in the distance, and softens magically all harsh details beneath the starry vault—she slipped out to the summit of the ridge in the big pasture, climbing lightly, with the springy ease born of the vigor her nineteen outdoor years had stored in the strong young body. She wanted to be alone, to puzzle out what the coming of this man meant to her. Had he intended anything by ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... country person whom they knew, and with whom they exchanged a kindly, placid greeting. But presently, to Ruth's dismay, she heard a step behind, coming at a rapid pace, a peculiar clank of rather high-heeled boots, which gave a springy sound to the walk, that she had known well long ago. It was like a nightmare, where the Evil dreaded is never avoided, never completely shunned, but is by one's side at the very moment of triumph in escape. There he was by her side; and there was a quarter ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the stony road and walked upon the springy turf bordering the moorland. Little curled-up shoots of light green were springing from the bracken. Here and there, a flame of gorse filled the air with its faint, almond-like blossom. And the birds! Farmlands ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... budding trees, and through the soft springy turf that was growing green again in spite of the bitter spring winds, but she found no little native lurking among the birches, and was disappointed to come to the other side of the wood much more quickly than she expected, without the detour being ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... along on the first evening after his return the feel of the country smote him as never before. Ecstasy welled in him, clear and living; the strong, pure air made him want to shout with joy. And more than the sight of the swelling land, more than the feel of the springy turf beneath his feet, or the wind on his eyelids, it was the smell of the country that woke in him this ecstasy. Sweet as the breath of cows came its mingled fragrance of grass and earth and of the fine dust on the roadway, of the bitter-sweet tang of the bracken and faint ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... the wire. Stout, stiff, and surprisingly springy wire of the same peculiar metal. It was that metallic ammonium which chemists have deduced must exist because of the chemical behavior of the compound NH3, but which Denham alone had managed to procure. Tommy deduced that it was an allotropic modification of the substance which forms an amalgam ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... one room to another, who toil indoors and carry bundles of paper. Manly strength, you say, appears only with manhood; the vital spirits, distilled in their proper vessels and spreading through the whole body, can alone make the muscles firm, sensitive, tense, and springy, can alone cause real strength. This is the philosophy of the study; I appeal to that of experience. In the country districts, I see big lads hoeing, digging, guiding the plough, filling the wine-cask, driving the cart, like their fathers; you would take them for grown men if their voices ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... court, which was covered with a soft, springy turf of green. The hot sun shining down on them, the brilliant colors of the buildings, the towering walls of the magnificent edifice they were approaching, and, behind them, the shining hull of the Ancient Mariner set among ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell

... time to tell you about all the children saw and did during their visit to the Dale Farm: how they rode on the hay, then came jogging back in the empty cart for more; how they drove with the farmer in his spring-cart, which was not so very springy; how they learned to milk, and quite got over their fear of cows. Altogether they had such a delightful time that they hope they may go ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various

... left Bulangi's house to paddle up to Sambir she had heard voices outside the house when all in it but herself were asleep. And now, with her knowledge of the words spoken in the darkness, she held in her hand a life and carried in her breast a great sorrow. Yet from her springy step, erect figure, and face veiled over by the everyday look of apathetic indifference, nobody could have guessed of the double load she carried under the visible burden of the tray piled up high with cakes manufactured ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... and although the mountain seemed at a great distance, we pushed forward with renewed energy and hope. Our animals, too, as if they also understood the matter, neighed and brayed loudly, and stepped out with a more springy and ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... as a sequel to the Elements of Agriculture, being a larger and more complete work, containing fuller directions for the treatment of the different kinds of soils, for the preparation of manures, and especially for the drainage of lands, whether level, rolling, hilly, or springy. Particular attention will be paid to the use of analysis. The feeding of different animals, and the cultivation of the various crops, will be described ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring

... the soft dank ground daintily overspread with the frond of marvelous fern like my window pane this morning with its delicate tracery in frost; the tall-stemmed alders echoing your shots to skyward; the big dense timber with its springy ground all saturated with the fragrance of the mounting sea: I seem like something dead whispering to you from the tomb. Nothing lasts longer than twenty-four hours in New York—not even a memory, so no one misses me. It's another of God's ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... sheering about for a minute on his springy bay, suddenly came up between the two girls and kept the brown mare too far to the left to permit another flank ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... under the kitchen flooring. Toward the last it was found necessary to employ an assistant, a seamstress, known of old to Mata. Her companionship, as well as her sewing, proved a boon. Seated upon the springy matting, with waves of shimmering silk tumultuous about them, the old dames chatted incessantly of other brides and other wedding outfits they had known. Marvellous were their tales of married life, ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... share, and in the labor of the trail, he was more efficient than anybody else in the train. But his pride had been touched by Conway's words. He would not ride, nor would he show any signs of weakness. He strode on by the side of the wagon, head erect, his step firm and springy. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... the top of a tall tree growing by the water's edge. There, one by one, they ran out on a straight overhanging limb and cast themselves into space. On the opposite bank of the river, and leaning well out, grew a small springy bush. Each monkey landed smash in the middle of this, clasped it with all four hands, swayed alarmingly, recovered, and scampered ashore. It was rather a nice problem in ballistics this, for a mistake in calculation of a foot ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... he whispers (for the colors have passed), "Henry, if you lead the regiment out of this battle, I ask you never to forget my last wishes." The two friends clasp hands silently. With a bright smile, whose light lingers as he spurs past the springy column, he takes the lead, falcon-eyed, riding down silently into ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... age, and, preparing for the night, saw with a sense of personal outrage his seamed countenance reflected in the mirror of the bureau. Yet in reality he wasn't old—forty-something—still, not fifty. He was as hard and nearly as springy as a hickory sapling. There was a saying in which he found vast comfort—the prime, the ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... have much better luck making the bow than his sister had had. The trouble was that the sticks Janet had picked up were not the right kind. They would not bend, and to make a bow that shoots arrows a piece of wood that springs, or bends, is needed. For it is the springy action of the wood that shoots the arrow on ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis

... and they came out into a long narrow glen, carpeted with short springy turf, and bordered, as by an avenue, with trees knee-deep in bracken. The rectangular shape and enclosed nature of the glade came as a surprise in the midst of the wild woodlands. The place had more the air of forming part of pleasure grounds near to the haunts of man, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... well-laid main road, and along this we trotted on to a tempting stretch of heath-land. There was a heavy mist, but the scent of the heather in the early morning was delightful, and there was something exhilarating in the dull thud of the hoofs upon the springy turf. The negro was a natural horseman, and he seemed to enjoy the ride every bit as much as I did. For my own part I was sorry to return. But the vapours of the night had been effectively cleared from my mind, and when presently we headed again for the hills, I could think ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... The soft and springy button of lamp-black became no longer necessary, since it was not so much the resistance of the material which varied as the resistance at the contacts of its parts and the platinum electrodes. Two metals, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... was here and there seen among the curly brown locks. Once it had been a trick of his to leap from the ground to the back of Allick, Sparrow's tallest horse, but he now declined mounting a horse at all. The strong and springy step was gone and his feet shuffled like those of ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... nights the man slept in a hammock swung between two trees in front of his cabin. Ringtail, returning from his nocturnal hunting, would run along the low branch of one of these trees until he stood directly above the sleeper. Then he would let go and fall with a thud, sometimes into the springy hammock, but more often ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... passed thoughts along without putting them into words. I was about six, I guess, when I found out it wasn't so." She slipped into her six-year-old self as easily as she had donned the younger Lucilla. This time she wasn't in a house, but high on a hillside, walking on springy pine needles instead ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant

... excellent. [I believe that these Discovery runners were not a continuous strip of metal but were built up in strips, which tore at the points of junction.] Before it is fitted, German silver should be heated red hot and allowed to cool. This makes it more ductile, like lead, and therefore less springy: the metal should be as ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... hers for a brief moment; the next he was in the saddle. His spur lightly touched the horse's flank, and the springy turf yielded to the iron-shod hooves; there was a waving of a disappearing hand, and the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... bed no feather bed is employed; sometimes mattresses filled with sweet new wheat or cut straw, with the grain in the ears, and mingled with balm, rose leaves, lavender flowers, and oriental spices, and, at other times, springy hair mattresses are used. Neither will you find upon the celestial bed linen sheets; our sheets are of the richest and softest silk or satin; of various colours suited to the complexion of the lady who is to ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport

... heather and ling and springy turf till we reached the old ruin known as the Hunting Tower; then Derrick seemed to awake to the recollection of present things. He ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... meadows, with the calm bright sunset casting its shadow over the shorn grass, or up in the hedge-road, or on the brown banks where the drought had struck. On his back he carried a fishing-basket, containing his bits of refreshment; and in his right hand a short springy rod, the absent sailor's favorite. After long council with Mabel, he had made up his mind to walk up-stream as far as the spot where two brooks met, and formed body enough for a fly flipped in very carefully to sail downward. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... great, sweet-scented couch of springy boughs, and fashioned her a pillow out of a bundle of smaller ones, around which he wrapped his khaki coat; then he removed her high-laced boots, and, taking her tiny feet, one in the palm of either hand, bowed his head over them and kissed ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... things for the Western Dominion, for without it when wheat is cheap and labor dear many a crop that would not pay for the cutting would rot where it grew. Jasper, however, possessed one of the antiquated kind which bound the sheaves with wire, and occasionally led to wild language when a length of springy steel got mixed up with the thrasher. Every joint and sinew ached, there were times when we were almost too tired to sleep, but—and this was never the case with Coombs—wherever the work was hardest the master of the homestead ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... room with the springy, feather-footed step that distinguished her among all the women that he knew. In a few moments she was back. Instead of giving him the key, she put it down on ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... his shoulders, nodded a farewell to the city below him, and, turning round, proceeded to walk leisurely across the Heath. The grass was soft and springy, the earth seemed to answer with agreeable elasticity to his tread, the air was exquisitely clear, keen, and exhilarating. He began to move more briskly, feeling quite boyish again. The years seemed to roll away from him as rifts of sea fog roll ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... Westminster Bridge, up through Whitehall, and brought him to the steps of that building which, among all the great London clubs, most exorbitantly resembles a palace. He mounted its perron with the springy confident step of youth; and that same spring and confidence of gait carried him past the usually vigilant porter. A marble staircase led him to the lordliest smoking-room in London. He frowned, perceiving that his favourite arm-chair was occupied by a somnolent ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... looking sharp to see what kind of seed they dropped into the furrow, a gang of fellows by my side suddenly began to hook up the virgin mould itself, with a peculiar jerk, clean down to the sand, or rather the water—for it was a very springy soil—indeed all the terra firma there was—and haul it away on sleds, and then I guessed that they must be cutting peat in a bog. So they came and went every day, with a peculiar shriek from the locomotive, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... "Very well, white man, I hear thee and I go. But it may be that to-morrow thou wilt be sorry that thou didst refuse." And, so saying, he wrapped his kaross still more closely about him and strode away into the moonlight with the light, springy ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... afterwards is formed into such or such Letters; but that it may become a lovely Voice, it's requisite, that those Cartilages be smooth, and lined with no mucous Matter, else the Voice will become Hoarse, and sometimes be utterly lost, viz. when they have lost their Springy power. ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman

... intoxicating, beloved odour stirring strongly at old memories of happy days and travels. Black Eagle sniffed at the witching smell as the returned wanderer smells of the rose that twines his boyhood's cottage home. Nostalgia seized him. He put his hand inside. Excelsior—dry, springy, curly, soft, enticing, covered the floor. Outside the drizzle had turned to a ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... more, beneath the roundness and fairness of surface, the elasticity and strength of an athlete in training. But when the eye was not exploring the delicate, hard, and yet supple depressions and swellings of the muscles, the slender shapeliness of the long legs and springy feet, the back bulging with strong muscles above, and going in, tight, with a magnificent dip at the waist; all impressions were merged in a sense of ease, of suavity, of full-blown harmony. Here was no pomp of anatomical ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... boys—after they had gone by this well-known spot, and sighted the Scroggins farm beyond, every fellow had actually forgotten such a thing as fatigue. They held themselves up straight, and walked with a springy step that would go far toward indicating that a hundred miles in four days was only play for ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eyes of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect—bright, slender, and graceful,—of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... here at Carpaccio, even in my copy. The colorist says, "First of all, as my delicious paroquet was ruby, so this nasty viper shall be black"; and then is the question, "Can I round him off, even though he is black, and make him slimy, and yet springy, and close down—clotted like a pool of black blood on the earth—all the same?" Look at him beside Michael Angelo's, and then tell me the Venetians can't draw! And also, Carpaccio does it with a touch, with one sweep of his brush; three minutes at the most ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin

... you were happier, Helen; but I recall my words. She is not afraid, though all the time midnight shadows surround her. A sweet smile usually rests upon her face, and her step is light and springy as the ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... for him to be back again, and the whole party were gathered in the keeping-room and in the door-way; Elizabeth and Mrs. Landholm with their respective books and work, the others, children and all, rather on the expecting order and not doing much of any thing; when a quick springy footstep came round the house corner. Not Winthrop's, they all knew; his step was slower and more firm; and Winthrop's features were very little like the round good-humoured handsome face which presented itself ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... "I'll tell you why I've been up into the woods every afternoon with that sweater of rockweed. I made it into a tight bundle and hung it on a springy limb to use for a punching-bag. It wasn't very ornamental, but it served the purpose. I've been training for this fight ever since the Fourth; had a feeling I'd get another chance at him. It's over now, and I hope everybody's satisfied. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... descended from her carriage as Keith passed by. Just as she was about to enter the shop, a well-knit figure with square shoulders and springy step, swinging down the street, caught her eye. She glanced that way and gave an exclamation. The door was being held open for her by a blank-faced automaton in a many-buttoned uniform; so she passed in, but ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... closed the door behind him, and approached her with a kind of jaunty, springy gait that increased her perplexity. She loved to see him lively, but this smirking manner was ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston

... of the saddle, the tinkle of his spurs, the springy stride of the horse furnished a truly pastoral ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... that her white throat ached from suppressing all day were echoing on the stillness when a voice came from the little cot by her bed and the General in disheveled nightshirt and rumpled head rose by her pillow and stood with uncertain feet on his own springy place ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... springy pavements all the way to Grove Street. Fifteen a week! He could live on that. His other income and savings could be devoted to carrying out Miss Camilla's advice. For he need not save any more. He would go ahead, fast, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... me of my promotion in the world. I could not go to bed in a Pullman car, walk over the springy "runner" of a hotel corridor, unfold the immense napkin of a hotel dining-room, or shake down my trousers upon alighting from a boot-black's chair, without being conscious of the difference between my present life and my life ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... bent in his hands; the wood was flexible and springy. It was Diane who offered the next suggestion. She, too, was working at another spear—what wonder if her breath came fast!—but her eyes were alight, and her ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... "They were raised off the floor upon legs, so that no wind from under the door could get at them; and on the flat bottom called the bed-stock, there was placed a thick strong bag called a mattress, which was stuffed with some soft material which made it springy and pleasant to touch or lie down upon. The shape of it was a long square, or what may be called a rectangular parallelogram. I strongly advise you all to learn that word, for it is rather an amusing idea as one steps into ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... somehow fixed to a back hair-comb, and the two ends hang down over the shoulders in front; or, more often, one end is thrown over the opposite shoulder, so that the young lady's face is set in it, like a picture in a frame. Add to this a springy step, the peculiarly unconstrained movement in walking which comes of living in the open air and wearing a loose dress, a pleasant pale face, small features, bright eyes, small hands and feet, little slippers and no stockings, ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... the sound of baying hounds, followed by a quick, springy step through the crackling underbrush, as a young man in close-fitting velvet hunting-suit and jaunty velvet cap emerged from the thicket toward the ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... commonly said not to grow so far north. Near the edge of the banks about half a mile southward, the broom-crowberry, (Empetrum Conradii,) for which Plymouth is the only locality in Massachusetts usually named, forms pretty green mounds four or five feet in diameter by one foot high,—soft, springy beds for the wayfarer: I saw it afterward in Provincetown. But prettiest of all, the scarlet pimpernel, or poor-man's weather-glass, (Anagallis arvensis,) greets you in fair weather on almost every square ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... no: the climate is different. Here, if the life is dull, you can be dull too, and no great harm done. [Going off into a passionate dream] But your wits can't thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You've no such colors in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh, the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heartscalding, never satisfying dreaming, ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw

... dipped his springy oar into the water, and, with a few vigorous strokes, sent his canoe to the shore, and, having moored it to a root, he glided into the thickets, and disappeared with a tread so noiseless as to leave Claud, for many minutes, wholly in doubt whether the man was ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson

... then reared his majestic form dripping from the lake. He stood upon the 'point.' I never saw so grand an animal; it seemed as though no single ball could kill him, and although his head and carcass were enormous, still his length of leg appeared disproportionately great. With quick, springy paces he advanced directly for his favourite tree and began his process of rubbing, perfectly unaware of the ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... during his holidays was Leonard Everard, now a tall, handsome boy. He was one of those boys who develop young, and who seem never to have any of that gawky stage so noticeable in the youth of men made in a large pattern. He was always well-poised, trim-set, alert; fleet of foot, and springy all over. In games he was facile princeps, seeming to make his effort always in the right way and without exertion, as if by an instinct of physical masterdom. His universal success in such matters helped to give him an easy debonair manner ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... the house. He was hatless, coatless, muddy from his work in the ditches. A pair of faded blue overalls were belted to his lean middle by a buckskin thong, and his feet were incased in wet moccasins. He came noiselessly but swiftly, not of purpose, but from habit, with a soft, springy step; and he was level with them before they were aware of him. He came to an abrupt halt, his eyes on Farwell, every muscle tensing. For an instant he resembled a young ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... a springy lope, with his chin up, elbows in and chest distended, his quick small feet slopping regardlessly through the viscous mud of the unpaved byway. "Hear that!" he cried, as a series of short, sharp yells rose in the bazaar behind them. "The dogs have found the scent!" And for a time ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... Boltwood's bed Milt hauled out the springy seat-cushions of both cars. The Gomez cushion was three inches thicker than that of the bug, which resulted in a mattress two stories in front with a lean-to at the foot, and the entire edifice highly slippery. But with a blanket from Milt's kit, it ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... this moisture, the quantity varying with the temperature and the circulation of air about them, and being much more rapid when first picked than after a short time, and by parting with this moisture they become springy or yielding, and in a better condition to pack closely in barrels; but this moisture never shows on the surface in the form of sweat. In keeping apples, very much depends upon the surroundings; every variation in temperature causes a change in the fruit, and hastens ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various

... by the sight before them. Jack had once again clutched his sturdy legs about the man's knees, twisting him so that the iron fingers relaxed from their grip at the boy's throat. The man was now clutching the gold sack, but with a springy, rapid turn Jack wrenched it free. The two rolled over and over, for a short, sharp struggle, and Larry and the Indian appeared only in time to see the two shoot over the bank. Nothing remained in ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... wounded arm precluding me from seizing that coveted privilege, after which the Corsican and I sprang into our saddles, and the cavalcade moved forth into the dazzling moonlight, taking our way over the short springy turf in a direction which enabled us to keep the chateau between us and the French, being cautious at the same time to keep as much as possible within the shadow of the trees. After travelling in this way for about a couple ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... rattans, like all Malay houses. There were three rooms, twelve feet by fifteen each, and two little bath-rooms. A verandah ran along the whole length of the front, and this was planked to prevent little feet from slipping through. But the rooms were covered with thick mats, and the floor was so springy it danced as you moved. We put very little furniture into these rooms, and the inside walls were only eight feet high, so that though you could not see into the next room, you could hear all that went on in all three ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... been a stiff one. The day was very hot, and, rather purple about the face and breathing heavily, the sailor relapsed on the springy, scented turf close to the cliff's edge and gazed pensively at the vista of shimmering ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... morning's ride, our first day's battue was closed early. The party defiled in loose order among the trees in the open forest, cantered over springy turf, and brushed through patches of fern to a sheltered dell in which we were to bivouac, and where the sumpter horses had already halted. Then followed such a rude feast as in all my rambles I had never before chanced ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... Aha! here they come, noble, fearless heroes, all in line, marching with a springy step to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various

... still vexatious: but not absolutely repulsive. Yesterday morning Lord Rosse arranged a new method of suspending the great mirror, so as to take its edgewise pressure in a manner that allowed the springy supports of its flat back to act. This employed his workmen all day, so that the proposed finish of polishing the new mirror could not go on. I took one Camera Lucida sketch of the instrument in the morning, ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... the horse might still be smooth-cheeked, but he had the muscles of an athlete. He took the hills with a light, springy step and breathed easily after stiff climbing. His mind was busy making out what manner of girl this was. She was new to his experience. He had met none like her. That she was a proud, sulky creature he could easily guess from her quickness at taking offense. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... come. With eyes alight she threw me a flashing thanks and was off, a sunbeam through the forest shades; and something was thumping under a velvet waistcoat faster than the greyhound's pace. A moment later, back came the hound in springy stretches, with the riders ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... Wester before ten in the forenoon; for in those days I was an excellent pedestrian, and the distance, as I think I have said, was little over seven miles; fine walking all the way upon the springy turf. The village is one of the bleakest on that coast, which is saying much: there is a church in a hollow; a miserable haven in the rocks, where many boats have been lost as they returned from fishing; two or three score of stone houses arranged along the beach and ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hours. And was there not now a great and a happy change in Flora Bannerworth! As if by magic, in a few short hours, much of the bloom of her before-fading beauty returned to her. Her step again recovered its springy lightness; again she smiled upon her mother, and suffered herself to talk of a happy future; for the dread even of the vampyre's visitations had faded into comparative insignificance against the heart's deep dejection which had come over her at the thought that Charles Holland must ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... been well-fed, well-read, and well-bred for a generation or two, but to which they had an uncommonly good right, as their pedigree—so I afterwards found—ran straight back to the Norman Conquest, without a single "probably" in it. They were, for their age, tall and slender, with yet more springy buoyancy than their aunt in pose and movement. Strangers were always mistaking them for each other. That day I could scarcely tell them apart, though afterwards I wondered at it. Rose was the very prettiest child I ever saw, and Lily pretty nearly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... terrace, cut narrow, sinuous channels which were soon lost to view in the tussocks. Examination of the watercourses revealed that this tract was simply a raised beach covered with sodden peat and carrying a rather coarse vegetation. The ground was decidedly springy and shook to our tread; moreover, one sank down over the ankles at each step. Occasionally a more insecure area was encountered, where one of us would go down to the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, as a ship into the hollow of the sea. Hence, the whole appearance of the bed of the stream is changed, and all the lines of the water altered in their nature. The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools; the leaps are light and springy, and parabolic, and make a great deal of splashing when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet curdling water, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... good spirits on that occasion, but how infinitely more miserable was he now! The hills, the rocks, the streams were far more beautiful than he had ever thought them, but they mocked him with their beauty. He longed to get out of the vehicle, and feel the springy turf, the yielding heather, beneath his feet; to lave his hands in the sparkling brook, to lie on the moss-grown rock, and bask in the blessed sun. Perhaps he should never see them any more—these simple everyday beauties, of which he had scarcely taken any ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... their work, and by the next sundown a new roof had been put on the shanty, "The Pride of the Home" wired more securely upon its two rusty legs and the long bunk flanking one side of the shanty neatly thatched with a deep bed of springy balsam. Thus had the tumble-down log-house been transformed into ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... world. This he never finds, but the likest substitute is trimmed and balanced and poised to that ideal. One man I know has evolved very nearly the weapon of Umslopogaas. It is almost straight, lapped at the butt with leather, amazingly springy, and carries a two-edged blade for splitting and chopping. If his Demon be with him—and what artist can answer for all his moods?—he will cause a tree to fall upon any stick or stone that you choose, uphill ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... bearing had all the fearless dignity of a warrior, blended with the grace of nature. The only obvious defects were in his walk, which was Indian, or in-toed and bending at the knee; but, to counterbalance these, his movements were light, springy and swift. I fancied him, in figure, the very beau-ideal ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... was speeding through the forest. His feet were light, and he sang softly to himself as he trod the springy grass. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick

... and his mother to the gate of the garth of High House; then he got off his horse and helped them down, and as he so dealt with his father, he said to him: "Thou art springy and limber yet, father; maybe thou wilt put on thine helm this year to ride the Debateable ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... Forecastle Jack is not, as a rule, very demonstrative; it appears to be regarded as "bad form" to exhibit excitement under any circumstances, or undue animation unless when confronted with some great and sudden crisis. Then, indeed, his movements are as active and springy as those of a cat; but, unless there is some pressing necessity for nimbleness, Jack regards it as the correct thing and a duty he owes to his own dignity to be deliberate of action. And, above all, whatever the circumstances, there must be no exhibition of vulgar curiosity, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... quantity of young spruce-boughs she fashioned them into a bed close beside where he lay, and filled all the interstices with springy moss, laying over all a blanket. That done, she turned once more to Stane, to find him with eyes ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... springy turf, the bay mare beaten but not cowed, responding docilely to every touch of Brett's hands on the bridle. She had learned her lesson, recognised the man who rode her ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... narrow tires sunk slightly in the yielding shingle fragments. Brittle! Brittle! Brittle! the sound said to Bobby. Above all things he loved to watch the gossamer-like wheels, apparently too light and delicate to bear the weight they must carry, flying over the springy road. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... rose to meet him, and with her eyes the girl followed his motions. The broad and loosely built frame of the Northerner, his shoulders slightly stooping, contrasted with Clarence's slighter figure, erect, compact, springy. The Southerner's eye, for that moment, was flint struck with the spark from the steel. Stephen's face, thinned by illness, was grave. The eyes kindly, yet penetrating. For an instant they stood thus regarding each other, neither offering a hand. It was Stephen who spoke first, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... How precious it was! Young Lennox had said that the forest was beautiful, and it was! It was splendid, grand, glorious to one who had just come out of the jaws of death, and the air of late autumn was instinct with vitality. He drew himself up jauntily, and his step became strong and springy. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... watching these young people who were quite sober, and neither hungry nor thirsty, moving round and round to the slow measures of the concertina, he felt as if his soul were in a swing which was being kept going by his eyes and ears, and his right foot beat time gently on the springy turf. ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... the saddle. He opened his mouth to call to her; he started forward; but he was too late to prevent what happened. Before his throat had made a sound, Jean turned with the packages in the hollow of her arm and stepped upon the platform with that springy haste of movement which belongs to health and youth and happiness; and before he had taken more than the first step away from his horse, she had ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... convent she had not felt this sense of escaping, for the convent had been "home," the goodbyes had drowned her in grief, and she had often before driven off with Lady MacMillan, in the springy barouche behind the fat horses. Even the journey to London had not given her the thrill she hoped for, as rain had fallen heavily, blotting out the landscape. Besides, she had even then regarded her ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the clump, but Ellis, to his friend's dismay, shot past it. The pony's home lay in that direction, and seeing a long green glade right before him, he got his bit between his teeth, and away he went, scampering off as hard as he could lay his feet to the soft springy grass. Ellis held on with all his might. He in vain tried to turn the pony's head. He felt that he was run away with, and had lost ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... satisfied himself that the complexion of the young cherub he had in his arms was not the hectic tinge of disease, but the clear hue of ruddy health; and that though her little frame was slight, it was firm and springy. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... of the country joined them. He was dressed in a suit and hat of deerskin. On his feet were sandals. Across one shoulder he carried a stick from which dangled a bundle. His quick, springy stride carried him easily ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... of the oddities of Holland serve only to prove the thrift and perseverance of the people. There is not a richer or more carefully tilled garden spot in the whole world than this leaky, springy little country. There is not a braver, more heroic race than its quite, passive-looking inhabitants. Few nations have equalled it in important discoveries and inventions; none has excelled it in commerce, navigation, learning, and science—or set as noble examples ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... found his mattress, whatever it was, to be a springy, luxurious bed, and was about to resign himself to slumber when he observed that, from the position in which he lay, he could see the cavern in all its extent. Opening his half-closed eyes, therefore, he watched the ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... dead Uzziah nor the young Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and forebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new strength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious thoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart, and the resolve 'Here am I; send me.' There are some lessons that seem to me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may be gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of time ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... was a glory. The storm of the previous night had cleared and revivified the air, which, for many days, had been oppressively sultry; the irregular patches of sky, glimpsed through the branches, were a transparent blue; the springy ground was bright with wild blossoms and colorful berries,—dogwood and service berry,—adder's tongue, bleeding heart and ferns in rich profusion. His subconscious senses drank in the manifold beauties, but his active mind ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson



Words linked to "Springy" :   lively, live, elastic, springiness, active



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