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Tool   /tul/   Listen
Tool

verb
(past & past part. tooled; pres. part. tooling)
1.
Drive.
2.
Ride in a car with no particular goal and just for the pleasure of it.  Synonyms: joyride, tool around.
3.
Furnish with tools.
4.
Work with a tool.



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"Tool" Quotes from Famous Books



... rather than nothing. There's the garden-roller over there by the tool-shed. Go and get it, and roll ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... brave men of days of old, Whereof many a tale is told, Bathed the whiting of the shield, In wounds' house on battle-field; But the honour-missing fool, Both sides of his slaying tool, Since faint heart his hand made vain. With ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... the ground at such a distance in front of the rifle as to hold the rope taut. Then both men proceeding to the rear of the tent, each pins down a corner, stretching the sides and rear of the tent taut before driving the pin in. The rear-rank man next inserts an intrenching tool or a bayonet, in its scabbard, under the rear end of the tent, the front rank man pegging down the end of the guy rope. The rest of the pins are then driven by both men, the rear-rank man ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... was accustomed to carry with him, and striking the ground above the diggers, it caved the earth in, and they were all buried. "Aha," said he, "why do you wish to hinder me on my way to kill the Sun? A'-nier ti-tik'-a-nump kwaik-ai'-gar" (fighting is my eating tool I say; that's so!), and he proceeded on his way musing. "I have started out to kill; vengeance is my work; every one I meet will be an enemy. It is well; no one shall escape ...
— Sketch of the Mythology of the North American Indians • John Wesley Powell

... when a fellow really has a lot of trouble he'd rather tell a girl than anybody else. You can laugh at girls, but that's true. Maybe they can't run and all that, but they kind of know all about it when you have a lot of trouble. Maybe I'd tell them, tool because they'd wonder if Westy didn't come to ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... ends. It was so at the time of the Turkish war of 1877 and of the Berlin Congress, and it remained so until with the advent of the present dynasty Servia offered a sure prospect of becoming and remaining a permanent tool in Russia's hands and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... reputation, it may be surmised; Erick Bollmann, once a participant in the effort to release Lafayette from Olmutz and himself just now released from durance vile on a writ of habeas corpus from the Supreme Court; Samuel Swartwout, another tool of Burr's, reserved by the same beneficent writ for a career of political roguery which was to culminate in his swindling the Government out of a million and a quarter dollars; and finally the bibulous and traitorous Wilkinson, ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to suspect that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughter-in-law, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with sincere benevolence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having gained much of the wisdom of age[1099]. I wandered about for five days, [1100] and took the first ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... goods. Perhaps Ailward had won ill-fame as a creditor, or even, it may be, a money-lender in the village, for his neighbours clearly bore him little goodwill. The crowd readily consented. A few odds and ends were gathered—a bundle of skins, gowns, linen, and an iron tool,—and were laid by Ailward's side; and the next day, with the bundle hung about his neck, he was taken before the sheriff and the knights, who were then holding a Shire Court. The matter was thought doubtful; judgment was delayed, and Ailward was made fast in Bedford jail for a month, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... say that things never exhibit to us manifestations of their sympathy? The tool grows rusty when it no longer serves the hand of the workman, even as the workman when ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes

... tool of Providence in much good work,' said Saxon, with a bow. 'I have fought with the Swedes against the Brandenburgers, and again with the Brandenburgers against the Swedes, my time and conditions with the latter having been duly carried out. I have afterwards in the Bavarian service ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... man," whimpered the messenger, stimulated by a mental contemplation of his supposed injuries, "but I was made the tool of that traitor—that spy." His eyes, red from excessive potations, glared with hatred as ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... erection and use of barns, grain barns, horse barns, cattle barns, sheep barns, cornhouses, smokehouses, icehouses, pig pens, granaries, etc. There are likewise chapters on birdhouses, doghouses, tool sheds, ventilators, roofs and roofing, doors and fastenings, workshops, poultry houses, manure sheds, barnyards, root pits, etc. 235 pages. 5 x 7 ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... designs intended by him. If he could not depend on this conformity to law, on this causal connection taking place according to simple necessities, he could not select, make, and use, with certainty, any tool, from the club with which he defends himself against his enemies or cracks the shells of fruit, up to the finest instruments of optics and chemistry, and even to the telegraph and steam engine. The conformity ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... of public opinion in his favor, both in Sweden and Norway. That act was one of the many by which he showed his ability to submit his own inclinations to the demands of the people without becoming a mere tool in the hands of any one political party. About the same time he succeeded in bringing about a deeply needed and by himself long-cherished reform of the popular educational system in Sweden. Previously,—it was, in fact, ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... inapt, for the coarse and vigorous features of the schoolmaster had been refined to that peculiar nobleness which, perhaps, the sharp tool of suffering—used to its highest ends—can alone produce. And the smile of patience, like a victor's wreath, lay now where hot passions and imperious temper had once struggled ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... me that Christian was some time in doubt whether he should keep the carpenter, or his mates; at length he determined on the latter, and the carpenter was ordered into the boat. He was permitted, but not without some opposition, to take his tool-chest. ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... unhappy years for the same object. He endured national humiliation, was forced into coercive measures from which his soul revolted, and brought his country to the verge of commercial ruin to avoid war. President Madison, during his first four years, was made the tool of British diplomatic equivocation and the plaything of Napoleonic strategy to maintain the position chosen nearly two decades before; so great was the task and so fearful the cost of founding ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... themselves, aware of the probable result, refused to accept the office. The great object of his policy was the preservation of the ascendency which he had acquired. To Henry, who was now the convenient tool of his ambition, he paid every exterior demonstration of respect, but never suffered him to depart out of his custody; and, without consulting him, affixed his seal to every order which was issued for the degradation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... and the outer shell was so hard that Phil went to the tool-room after one of his father's small ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... authority of the Pope extends not beyond certain fixed boundaries, and the temporal and civil power claimed by the Papacy is not conjoined to the spiritual power, and ought to be separated from it. This plain speaking did not commend itself to the occupier of the Papal throne, nor to his tool Louis XIV., who deprived Dupin of his professorship and banished him to Chtelleraut. Dupin's last years were occupied with a correspondence with Archbishop Wake of Canterbury, who was endeavouring ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... alias are rogues. But we do not include Dr. Carey in the charge of dishonesty; he is an easy sort of a man, who will agree to anything for the sake of peace, or in other words, he is a fool. Mr. Ward, it is well known,' say they, 'was the tool of Dr. Marshman, but he is gone from the present scene, and it is unlovely to say any evil of the dead.' Now I certainly hold those persons' exemption of me from the blame they attach to Brother Marshman in the greatest possible contempt. I may have subscribed my name ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... as MAIRE DU PALAIS to the incompetent Otto, and using the love-sick Princess for a tool and mouthpiece, he pursues a policy of arbitrary power and territorial aggrandisement. He has called out the whole capable male population of the state to military service; he has bought cannon; he has tempted away promising officers from foreign ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... shall be rightly interpreting the facts of nature if we cease to expect to find purposefulness wherever we meet with definite structures or patterns. Such things are, as often as not, I suspect rather of the nature of tool-marks, mere incidents of manufacture, benefiting their possessor not more than the wire-marks in a sheet of paper, or the ribbing on the bottom of an oriental plate renders those objects more attractive in ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... been so bright and pleasant all at once overcame him with disgust. The might-have-been took him by the throat. He descended into the engine-room to hide his dejected face in the heated oily atmosphere below; and seating himself on a tool-chest he watched, with hardly seeing eyes, the ponderous ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... down the garden Harry fetched a spade from the tool-shed; and when the little patch that he owned was reached, the boy, with something very like a tear in each eye, dug a hole, and laid his ferret in it, and had just filled it in when they were summoned to tea; but they did not go until the spade was put away, and they ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... with a purposefulness of aim and a versatility of method that betoken long and systematic study. It is a ubiquitous influence and the most subtle of all. Yet the Press is held in greater contempt by official and other ruling circles in Germany than in any other country. They despise the tool, while tacitly acknowledging its utility ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... on fire in oxygen,' as Professor Faraday said, 'every iron bar, or rafter, or pillar, every nail and iron tool, and the fire-place itself; all the zinc and copper roofs, and leaden coverings, and gutters, and pipes, would consume and burn, increasing ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... a distance in front of the rifle as to hold the rope taut; both men go to the rear of the tent, each pins down a corner, stretching the sides and rear of the tent before securing; the rear rank man then inserts an intrenching tool, or a bayonet in its scabbard, under the rear end of the ridge inside the tent, the front rank man pegging down the end of the rear guy ropes; the rest of the pins are then driven by both men, the rear rank man working on ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... explained that he only intended to signify that if there were danger to be encountered, he would be glad to encounter it; and I fully believed him. "We shan't have much fighting," I replied; "but if there be any, the tool will come readiest to the hand of its master. But if you mean to remain here long I would advise you to get one. These Orientals are a people with whom appearances go a long way, and, as a rule, fear and respect mean the ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope

... completed and to Wharton was unfamiliar. On either side of the unscarred roadway still lay scattered the uprooted trees and bowlders that had blocked its progress, and abandoned by the contractors were empty tar-barrels, cement-sacks, tool-sheds, and forges. Nor was the surrounding landscape less raw and unlovely. Toward the Sound stretched vacant lots covered with ash heaps; to the left a few old and broken houses set among the ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... class belong, for example, all who are naturally incapable of any but physical activity. These should be regarded as detachable limbs, so to speak, of the man who owns them, instruments of his will, like hands and feet; or, to use Aristotle's own phrase, "the slave is a tool with life in it, and the tool a ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... boy, before he's sent to school, Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool, The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye Turns, while he hears his mother's lullaby; His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it, Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it; And, in the education of the lad, No little part that ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... source of legitimate pride to me to think that I should have been the tool selected by Providence to sharpen du Maurier's pencil; there must have been something in my "Verfluchte Physiognomie," as a very handsome young German, whom I used to chaff unmercifully, called it, to reveal to du Maurier hidden possibilities ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles

... the appointment of ex-Confederates, and Mayor Monroe had not been slow in enforcing the provisions of the law. It was, in fact, a result of this enactment that the police was so reorganized as to become the willing and efficient tool which it proved to be in the riot of 1866; and having still the same personnel, it was now in shape to prevent registration by threats, unwarranted arrests, and by various other influences, all operating to keep the timid blacks away from the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... and zig-zag ornaments that are of not unfamiliar occurrence on the round squat doorways of the older parish churches of England; but by much the greater number exhibit merely a few rude mouldings, that bend over ponderous columns and massive capitals, unfretted by the tool of the carver. Though of colossal magnificence, the exterior of the edifice yields in effect, as in all true Gothic buildings,—for the Gothic is greatest in what the Grecian is least,—to the sombre sublimity of the interior. The nave, flanked by the dim ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... is equally enslaved; his oath binds him to an implicit blind reception of tenets which he is not permitted to investigate, and which make him the pliant tool of a higher department of this detestable machinery. He receives his cue from the bishops, and they are wholly governed by the Propaganda at Rome, whither each of them is bound periodically to appear for personal examination ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... Herder, Immanuel Kant and Goethe; like the statesman, Heinrich Freiherr von Stein; and the warrior, General von Scharnhorst—was this fact that, in general, an esthetic interest had been again awakened in the language, which too long had served as a mere tool. Also the slowly developing study of language was of some help; even the falsest etymology taught people to look upon words as organisms; even the most superficial grammar, to observe broad relationships and parallel formations. So, then, the eighteenth century could, in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... converted monarchical Europe by the sword. Few men can now peruse with undimmed eyes the tragic story of their fall. But the scenes of 1793 had transformed the Corsican youth into a dry-eyed opportunist who rejects the Girondins as he would have thrown aside a defective tool: nay, he blames them as "guilty of the greatest ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... The good husband finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns[668] or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy day he builds a work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber, and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. Herein he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long housekeeping. His garden or his poultry-yard—very ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... acetylene burner has been screwed into the aperture; thirdly, if any appreciable amount of acetylene is present in the air, no operation should be performed upon any portion of an acetylene plant which involves such processes as scraping or chipping with the aid of a steel tool or shovel. If, for example, the iron or stoneware sludge-pipe is choked, or the interior of the dismantled generator is blocked, and attempts are made to remove the obstruction with a hard steel tool, a spark is very likely to be formed which, granting the existence of sufficient ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... number of identical specimens. The 17c also exhibits a small peculiarity of engraving. A colored line projects upwards into the uncolored oval band above the space between OS of POSTAGE. This was evidently caused by an accidental touch of the engraver's tool on the die for it is quite distinct on every specimen we ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole

... up on our bran'-new politickle thesis Thet a Guv'ment's fust right is to tumble to pieces,— I say nothin' henders our takin' our place Ez the very fus'-best o' the whole human race, A-spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you please On Victory's bes' carpets, or loafin' at ease In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' affairs With our heels on the backs o' Napoleon's new chairs, An' princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' slings,— Excep', wal, excep' jest a very few things, Sech ez navies an' armies an' wherewith to pay, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... thieves, whose case was hopeless from the beginning, but the prosecution experienced some difficulty in obtaining evidence to connect Fletcher definitely with them, though several facts suggested that he had for some time acted as a tool in their hands. The court was crammed, and looking down on the sea of faces I could recognize a number of my neighbors from the Fairmead district and Carrington, and was not overjoyed to see them. An attempt to ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... down among the oily plugs, selected a tool from the kit George held out to her, and did something ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... has to be mentioned, and unless you are in the humor to permit yourself to be made the dupe and tool of as wicked a little adventuress as ever lived, you must listen to what I have to tell you. I came here yesterday to consult Violet as to what I should do with respect to a plot in which I have found the baroness to be engaged. You have often heard the count and myself speak ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... perhaps neither country would offer in the presence of a third party. It is a sort of family quarrel where foreign interference can only do harm and irritate at any time, but more especially in the present state of Europe, when attempts would be made to make a tool of America." These, he said he had good reason to know, were the sentiments of the British cabinet on the question of place of negotiation and foreign mediation. He also informed Mr. Gallatin that the mediation of Russia had been refused, and that the British government would express its desire ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... the spearhead was ready for the finishing touches. So Straightshaft dropped his hammer-stone and picked up a queer little tool. He called it a flaker, and he used it to press off tiny ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp

... "Come to the tool-house where I keep my spade and hoe and rake. There is a little spade which I used to use, it will just suit you, and we will go and arrange the garden you are to have," she said ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... wood with a chisel or gouge or whatever cutting tool may work well and fill the cavity with Portland cement in such a way as to exclude moisture. This will prolong the life and productiveness of the trees for many years if other conditions ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... You have no right to be thus harassing me, till I dare not say my life is my own! Your power is at an end, and God only knows how deeply I regret having been insane enough to yield to its base sway! So long as I alone was to be the tool, you found me weak and timid; but, now that you seek the ruin of those I love, I rebel against your usurped authority. I have still a little conscience left, and nothing under heaven will force me to sacrifice my gentle, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... her shorter hind wings smocked with black velvet, and her under-frock flushed with pinkish orange and spangled with silver. And yet, in spite of her long marvelous tongue—he was beginning to find out that no tool he had ever seen, and but few that God Himself makes, is so wonderful as a butterfly's tongue—she hadn't been able to tell him that about herself which he most wished to find out. That called for a deeper knowledge than ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... torture, prolonged from age to age; By the infamy, Israel's heritage; By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, By the branding-tool, the bloody whip, And the summons to ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell

... hours. But at the door he hesitated. Then, despite the furious yapping of Spot, he returned to the table of the rays and, with deliberate thoroughness smashed the costly tubes which had brought about his rehabilitation. With a pinch bar from a nearby tool rack, he wrecked the controls and generating mechanisms beyond recognition. Now he was absolutely secure! No meddling experts could possibly discover the secret of Tom's invention. All evidence would show that the young experimenter had met his death at the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a small ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... consideration he decided not to put it before her husband at least for the present. In the first place, he didn't relish taking the responsibility of breaking up the Deaves family, and in the second place it was clear that the woman was only a tool in the hands of a rascal far cleverer than she. To deprive him of his tool would not break up the rascal's game; he could get another. Therefore Evan decided to keep his discovery to himself, and use it if possible to land the ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... affirmed to be contrary to law, repugnant to the spirit and act of the charter, and subversive of all its material purposes; and to the affairs in Oude and Benares, where it was declared the chief-justice became the agent and tool of Hastings. At the suggestion of Pitt, these charges were ordered to be printed, and then referred to a committee of the whole house; which committee was to take them into consideration on the 4th of February. When that day arrived, a petition was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... exclaimed the superintendent. "It is evident, Mr. West, as indeed the histories say, that governmental action carried with it in your day an arbitrary implication which it does not now. The Government is actually now what it nominally was in the America of your day—the servant, tool, and instrument by which the people give effect to their will, itself being without will. The popular will is expressed in two ways, which are quite distinct and relate to different provinces: First, collectively, by majority, in regard to blended, mutually involved ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... at it beyond those towering immovable heads, and from it again to the rough cliff untouched by tool, and from that to the sky, now of the purest, softest blue, hanging ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... with nature's forces has produced. The industrial revolution took the workman from the land and crowded him into the towns. It took the loom from his cottage and placed it in the factory. It took the tool from his hand and harnessed it to a shaft. It robbed him of his personal skill and joined his arm of flesh to an arm of iron. It reduced him from a craftsman to a specialist, from a maker of shoes to a mere stitcher of soles. It took from him, at a single blow, his interest in the workmanship ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... bound by the confidence he had entered into with Brennan not to reveal any part of the mayor's view of Gibson and his suspicion that the commissioner was the tool of "Gink" Cummings. The mayor, however, had publicly taken his stand of "sitting tight," as Brennan had suggested, and had flatly refused to ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... eye less to beauty than to usefulness. In the centre was a patch of grass, lying between two pear trees; the rest of the ground was planted with the various requisites of the kitchen, and in one corner was a well. In the tool house were kept several Windsor chairs; two of these were now brought forth and placed on the grass between the pear trees. But Jessie was not disposed to apply herself on the instant to the books which she ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... With a tiny brush it can feather lines of ineffable suggestion, glints of hidden beauty. With a little tool it can carve strange dreams ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens

... as good. And as she said, the lord came and bade the Goban to make a cat and two-tails, for no one could make that but himself, and it was meaning to kill him on it he was. And the Goban said he would do that when he had finished the castle, but he could not finish it without some tool he had left at home. And they must send the lord's son for it—- for he said it would not be given to any other one. So the son was sent, and the Goban sent a message to the daughter-in-law that the tool he was wanting ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory

... Methuen himself no blame can rest for this unsuccessful action. If the workman's tool snaps in his hand he cannot be held responsible for the failure of his task. The troops who misbehaved were none of his training. 'If you hear anyone slang him,' says one of his men, 'you are to tell them that ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... said the Gelong, "is constantly in a state of change and transition—peoples science, religions, laws and customs. How many great empires and brilliant cultures have perished! And that alone which remains unchanged is Evil, the tool of Bad Spirits. More than sixty thousand years ago a Holyman disappeared with a whole tribe of people under the ground and never appeared again on the surface of the earth. Many people, however, have since visited this kingdom, Sakkia Mouni, Undur Gheghen, Paspa, Khan Baber ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... something wrong. Her first thought was of fire; she sniffed; the air was pure and clear. Then, like a cry in her ears, came—"The burglars!" She held her breath and listened; was the night as still as it was dark? No! a faint, steady sound came to her ears. A mouse, was it, or—the sound of a tool? ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards

... necessity for success in the worsting of an adversary, he gathered and stored for use in his memory the salient points from La Mothe's story, while all the while, co-energetically, his mind was busy searching out how best to use this new tool for the cementing closer that fabric of France which was his pride and glory. France was at once the mother who gave his genius form and the son of his jealous love. And as he listened, planning, sufficient strength crept ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... Thet a Gov'ment's fust right is to tumble to pieces,— I say nothin' henders our takin' our place Ez the very fus'-best o' the whole human race, A spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you please On Victory's bes' carpets, or loaf-in' at ease 30 In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' affairs With our heels on the backs o' Napoleon's new chairs, An' princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' slings,— Excep', wal, excep' jest a very few things, Sech ez navies an' armies an' wherewith to pay, An' gettin' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... tool! Political football. They'll buy and sell with it. They'll make a cult of it, they're doing it right now! Look at Walter Rinehart. Did you hear about his scheme? To keep it down to five hundred a year? They'll make themselves a ruling class, an immortal elite, with Rinehart ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... horror and amazement. I explored every nook a second and a third time, but still it eluded my eye and my touch. I opened my closets and cases. I pried everywhere, unfolded every article of clothing, turned and scrutinized every instrument and tool, but nothing availed. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... being a sticky substance, usually the white of an egg, mixed with water (termed by binders "glaire") and the gold-leaf is laid smoothly over it. When the sizing is dry, the gold is burnished with a tool, tipped with an agate or blood-stone, drawn forcibly over the edge until ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... one day when they were alone, "I want you to come East. You say that gun is your tool, and that each man must stick to his own. You are in part right, in part wrong. A mail uses any tool better for understanding other tools. You have the right to use your brains and talents ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... cold reception I have met with from her, and the excuses with which you cover it, I believe to be mere evasions, that you may yourself retain possession of the estates which are hers by right, and make me, in the meanwhile, a tool in your desperate enterprise, by holding out hopes and expectations which you are ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... of an intelligent jury, who, after worthy and most mature deliberation, find the prisoner at the bar, Nicholas Grabguy, guilty of the heinous offence of raising his hand to a white man, whom he severely maimed with a sharp-edged tool; and the jury in their wisdom, recognising the fact of their verdict involving capital punishment, have, in the exercise of that enlightened spirit which is inseparable from our age, recommended him to the mercy of this ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... altercations. The place compelled quiet and decency, and disposed one for tranquil, serious thoughts. Absorbed in our work, we stood or sat immovably, like statues; there was a dead silence, very proper to a cemetery, so that if a tool fell down, or the oil in the lamp spluttered, the sound would be loud and startling, and we would turn to see what it was. After a long silence one could hear a humming like that of a swarm of bees; ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... had no resources except those their bodies afforded; but man is a tool-making creature, and in very early days he began to invent instruments which helped him in inquiry. The earliest deliberate study was of the stars. Science began with astronomy, and the first instruments which men contrived for the purpose of investigation were astronomical. In the beginning ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... in fact, puzzling his brain to conceive what information the stupid mulatto woman could have obtained here. His strength, his position was no secret to the enemy—there was nothing to gain from him. She must have been, like the trembling, eager woman before him, a mere tool of others. ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... and my comparative is what one's true friends never do. 2. My positive is an article of food, and my comparative is a tool. 3. My positive is coarse, and my comparative is a trade. 4. My positive is a youth, and my comparative is an instrument for climbing. 5. My positive is a preposition, and my comparative is to esteem. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... Congleton one of the tyres softened, immediately after Dick had lighted his lamps. He stopped the car and got down again. They were two miles Astbury, the nearest village. He had just, with the resignation of experience, reached for the tool- bag, when Lily exclaimed: "Is she asleep, or what?" Sophia was not asleep, but she ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... that the gardener's boy left outside the tool-house. I—I—well, I put it on Fritz's head for a hat, you know. He did look so funny, but he tossed up his head and ran away, and it fell, and it is smashed to bits. I have got the bits outside the door on the mat. Shall I ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre

... Bees always erected domes on every planet they colonized, Arthur, but precedent is a fallible tool. And it's even more firmly established that there's no possibility of our rationalizing the motivations of a culture as alien as the Hymenops'—we've been over that argument a hundred times on ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee

... as much more as will afford him the ordinary rate of profit. And when the producer, after buying the tools and employing them in his own occupation, comes to estimate his gains, he must set aside a portion of the produce to replace not only the wages paid both by himself and by the tool-maker, but also the profits of the tool-maker, advanced by himself ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... securing safety. The gipsy cant is the remnant of a pure and ancient language; we all occasionally use terms taken from this remarkable tongue, and, when we speak of a "cad," or "making a mull," or "bosh," or "shindy," or "cadger" or "bamboozling," or "mug," or "duffer," or "tool," or "queer," or "maunder," or "loafer," or "bung," we are using pure gipsy. No distinct mental process, no process of corruption, is made manifest by the use of these terms; we simply have picked them up unconsciously, and we continue ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard shelves sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made room for it near ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... is a tool so good, To smooth the heel up nice; For when around it you have gone, ...
— How to Make a Shoe • Jno. P. Headley

... own sake, for your parents' sake, for the school's sake, for all your real friends' sake, don't talk in that bitter hopeless way. You are too noble a fellow to be made the tool or the patron of the boys who lead, while they seem to follow you. I do hope you'll join us even yet ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... first time, now that the crisis was upon him, he realized to the full how profoundly the "Clarion" had become part of his life. At the outset, only the tool of a casual though fascinating profession, later, the lever of an expanding and increasing power, the paper had insensibly intertwined with every fiber of his ambition. To a degree that startled him he had come to think, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... woodrat is not only a food hoarder but a notable thief and robber. A nest was found that was a veritable tool chest and pawn shop! It contained fourteen knives, three forks, six small spoons, one large soup spoon, twenty-seven large nails, hundreds of small tacks, two butcher knives, three pairs of eye-glasses, one purse, one string of beads, one ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... was of little account. Besides Bab had already blocked several of the players in the game. Revenge could very well enter into the present scheme of things, and a girl who had no one to defend her might prove a useful tool. As a last resort she could ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... on one of my boyhood birthdays I received a tool box. It was a peach of a tool box, too; not one of the dime store variety, with a saw the same length as the gimlet, but with a set of tools that no amateur carpenter would despise. I was greatly delighted with that tool box, and immediately ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... modern world,—the great assimilating people. Conflicts and conquests are of course necessary accidents with us, as with our prototypes. And so we come to their style of weapon. Our army sword is the short, stiff, pointed gladius of the Romans; and the American bowie-knife is the same tool, modified to meet the daily wants of civil society. I announce at this table an axiom not to be found in Montesquieu or the journals ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... the symbol and source of power and efficiency. Undoubtedly this phase of the hands' activities remained predominant for untold centuries, during which man made but slow progress in his career toward the leadership of the world. Then came the phase of tool-making and using and with that a rush of events that built the cities, bridged the waters, opened up the Little and the Big as sources of knowledge and energy for man and gave him the power which he ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... was formerly the top of the opening. The top of the filling block is still smooth and finished and shows across its entire width a series of prints probably of flat sticks about an inch and a half wide, though, possibly these are marks of some finishing tool. The marks ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff

... Peterkin's disposition to make fun of everything, "we are really in rather an uncomfortable position. If this is a desert island, we shall have to live very much like the wild beasts, for we have not a tool of any kind, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... grew momentarily in importance until she felt that at all costs he who glowered from afar must learn the falsity of his own imaginings and so restore her peace of mind to her. She looked upon her American friend as a mere means towards that end, a tool to quickly accomplish that which her impatience could no longer delay. So she leaned suddenly forward and threw herself ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... "Harry is getting back from the target end of the tube now, Bill. He can't pick me up, so beetle it down to the tool room, get him, and get up to the workshop fast. If I'm not there, wait; I have ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett

... good for me, Dabney," answered father with all the dignity and command come back into his voice. "Put both those hoes in the tool house this time, and I'll not tell Mr. Goodloe you left one down by the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... comes up to his mother, and sits down on a stool, sets a tool-bag between his knees, and speaks ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... tired with going far, or that he imagined distance was the reason why more did not come. This, however, was not so; the real reason was, that being inferior to others in agreeableness of conversation and the arts of political life, like a mere tool and implement of war, he was thrown aside in time of peace. Amongst all those whose brightness eclipsed his glory, he was most incensed against Sylla, who had owed his rise to the hatred which the nobility bore Marius; and had made his disagreement ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... student's workshop is Previously Acquired Knowledge: that is, what one has in one's mind. Some people's minds are junk-shops. But a junk-shop is better than an empty shop. This previously acquired knowledge, if used rightly, becomes the tool of later courses, the servant of later years. Our stored-up facts—many of them—have not been an end in themselves. How could they be? For example, such things as paradigms and formulae and long lists ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks

... cargoes. This is a bark procured from some particular trees, of which the bunut and ibu are the most common. When they prepare to take it the outer rind is first torn or cut away; the inner, which affords the material, is then marked out with a prang, pateel, or other tool, to the size required, which is usually three cubits by one; it is afterwards beaten for some time with a heavy stick to loosen it from the stem, and being peeled off is laid in the sun to dry, care being taken to prevent its warping. The thicker or thinner ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... this has taken much time to tell about, it has not done much toward filling up that tin box. Dump in your toilet effects and a bath towel, two or three scalpels for taxidermy, a ball of string, some safety-pins, a small tool kit, sewing materials, a flask of brandy, kodak films packed in tin, a boxed thermometer, an aneroid (if you are curious as to elevations), journal, tags for labelling trophies, a few yards of gun cloth, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... certain men who would be favorable to them. They bought the Negro votes or put a Negro in some unimportant office to obtain the goodwill of the ex-slaves. They used the ignorant colored minister to further their plans, and he was their willing tool. The Negro's unwise use of his ballot plunged the South further and further into debt and as a result the South was compelled to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... proposal should be received with undue slight. His birth, and the title and estate he is heir to, are advantages that require a lady's consideration. He has not so much wit as Miss, but enough for a lord, whose friends are born before him, as the phrase is; is very good-humoured, no tool, no sot, no debauchee: and, let me tell you, this is not to be met with every day in ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... a deal box, with a soap advertisement on it, made a very fair intrenching tool, and soon formidable snow-works could be seen rising rapidly on the slopes of the clothes' drying ground, making a semicircle about that corner which contained the big iron swing, erect on its two tall posts. Hugh John and Maid Margaret, the attacking party, were still invisible, probably ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... the engines of hope and fear, raised upon these foundations, he can work them to his purpose. The Committee, with the best intentions, best abilities, and steadiest application, must after all be a tool in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... over hand-cutting is its greater range. When the old-time artist made an unusually small size of type for Bible use, he did it with great strain on his eyes and nerves. At any moment his tool might slip and spoil the work. With the machine, on the other hand, and with no physical strain whatever, experimental punches have been cut so small as to be legible only with a microscope—too small, in fact, to print. At present there are two ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... with death, got possession of 300 francs. Two of the ruffians then proceeded to the church, broke open the poor-box, and took about 30 francs. They then bound again the old man and his niece, and departed. One of the robbers, however, left an agricultural tool behind him, which led to the discovery of two of the thieves, who are committed for trial. This is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various

... hard—our task is unprecedented—and the time is short. We must strain every existing armament-producing facility to the utmost. We must convert every available plant and tool to war production. That goes all the way from the greatest plants to the smallest—from the huge automobile industry to the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... phonograph operates in a precisely similar way, the only difference being in details of refinement. Instead of tin-foil, a wax cylinder is employed, the record being cut thereon by a cutting-tool attached to a diaphragm, while the reproduction is effected by means of a ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... then from a drawer in the table he took a piece of prepared oakum such as was used for lowering into the pan of a freshly primed gun, stepped to a case in which were some old rammers, and declared himself ready to start, but hesitated and went to his tool-drawer again, out of which he ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... or to his person. Cerizet, the once opulent friend and protector of Theodose, was the muddy mire still clinging to the Provencal, and the former manager of the joint-stock company saw very plainly that his tool wanted to brush himself on entering a sphere where decent clothing was ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... to it, he had furnished for her, with the exception of one room in it; the study he had arranged for himself. And it certainly was a room in which, to judge by appearances, a worker need never be stopped in his work by the paltry need of any necessary tool. Rendel was a man of almost exaggerated precision and order. Everything lay ready to his hand in the place where he expected to find it. A glance at his well-appointed writing-table gave evidence of it. The back wall of the study, opposite the window, was lined with books. On the wall over ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell

... Grace of Bedford, swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator; Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favour and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts, by imposing on the understandings of the people. At every step of my progress in life, for in every step was I traversed and opposed, and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged ...
— Burke • John Morley

... London meeting, the Bureau chief said to Sir Donald: "Your bluff worked well. It is now sure that Dodge is the tool of the Laniers. Alice Webster's death rendered this conspiracy unavailing. The interests to be subserved by the bringing of this action are in another venue. India is the proper jurisdiction. William Webster's estate and Pierre Lanier are ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... opposed to taking offensive measures against the German colony as long as the Union was left in peace. From the time that Hertzog had been dropped from Botha's cabinet he had posed as a martyr. His adherents believed that he had been "sacrificed to please the English," and that Botha was merely a tool in the hands of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... by-product to his observations and investigations, he discovered the Taylor-White process of making high speed steel, which revolutionized the steel tool industry. No untrained workman could expect ever to compete with such work as this in obtaining results for most efficient planning and at the same time perform ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth

... the house, where was a well, or reservoir, in which he had been cleansing a small wine cask; and a sunburnt contadino, in his shirt-sleeves, showed himself on the outskirts of the vineyard, with some kind of a farming tool in his hand. Donatello found employment for all these retainers in providing accommodation for his guest and steed, and then ushered the sculptor into the vestibule ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the stuff of which the ball was made. The ball itself is sealed in a tube, so that any one who is curious to see it can do so. Finding that the crushing faces were not sufficiently hard, I made two anvils of the best tool steel, and very carefully hardened them. These, though they were impressed slightly, were sufficiently good for the purpose. In the following table are the results of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... a queer old chip that goes round the country on all sorts of errands; he comes along once in a while. That'll do, Johnny I believe this here tool is as sharp as ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell



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