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Tightness   /tˈaɪtnəs/   Listen
Tightness

noun
1.
A state occasioned by scarcity of money and a shortage of credit.  Synonym: stringency.
2.
A tight feeling in some part of the body.  Synonym: constriction.  "She felt an alarming tightness in her chest" , "Emotion caused a constriction of his throat"
3.
The spatial property of being crowded together.  Synonyms: compactness, concentration, denseness, density.
5.
Lack of movement or room for movement.  Synonym: tautness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tightness" Quotes from Famous Books



... a growing feeling of suffocation and tightness about her throat and heart, for the droop ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... Sindhus then, accompanied by Duryodhana, repaired that very night to Drona (the generalissimo of the Kuru army). Then, O king, having touched Drona's feet with reverence, and taken his seat with humility, he asked the preceptor these words—In hitting the aim, in hitting it from it distance, in tightness of hand, and in the force of the stroke, O illustrious one, tell the difference between myself and Phalguna! O preceptor, I wish to know accurately the difference as regards proficiency (in the science of arms) between myself and Arjuna! ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... of treating acute inflammatory conditions necessitates close supervision until the correct degree of tightness of ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... natives now mounted the raft, and, after dividing themselves into pairs, and taking hold of the slew-ropes in their hands, pulled them up as tight as they could. By this effort they caused the cylinder to turn round till its further revolutions were stopped by the increasing tightness of the hawser, which was wound on the cylinder as fast as the slew-ropes were wound off it. When all the ropes had been drawn equally tight, and the whole party of men had been ranged along the top in an ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... fumes of ammonia are intensely irritating, and may give rise to laryngitis, bronchitis, and even pneumonia. Nitric acid fumes sometimes produce no serious symptoms for an hour or more, but there may then be coughing, difficulty of breathing, and tightness in the lower part of the throat, followed by capillary bronchitis (see ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... in the direction of the kitchen-garden. The kitchen-garden, with its opportunities of occasional refreshment such as would not add uncomfortably to his present feeling of tightness, was the place for a roam. Five minutes later he was leaning against the wire-netting of the chicken-run, and offering an old cock, who asked most pointedly for bread, a stone. To know how to spend a morning was no easier on a birthday ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... Tightness with money, a tendency to be too exacting and dictatorial, and to fail to show affection are the things that frequently prevent marriage for the Osseous and endanger ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... precipitating all of us into the darkness beneath, and then continued its downward course with increased speed, until sparks flew from beneath us like flecks of fire from a blacksmith's forge, and in our breasts was a tightness that ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... off another calcium!" said Terry, with suppressed impatience. He laid a hand on my shoulder and my arm ached from the tightness of his grip. "There," he said pointing with his finger as the light flared up again. "What do ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... on the other hand, the people were badly off, when the fishing or the harvest failed, when a tightness of money stopped supplies, so that bankruptcies, distress warrants, and forced sales by auction, with heavy law charges were frequent, then it was ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... the next morning when they assembled at the breakfast- table, and they noted with pain that Mr. Walton did not appear at all well, though he made a great effort to keep up. He was very hoarse, and complained of a tightness in his chest. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... that the pitch of sound depends on the rapidity of the vibrations. This depends on the length of cords and their tightness for the shorter and tighter a string is, the higher is the note which its vibration produces. The vocal cords of women are about one-third shorter than those of men, hence the higher pitch of the notes they produce. In children the vocal cords ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... the symptoms of a common cold in the head, some chilliness, feverishness, {334} restlessness, headache, a feeling of tightness across the chest, violent paroxysms of coughing, sometimes almost threatening suffocation, and accompanied ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... mem," said Donal, as he took the chair; "ye're verra condescendin'." Then turning to Ginevra, and trying to cross one knee over the other, but failing from the tightness of certain garments, which, like David with Saul's not similarly faulty armour, he had not hitherto proved, "Weel, mem," he said, "ye haena ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... hand to Michael's ear, and, with tips of fingers instinct with sensuous sympathy, began to manipulate the base of the ear where its roots bedded in the tightness of skin-stretch over the skull. And Michael liked it. Never had a man's hand been so intimate with his ear without hurting it. But these fingers were provocative only of physical pleasure so keen that he twisted and writhed his whole ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... vanished from the eyes to be replaced by a look that was at once hunted and searching, vindictive and yet woebegone. The mouth was sunken as the mouths of old men become from the loss of teeth, and the thin lips which used to be kindly and vacillating were drawn with a hard, unflinching tightness. The skin that had long been gray was now ghostly, with the shadowy, not quite earthly, hue of things ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... a little stiffly (owing to the tightness of the hose), turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the dog, being set in the right direction, moved ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... forbade torture!" cried Ebbo, leaping from the rock in time to see the disgusting draught held to the lips of the captive, whose hands were twisted back and bound with cruel tightness; for the German boor, once roused from his lazy good- nature, was ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... curious pathological fact, that during the progress of Spermatorrhoea, difficulty of breathing, cough, and tightness of the chest, arising in many constitutions from the seminal disorder, have sometimes been actually mistaken for pulmonary consumption. The cough is often distressing, occasionally attended by an expectoration of an offensive kind. There is no doubt that many have been maltreated ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... the joy I feel at the hope of seeing all my beloved ones in England, I am so sorry to leave my dear little happy valley. We have done nothing but pay farewell visits lately; and I turn for a final look at each station or cottage as we ride away with a great tightness at my heart, and moisture in my eyes, to think I shall never see them again. You must not be jealous at the lingering regrets I feel, for unless you had been with me here you can never understand how kind and friendly all our neighbours, high and low, have been to ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... Middleton stepped back a bit when he threw his arms about her and pressed her to his bosom. Perfunctorily and coldly did she yield to his embrace, but whatever ardor was lacking on her part, was compensated for by Mr. Middleton, who clasped her with exceeding tightness and showered kisses upon her pouting lips until she pushed him from ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... half-an-hour, if the patient feels desirous, renew for another hour; do this each day at bedtime for a week at least. Rub the body all over with warm olive oil when this is taken off; then place a bandage with only a gentle tightness in such a way as just to help the relaxed bowels, but only just so much—not by any means to try and force them into what might be thought proper dimensions. Give a teaspoonful of liquorice mixture (see Constipation) thrice a day before meals in a little hot water. Feed on wheaten porridge ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... were, they were silenced forever as a frightful beam of destruction stabbed relentlessly through the control room, whiffing out of existence the pilot, gunnery, and lookout panels and the men before them. The air rushed into space, and the suits of the three survivors bulged out into drumhead tightness as the pressure in the ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... clothes however are identical in every particular with those of London, and their right to be called "best" is for greater perfection of workmanship and fit. This last is a dangerous phrase; "fit" means perfect set and line, not plaster tightness. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... to chatter, her hands shook, there was a tightness in her chest, her heart began to beat with hard, dull pulsations, and at times seemed to stop beating, and she gasped for breath. A terrible apprehension seized her, while the cold seemed to penetrate to her marrow. She never had felt such a sensation, she had never seemed to lose ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... of metal in which liquids can be heated above their boiling points under pressure. Etymologically the word indicates a self-closing vessel ([Greek: autos], self, and clavis, key, or clavus, nail), in which the tightness of the joints is maintained by the internal pressure, but this characteristic is frequently wanting in the actual apparatus to which the name is applied. The prototype of the autoclave was the digester of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... Bangs that he had heard noises in the stables, which was not true. Proceeding thither with a lantern he found only one prisoner, who, on examination, proved to be the constable. He had attacked the unsavoury potato with his teeth as far as the tightness of his gag allowed, and was now able to make an audible groan, which sounded slushy through the moist vegetable medium. When released, he was speechless with indignation, disappointment, and shame. Ben flashed the lantern on the handkerchief, and recognized it as the property of a young ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... of the second story be upright. The recent fashion of a mansard or "French roof" is only making part of the wall of the house look like roof, at equal expense, at the sacrifice of space inside, and above all, of tightness. For, though shingles and even slates will generally keep out the rain, the innumerable cracks between the sides of them can never be made air-tight, and therefore admit heat and cold much more freely than any proper wall-covering. A covering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... higher wages, to become a stone-miner in the same coal-pit, where gunpowder was used extensively in the operations. About six months after he commenced stone-mining, he became affected with a short tickling cough, expectoration of pearly tenacious phlegm, hurried breathing, tightness across the chest, frequent pulse (95), heat of skin during the night, and occasional throbbing in the head. Being young, and fearless of any danger from the occupation, although warned of the consequences, he continued to prosecute it, and twelve months (May 1835) after he first began, the ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar

... of that pocket rose and clung to her, enveloped her like a nimbus, as she went down. In the pent heat her face seemed cold. She had the appearance of being older. The fine vertical line at the corner of her mouth, which Tisdale had not noticed before, brought a tightness to his throat when he ventured to look at her. How could Weatherbee have been so blind? How could he have missed the finer, spiritual loveliness of this woman? Weatherbee, who himself had been so sensitive; whose intuition ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... Jakey she laid her head upon his arm and whispered to him, "Sing it again, Shaky. The tightness across the top of my head is giving way. ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... old-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded Kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. The delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightness at his ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... cease obeying for the sake of study, nor must we establish the laws before we begin to obey. In obedience we are to establish its Tightness and wrongness."[BA] ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... much wondering meditation on the peculiar constitution of the female mind as unfolded to him in his domestic life; and yet he thought Mrs. Glegg's household ways a model for her sex. It struck him as a pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their table-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did, if their pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damson cheese a less venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiar combination of grocery and druglike odors in Mrs. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... were three men at my cabin door, besides the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand, the others had muskets and bayonets. I was pulled out of bed, and forced on deck in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness with which they had tied my hands. I demanded the reason of such violence, but received no other answer than abuse for not holding my tongue. The master, the gunner, the surgeon, Mr. Elphinstone, master's mate, and Nelson, were kept confined below, and the fore-hatchway was guarded by sentinels. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... beautiful horses, the capital riders, the wonderful wagons and guns, seemed even more theatrical than military. This came, in a great measure, from the freshness and tidiness of their accessories—the brightness and tightness of uniforms, the polish of boots and buckles, the newness of leather and paint. None of these things were the worse for wear: they had the bloom of peace still upon them. As I looked at the show, and then afterward, in charming company, went winding back to camp, passing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... a slight bending form, coming down, holding by the balusters. Violet was in her arms, clasping her with a trembling, almost convulsive tightness, without speaking. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the mornin' breeze that blows against the boat, For there's a swellin' in my heart — a tightness in my throat — We are for'ard when there's trouble! We are for'ard when there's graft! But the men who never battle always seem to travel aft; With their dressin'-cases, aft, With their swell pyjamas, aft — Yes! the idle ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... of such a nice-looking page, and the good lady was flattered by their wonder. But she knew the world too well to be sure of him yet. She knew that it is difficult, in the human tree, to distinguish between blossom and fruit. Deeds of lovely impulse are the blossom; unvarying, determined Tightness ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... and, as for the chin—talk of the upper lip being long indeed!—the chin would have made two of it; such a chin! so long, so broad, so massive, had it been put on a dish might have passed, without discredit, for a round of beef! it looked yet larger than it was from the exceeding tightness of the stiff black-leather stock below, which forced forth all the flesh it encountered into another chin,—a remove to the round. The hat, being somewhat too small for the Corporal, and being cocked knowingly in front, left the hinder half of the head exposed. And the hair, carried into a club ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to speak, but there was a dry tightness in his throat which made him doubt his command of utterance. His only response was the dumb clasping of her hand, and to it he clung, unconscious of what the act implied, as ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... prepared speech. "He is safe! Our noble Putnam is safe!" cried Tom, with enthusiasm. "He bringeth out the wolf, the great, the dreadful wolf!" At this instant the General hove into view, his feathered hat knocked over his eyes, the rope girding his chest with alarming tightness, and wee little Grip suspended by the nape of his neck as the wolf, "the great, the dreadful wolf!" A burst of irrepressible laughter from the audience greeted this tableau, and Putnam's mother cried out in great anxiety, "Jimmy, Jimmy, take ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March

... The burning tightness round the top of her head, due to fatigue and lack of sleep, seemed somehow to brace her audacity, and to make ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... colear a bull. He selects from the suspicious herd some fine young three-year old, grazing somewhat apart from the main body, and creeps silently towards it. Suddenly the lasso flies in snaky coils over the head of the beast, and is drawn with strangulating tightness about its neck. At the first plunge, a brother hatero lassoes the animal's hind legs, and it is permitted to rear and kick as frantically as it can, until it drops to the ground exhausted and strangled. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... her intelligence saw its cause too clearly for her to resent it as she would have resented one less justified. There was, perhaps, something to be said for Jack, disastrously wrong though he was; and, with all her essential Tightness, there was, perhaps, something to be said against her. She could not break, without further reflection, the threads ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Cannon-street. Places of worship like everything else, good or evil, grow in these latter days, and so has Cannon-street chapel. In 1852 its supporters set at naught the laws of Banting, and made the place bigger. It was approaching a state of solemn tightness, and for the consolation of the saints, the ease of the fidgety, and the general blissfulness of the neighbourhood it was expanded. Cannon-street Chapel has neither a bell, nor a steeple, nor an outside clock, and it has never ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... less unexpected, than the perfect identity of things manufactured by the same tool. If the top of a circular box is to be made to fit over the lower part, it may be done in the lathe by gradually advancing the tool of the sliding-rest; the proper degree of tightness between the box and its lid being found by trial. After this adjustment, if a thousand boxes are made, no additional care is required; the tool is always carried up to the stop, and each box will be equally adapted to every ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage

... to stop talking to catch at his breath. His arm twisted into Raut's with benumbing tightness. He had come striding down the black path towards the railway as though he was possessed. Raut had not spoken a word, had simply hung back against Horrocks's pull with all ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... I backed out from under the deck, and in the first place proceeded to search for the water complained of. I found it right aft, as Mrs Vansittart had suggested, and in order to test the tightness of the boat I baled it all out, or at least as much of it as could be got rid of with the baler, leaving no more than perhaps half a tumblerful. Then, wading ashore, I sat down on the sand, with my back against the upright oar to which the boat was moored, and began to review the situation. ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... spirit-room was now entirely clear, and, on examination, the water was found to be rushing in through two or three holes that happened to be in the ceiling, and which were immediately plugged up. Indeed; it was now very evident that nothing but the tightness of the Fury’s diagonal ceiling had so long kept her afloat, and that any ship not thus fortified within could not possibly have been ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... not let herself hope too much, and now a sudden rush of repressed tears threatened a flood like the one which had come outdoors from the broken tightness of the ice. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... reserved companion. The stern line of her lips relaxed. In amazement one day we heard her laugh. Then her laughter began to break forth on all occasions; and we listened to her singing above in her room, and we smiled at each other. That tightness of her brow dissolved in a carefree radiance. At work, she mixed up her faultless card catalogues and laughed at her mistakes. Once, during our busy hours of distribution, we caught her blithely granting the request ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... contributes to increase the absorption in a wound as covering the whole limb above the sore with a bandage, which should be spread with some plaster, as with emplastrum de minio, to prevent it from slipping. By this artificial tightness of the skin, the arterial pulsations act with double their usual power in promoting the ascending current of the fluid in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... half hidden in the sighing grass, is linked a chain which holds you, at this moment, by your inmost soul. You are not listening to me now; for I have but touched it, and your breast is swelling 'neath its pressure, and the tears start to your eyes at its momentary tightness. You don't carry any such? We all carry them; and were human ears sensitive to other than the grosser sounds of nature, they would hear a strange music sweeping from these mystic chords, as they tremble at the touch of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... walked slowly by it down the road. Once, looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she arranged so complacently had been washed until the colors had run madly into each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with a relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cozy look; the masses of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain reference to the glow of color, Margaret noticed, wondering if it were accidental. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... to which I was bound. I heard processions, shouts, and lamentations for the dead; but I could see nothing, for I was now too weak to turn on my side. When I had been a week in this confined state, the agony arising from the swelling of my limbs, and from the increased tightness of the ligatures was so great, that I called for death to relieve me from my sufferings; and when I once more found myself raised upon the shoulders of men, I was as impatient for my approaching fate, as I should have been, under other circumstances, for my ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... side; the path was still frequented by yaks, of which we overtook a small party going to Tibet, laden with planks. All the party appeared alike overcome by lassitude, shortness and difficulty of breathing, a sense of weight on the stomach, giddiness and headache, with tightness across ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... instant Latham almost leaped forward, but a tightness in his temples stopped him. The distance was too great. And the Jovian must be somewhere about! Quick surprise was his only chance. His gaze roved up to the steepening cliff behind the village, and he ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse

... the subject were soon interrupted, first by the rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise but dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around his neck, and said, in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... the case of most of them, a certain alertness and decision of character. Some hailed from English cities, a few from those of Canada, and some from the bush of Ontario; but there was a similarity between them which the cut and tightness of their store clothing did not altogether account for. They lived well if plainly, and toiled out in the open unusually hard. Their eyes were steady, their bronzed skin was clear, and their laughter ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... and the sulphurous smoke from the fireworks hung low on the ground in white masses, and seemed to seek shelter in the club, for in a very short time the place was flooded with the choking fumes which caused one to feel a tightness across the chest and a stinging in the eyes, and which made it impossible to see across ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... tightness which curled the corners downward. Then, as he looked into the questioning eyes and anxious face of his companion, his own eyes softened, and he changed his mind ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... cried and dimly realized that the change in her appearance had something to do with the doctor's prediction of physical disability. She loathed and resented it immediately. Suddenly conscious of her bare legs she ran home, horrified at the tightness of her frock that showed the roundness of her figure. As she passed the Mactavish cottage the mother sat in the doorway, suckling the newest baby. Instead of staying to talk as usual Marcella flew by, her cheeks crimson. As soon as she reached home she ran up to her mother's room to find a frock ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... and drew in a deep breath because of the tightness in his chest. Why was it that every one seemed to disbelieve him? Why was it that even this mysterious girl, whom he had never seen before in his life, politely called him a liar when he insisted that he had killed John Barkley? Was the fact of murder necessarily branded in one's face? If so, ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... never even thought of them, although she was vexed with herself when she saw one eye—for in verity that was all—of a potato upon her father's plate. Now she blushed when she heard of the buttons of her frock—which was only done because of tightness, and showed how long she must have worn it; but as to the double thread, she was sure that nothing of that ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... about sixteen years old, and above six feet high, dressed in a gray suit; the coat, from its size, appeared to have been made for him some ten years before. He was remarkably narrow-chested and round-shouldered, owing, perhaps, as much to the tightness of his garment as to the hand of nature. His face was long, and his complexion swarthy relieved, however, by certain freckles, with which the skin was plentifully studded. He had strange wandering eyes, gray, and somewhat unequal in size; they seldom rested on the book, but ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Isa,—Now that Robert's letter is gone, I am able for shame to write. His waiting did not mean a slackness of kindness, but a tightness of entanglement in other things; and then absolutely he has got to the point of doing without reading. Nothing but clay does he care for, poor lost soul. But you will see, I hope, from what he has written (to judge by what he speaks), that he is not ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... that great embrace had taken away all the burning tightness from Betsy's eyes and heart. She was very, very tired, and soon after this she fell sound asleep, snuggled up ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... from the stores used by the crew on the passage from New York up to the lake. There were coffee and tea in the canisters, sugar in the buckets, butter and salt in the boxes; though all these articles had been more or less soaked in the water, depending upon the tightness of the vessels that held them. There was a good fire in the stove, and a bright thought entered Lawry's excited brain; he and his companion would breakfast on fried ham and potatoes, ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... Testing Boilers.—The tightness of the joints of a boiler is best tested in the first instance by means of compressed air. Solder on an all-metal cycle valve, "inflate" the boiler to a considerable pressure, and submerge it in a tub of water. The slightest leak will be betrayed by a string of bubbles coming ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... feet from the ground. A pile of wood was collected and a fire lit and the brands made red-hot. Green-hide ropes were uncoiled to get the kinks out and coiled again ready for instant use, and every horseman saw to the tightness of his saddle-girth. Mick stood near the tree waiting to brand and cut, and with him were Fiddle-head and Jack Johnson for the front and back leg ropes, and Eagle to keep the brands hot and hand them when required. Poona and Uncle were each armed with a long pliant bull-hide lasso, ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... by degrees sufficiently for the introduction of my fingers in succession, until the whole hand was admitted into the cavity, of which the orifice was still so small as to embrace the wrist with a tightness that prevented any continuous haemorrhage. Being now able to explore the state of matters satisfactorily, I found that there was a large mass of dense fibrinous coagulum firmly impacted into the sciatic notch; ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... with the utmost care, and the sloppy work often passed in the case of coal-gas services must on no account be allowed. It is no exaggeration to say that the success of an acetylene installation, from the consumer's point of view, will largely, if not principally, depend on the tightness of the pipes in his house. The statement has been made that the "paint" used by gas-fitters, i.e., the mixture of red and white lead ground in "linseed" oil, is not suitable for employment with acetylene, and it has been proposed to adopt a similar material in which the vehicle is castor-oil. ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... this specialized organization of American activity remains to be considered—that of the labor unions. The power which the unions have obtained in certain industrial centers and the tightness of their organization would have seemed anomalous to the good Jacksonian Democrat. From his point of view the whole American democracy was a kind of labor union whose political constitution provided for a substantially equal division of the products of ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... slobbered over with tears, as we stood marked for execution! Never was there a finer specimen of deprecation in eloquence than we then exhibited—the supplicating look right up into the master's face—the touching modulation of the whine—the additional tightness and caution with which we grasped the waistbands with one hand, when it was necessary to use the other in wiping our eyes and noses with the polished sleeve-cuff—the sincerity and vehemence with which we promised never to be guilty again, still ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... him,—some fatal attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. His nerves began to throb acutely,—the blood in his veins was like fire,—there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,—he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes. What—WHAT was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden flame? His lips ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... observed any alarming absence of health in my children," I found the courage to say. But a tightness gathered about my heart, for I could sniff what ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... was a woman of twenty-eight, I should think, though of a type whose age is always doubtful; for she cannot have looked different when she was twenty, and at forty would look no older. She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness. Her plain face with its narrow lips was tight, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight, and the white drill she wore had all the effect of black bombazine. I could not imagine why Captain Nichols had married ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... a moment, steadily returned the look. It was coming over her what Clara meant; a meaning so simple it was absurd she had not thought of it before—so hateful that it was all she could do to face it. She felt a tightness in her throat that was not tears. Shame and anger contended in her. Oh, for the power to have refused that shameful bargain—to have scorned it! She turned away. She closed her eyes. In her mind ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... as they whirled by the front door. But when, for the second time, the dance carried them to the end of the room where Pollard and Broderick were, she was so sure of herself that she sent a quick, laughing glance at her uncle. And a little of the tightness about her heart was gone as she saw the look of ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... in his eyes deepened and a tightness gripped his throat. Slowly two great tears fought their way down through the dust on his face, and dropped lingeringly, one after the other amid ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... health is until one has lost it, is reminded of that illness, and drags you through the whole of its symptoms, progress, and treatment. Innocently remark that you are not well, or that somebody else is not well, and the same inevitable result ensues. You will learn how our bore felt a tightness about here, sir, for which he couldn't account, accompanied with a constant sensation as if he were being stabbed - or, rather, jobbed - that expresses it more correctly - jobbed - with a blunt knife. Well, sir! This went on, until sparks began to flit before his eyes, water-wheels to ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... plenty elsewhere in the Letters to show that B is not many removes from the scriptura continua of some majuscule hand. In the section included in {Pi}, apart from the general tightness of the writing, which led to the later insertion of strokes between many of the words,[35] we note these special indications of a parent manuscript in majuscules. In 61, 10 me autem], B started to write mea and then corrected it. 64, 19 praeceptori ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand

... time, but the rigidity of her attitude, and the tightness with which she pressed her lips together, showed that her mind was deeply occupied. They both sat silent for some few moments, looking down toward the distant lights of the city. At the farther end of the double row of bushes that lined the avenue they ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... in addition to other advantages, to avoid the endless trouble and the miscarriages of movable shelves; the looseness, and the tightness, the weary arms, the aching fingers, and the broken fingernails. But it will be fairly asked what is to be done, when the shelves are fixed, with volumes too large to go into them? I admit that the dilemma, when it occurs, is formidable. I admit also that no book ought to be ...
— On Books and the Housing of Them • William Ewart Gladstone

... truth. You know I am like Uncle Sarcey—a really model theatre audience. No effect, halfway good, passes me by. So, as I turned back at the garden gate to watch the long grey line winding slowly into the forest, I found that I had the same chill down my back and the same tightness over my eyes and in my throat, which, in the real theatre-goers, announce that ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... everything was possible. The girl? Was she not by his side? The regeneration of Ireland and of Man? That could be done also; a little leisure and everything that can be thought can be done: even his good looks might be returned to him: he felt the sting and tightness of his bruises and was reassured, exultant. He was a man predestined to bruises; they would be his meat and drink and happiness, his refuge and sanctuary forever. Let us leave him, then, pacing volubly by the side of Mary, and exploring with a delicate finger his half-closed ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... help it—God made them lights and flames—but her mouth couldn't. To Straker in his illumination all the meaning of Philippa Tarrant was in her mouth. The small, exquisite thing lacked fulness and the vivid rose that should have been the flowering of her face. A certain tightness at the corners gave it an indescribable expression of secrecy and mystery and restraint. He saw in it the almost monstrous denial and mockery of desire. He could not see it, as he had seen Nora Viveash's mouth, curved forward, eager, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... intention. Cars and busses went very full, at all times of day, and of all sorts of people; and a certain genial Christmas light was upon the dingy city streets. Only when Matilda passed Sarah Staples at her crossing, or some other child such as she, there came a sort of tightness at her heart; and she felt as if something was wrong even ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner

... view, and then try on the breeches—the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves (though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. "Sir," he said triumphantly, "you may rest assured that the work has been executed exactly ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... regard to the tightness of dress, is this. Every person should be dressed so loosely, that, when sitting in the posture used in sewing, reading, or study THE LUNGS can be as fully and as easily inflated, as they are without clothing. Many a woman thinks she dresses loosely, because, when she stands ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... I knew no word of the Gaelic; but what with the long suspense of the waiting, and the scurry and strain of our two spirts of fighting, and more than all, the horror I had of some of my own share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the two men I had shot sat upon me like a nightmare; and all upon a sudden, and before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... tingled spread over me; it was pleasant; I did not care to withdraw my eyes. Presently the tightness in my face relaxed, I moved my lips, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... opens out flat, and stays open. It also shuts up completely, and when closed stays shut. But how many books do we see always bulging open at the sides, or stiffly resisting being opened by too great tightness in the back? If the books you have had bound do not meet all these requirements, it is time to look for ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... The tightness of the box in which the Dead Man was placed, produced no small inconvenience to that worthy, who during the passage was nearly suffocated; however, he consoled himself with the thought that in a short time he would be free. The box was about six feet in length; and two in breadth and depth; and ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... Do you want everyone to think that, now I'm out for myself, I can't make a go of it? What would Ingram and Biggerstaff think, if I began to talk money tightness? I didn't leave the firm, and strike out for myself to give ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... disposition, anxious to be friendly to all men. Anyone could pick him at once as gregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a quick wit and a ready smile. And yet the man who studied him more closely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness about the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond, and that this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably leave his mark for good or evil upon any society to ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... nasal cavities filled with tepid water. He then uttered the various vowel sounds, and ascertained from the quantity of water required to force open the closure formed by the soft palate the degree of tightness for each vowel. He afterwards constructed a very ingenious little apparatus, by means of which, in one of his lectures, he demonstrated this fact to his audience. It will be easily understood from ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke

... not be lost, Sir, with lightness, To labour for life gives me pain; My exchequer's affected with tightness, But begging's the pink of politeness, Like Scribes, Sir, "I beg—to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various

... turning over in rings, decked in its chief finery, a blue quilted cloak. The mother came along to hold her cherub in her lap. She was a long, raw-boned woman, immature in face under all her crust of care and tan, evidently distressed in her free waist by the tightness of her calico dress and in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... the Tightness of this thought, and set about the task of relating the pollination process to the picture of the plant which his investigations had already yielded. His way of reporting the result shows how fully conscious he was of ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... may he be doing there?" continued the Assistant Commissioner, who was perfectly informed on that point. Fitted with painful tightness into an old wooden arm-chair, before a worm-eaten oak table in an upstairs room of a four-roomed cottage with a roof of moss-grown tiles, Michaelis was writing night and day in a shaky, slanting ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... exclaimed Andrew Zane. "As long as that tigress accompanies him he has expiation to make. Voluptuous, jealous, restless, and, like a snake in the tightness of her folds and her noiseless approach, she will smother him with kisses and sell ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... relieves the one benefits the other. Hence, too, the great utility of hot baths in all affections of the lungs or diseases of the skin; and the reason why exposure to cold or wet is, in nearly all cases, followed by tightness of the chest, sore throat, difficulty of breathing, and cough. These symptoms are the consequence of a larger quantity of blood than is natural remaining in the lungs, and the cough is a mere effort of Nature to throw off the obstruction ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... unprotected arm of Michael. It was disabled—but he still clung to his enemy. Anthony strove to disengage himself; but the other, aware that life or death depended on the issue of that struggle, hung on him with a convulsive tightness that rendered the advantage he had gained of no avail. The sword was useless. Anthony threw it into the boiling gulf at his feet. Both hands being now free, whilst one arm of his opponent hung powerless and bleeding at his side, he had greatly the advantage. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... brush in his dandy glove, which made my heart ache, and lowered the hind-quarters by bringing over a bit of the sky. Such a dress! white greatcoat, blue satin cravat, hair oiled and curling, hat of the primest curve, gloves scented with eau-de-Cologne, primrose in tint, skin in tightness. In this prime of dandyism, he took up a nasty, oily, dirty hog-tool, and immortalised Copenhagen by touching the sky. I thought after he was gone, "This won't do—a Frenchman touch Copenhagen!" So out I rubbed all he had touched, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... about the commencement of the great Potato Revolution—an event which I apprehend will be long remembered by the squirearchy and shareholders of these kingdoms. The money-market was beginning to exhibit certain symptoms of tightness; premiums were melting perceptibly away, and new schemes were in diminished favour. Under these circumstances, the Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Valley Company were beneficent enough to gratify my wishes to the full, and accorded ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... gearings clean, to be clear and definite in their orders, and to read the trade papers; but above everything else to look out for the little things, a little leak in the mill dam, a little too much tightness in a belt, or the idleness of just one spindle. Herein lies, he says, one of the great differences between a successful and ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan

... certain suggestible and inflammable types of people it is peculiarly apt to occur. This kind of deception, although far more frequent and conspicuous in matters of love—and more serious because of the tightness of the marriage bond—is liable to occur in any relation of life. For most people, however, and those not the least sane or the least wise, the memory of the exaltation of love, even when the period of that exaltation is over, still ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... more, and realised that she had not drawn a breath since he entered the room. Her life had been standing still, waiting till these few stupendous seconds were over. Now they were gone and she could take up life where it had left off. The tightness in her throat relaxed. The crisis was over, the turning point was behind her. He had failed her, and he would have to pay. He would have to pay with months, even years of waiting. For it had never occurred to Anne Tresslyn to doubt that he would come to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... for practising witchcraft; being heavily ironed, as, being witches, it was supposed to be very difficult to keep them from escaping; and as their ability to torment people with their spectres, was considered lessened in proportion to the weight and tightness of the chains with which they were fettered. It is not to be wondered at, that under these inflictions, at the end of two months, the invalid, Sarah Osburn, died. Tituba, however, lay in jail until, finally, at the expiration of a year and a month, she was sold in payment ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson

... about them a collective wistfulness that cut the heart; to dwell on the idea of it would have brought her to tears. And when the multitude sang, so lustily, so willingly, so bravely, pouring forth with the brass instruments a volume of tone enormous and majestic, she had a tightness of the throat that was excrutiating. The Centenary of Sunday Schools was quite other than she had expected; she had not ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... Gregson by the arm again, and there was a tightness in the grip of his fingers which convinced the other that he was ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... Arabia exports more oil than Norway. Norway imports more than half its food needs. Oslo opted to stay out of the EU during a referendum in November 1994. Economic growth in 1998 should be about the same as in 1997. Inflation probably will move up toward 3% because of tightness in labor markets. Despite their high per capita income-outstripped among major nations only by the US-and their generous welfare benefits, Norwegians worry about that time in the 21st century when the oil ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... for the future which Balzac confided to his sister Laure. In order to force himself to take exercise, he used to correct his proofs either at the printer's or at her house. Sometimes the weather, to the influence of which he was very susceptible, sometimes his money-tightness, or his fatigue from protracted work would cause him to arrive with lack-lustre eyes, sallow complexion, glum expression and irritable temper. Laure essayed to console ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... the long ramp to the ground floor, the arms of his captors gripping him with painful tightness. Heading the procession was the immensely tall, gangling Rogan leader, clutching Greca by the wrist and dragging her indifferently ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... should be exterminated an' driven out. I can still see the soldiery ridin' up an' down, pillagin' our city, insultin' our womenfolk, an' cuttin' down our men. I can just remember the misery o' the winter through which we fled, an' the tightness o' my mother's arms about me as we crossed the Mississippi, goin' into Illinois for safety. From my earliest childhood my mind has bin made accustomed to travellin's, an' privations, an' deeds o' blood. That's the sort ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson



Words linked to "Tightness" :   closeness, feeling, stinginess, lack, pettiness, spacing, spatial arrangement, want, niggardness, distribution, miserliness, tight, littleness, deficiency, smallness, immovableness, immovability, looseness



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