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Up in the air   /əp ɪn ðə ɛr/   Listen
Up in the air

adjective
1.
Very uncertain.
2.
Not yet determined.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Up in the air" Quotes from Famous Books



... their creamy pink, christening them—Nedda thought—with drops of light; and lovely the blackbirds' singing sounded in the perfect hush! How wonderful to be a bird, going where you would, and from high up in the air seeing everything; flying down a sunbeam, drinking a raindrop, sitting on the very top of a tall tree, running in grass so high that you were hidden, laying little perfect blue-green eggs, or pure-gray speckly ones; never changing your dress, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... in the ring as proposed, that lad found himself going up in the air like a balloon, one of Billy's mighty ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery

... like a pall, was greater, and denser, and blacker than usual. The crater was disturbed. There were rumbling noises in its wondrous interior; and all around and all beneath the volcano gave signs of an approaching eruption. Sometimes the smoke, as it ascended from the crater, would tower up in the air for thousands of feet, far into the sky, a black pillar, which at the summit spread out on all sides, giving to the spectator the vision of a colossal palm tree—the shape and the sign which is the inevitable forerunner of an approaching eruption. At other times the sulphur-laden ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... my old friends, whom distance cannot diminish, figuring up in the air (so they appear to our optics), yet on terra firma still—for so we must in courtesy interpret that speck of deeper blue, which the decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, had made to spring ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... "Unknown," this report was exceptionally interesting to us because the sighting was made from the center of downtown Washington, D.C. The professor reported that he had noticed the UFO when he saw people all along the street looking up in the air and pointing. He estimated that at least 500 people were looking at it, yet his was the only report we received. This seemed to substantiate our theory that people are very hesitant to report UFO's to the Air Force. But they evidently ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... noise, and that only once. Again, in joining them as before, he struck twice, and afterwards four times in opening them. Then did he lay them joined, and extended the one towards the other, as if he had been devoutly to send up his prayers unto God. Panurge suddenly lifted up in the air his right hand, and put the thumb thereof into the nostril of the same side, holding his four fingers straight out, and closed orderly in a parallel line to the point of his nose, shutting the left eye wholly, and making the other wink with a profound ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... thing befell. When she died a great eagle appeared in the sky, hovering over Saint Prisca's body far up in the air. And when any of the Romans ventured near her the eagle swooped down upon them with dreadful cries and flapping of his wings. And his round gray eyes looked so fierce and his claws so long and sharp, that no one dared to touch her for fear of the bird. ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... a cheering section at a football game to try to scare them off; with the rifles going like young Gatling guns, and the walruses bellowing from pain and anger, coming to the surface with mad rushes, sending the water up in the air till you would think a flock of geysers was turned loose in your immediate ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... have spoken the word, I begin to feel that it is so; but I have been feeding myself with wonder this long time past: really, it's quite true," quoth I, as I saw her smile, O so prettily! But just then from some tower high up in the air came the sound of silvery chimes playing a sweet clear tune, that sounded to my unaccustomed ears like the song of the first blackbird in the spring, and called a rush of memories to my mind, some of bad times, some of good, but all sweetened ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... a bell that Sperry had placed on the stand beyond the black curtain commenced to ring. It rang at first gently, then violently. It made a hideous clamor. I had a curious sense that it was ringing up in the air, near the top of the curtain. It was a relief to have it thrown to the ground, its ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... you'll be glad Just to hear one delightful adventure I've had. Last night, at the Beaujon, a place where—I doubt If its charms I can paint—there are cars, that set out From a lighted pavilion, high up in the air, And rattle you down, DOLL—you hardly know where. These vehicles, mind me, in which you go thro' This delightfully dangerous journey, hold two, Some cavalier asks, with humility, whether You'll venture down with him—you smile—'tis a match; In an instant you're ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... knots, which untied themselves in an instant. With a joyful countenance, he muttered over it a few half-intelligible words. Then, so suddenly that even those nearest to his Majesty could not tell how it came about, the King was away—away—floating right up in the air—upon something, they knew not what, except that it appeared to be as safe and pleasant as the wings of ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... is," said Mr. Templeton, with some warmth, and gazing fondly at the child, who was now throwing buttercups up in the air, and trying to catch them. Mr. Ferrers wished in his heart that they had ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... him to have his head shaved, and to wear a wig. His companions, at first, tormented him greatly about this wig, and used to tear it from his head; but he soon succeeded in appeasing the public indignation, by being always the first to throw the unhappy ornament in question up in the air, calling it by every opprobrious epithet. From that time he remained the least persecuted wig-wearer among the two or three who ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... planks before the great opening; they were no longer there; the greater part of them had been hurled down to the ground, and I heard such a noise in our house, that I could not doubt Jack's report. I advanced timidly, holding up in the air the branch and my offerings, when I discovered, all at once, that I was offering them to a troop of monkeys, lodged in the fortress, which they were amusing themselves by destroying. We had numbers of them in the island; some large ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... seeking to do so, especially on seeing some devotional image, or on hearing some devout prayer, such as "Gloria in excelsis Deo." I know a nun to whom it has often happened in spite of herself to see herself thus raised up in the air to a certain distance from the earth; it was neither from choice, nor from any wish to distinguish herself, since she was truly confused at it. Was it by the ministration of angels, or by the artifice of the seducing spirit, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... replied the captain. "A whale don't go under water like that when she sounds. Down goes her head, and she throws her flukes up in the air." ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... suddenly with one hand, and clapping him on the back with the other, cried out, "Ah, Master Johnson, this is no time to be thinking about hats." "No, no, Sir," replied the Doctor, "hats are of no use now, as you say, except to throw up in the air and huzzah with;" accompanying his words ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... tresses, green tresses. Slow dipping, caressing, I've heard A whisper, a chuckle of laughter, a scamper; and high, High up in the air the cry, the call of a bird. And when the night came with a flicker of wings I have heard the earth breathing quiet and slow Like a pulse in the tiny, wild ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... and I read a little till I had enough of reading, and I thought I'd go to the towpath, but first, as I was thirsty, I thought I'd get a glass and take a drink at the pump. But when I tried to pump, the pump-handle just went up in the air, and wouldn't pump ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull

... gardens of Life we strayed together, And the luscious apples were ripe and red, And the languid lilac, and honeyed heather Swooned with the fragrance which they shed; And under the trees the angels walked, And up in the air a sense of wings Awed us tenderly while we ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... upstairs to an ill-lighted room, where he found Gordon sitting on his bedstead. He found Gordon sobbing, and before a word was exchanged, Gordon stooped down, and taking something from under the bedstead, held it up in the air, exclaiming: ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... had of the camp showed him Reddy amusing Bluff by making flying tosses of his rope and lassoing all sorts of objects, from the hat on the head of the admiring witness, to something tossed up in the air. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... two very different natures. Did you ever hear the story of the dog, who by an accident was cut in two, and was joined together by a wonderful healing salve? Unfortunately, the pieces were not put together properly, so two of his legs stood up in the air. At first his master thought it a great misfortune, but he found that the dog, when a little accustomed to his strange new form, would run until tired on two legs, and then by turning himself over he would have a fresh unused pair to start with, and so he did double duty! I am ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... his feet, and, treading very carefully, took a step toward the end of the van. But alas, he had forgotten the monkey! She slept beside her mistress, and Beppo stepped on her tail! There was a scream as Carina leaped up in the air, and lit on Beppo's shoulder, chattering furiously, and Beppo instantly dropped ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... the afternoon the Turkish gunners managed to explode several shells on the land near Morto Bay on the European side. A little later they made the earth and stones of Tree Hill fly up in the air by a few well-placed shells, but such advances on the part of the enemy were brief. The warships in the strait instantly turned their guns on the daring batteries, and such diversions by the enemy were only of brief duration. Toward sunset ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... interposed Horne Fisher. "Now if only a hippopotamus could fly up in the air out of that bush, or you preserved flying elephants on the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton

... arts that they got much good from them, and no harm. Every man who landed on the island was immediately devoured by these griffins; and although they had had enough, none the less would they seize them and carry them high up in the air, in their flight, and when they were tired of carrying them, would let them fall anywhere ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... speechless with drink. He threw his hands up in the air with a gesture of maudlin despair, and shouted something which no one understood. The crowd gathered like magic in the wide street before the house—the one wide street in Manitou—from the roof and upper windows ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... one side, however, stood a man who was not so busy. To put it plainly, he was loafing, with the handle of his improvised mattock supporting his weight. Clearly the two up in the air ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... was bad enough, but what most took the spirit out of me was the way that the ship was lying—her stern high up in the air, and her bow so deep in the water that the sea came up almost to her main-mast along her sloping deck. It seemed inevitable that in another moment she would follow her nose in the start downward that it had made and go straight ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... described as being an iron tower seventy-five feet high, across which a great beam of iron is balanced. To each end of this a large car is attached; and the beam see-saws, lifting the cars up and down. When one car is on the ground, the other is lifted ever so high up in the air. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 28, May 20, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... proved satisfactory, Sambo's head suddenly went up in the air, and he started to bray with all the force ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... seasons is shown also in their habit of associating in about equal numbers throughout the year. In the spring the flocks are more noticeable, hovering about some grove of pines, flying straight up in the air and swooping down again with an uninterrupted cawing,—seemingly a sort of crow ball, with a view to match-making. Afterwards they become more silent, and apparently more solitary, but still fly out to their feeding-grounds morning and evening; and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... Lucile, as she turned from the last wave at the little dots that had been people. "I think they are the jolliest crowd I've ever met. Jessie, your bow is crooked; hold still a minute. There, it's all right now. Oh, girls, I'm so happy that, if some one doesn't hold me down, I'll go up in the air like a balloon and sit on that fluffy white cloud. No, that one over there, the one that looks ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... penetrated fifty or sixty feet ahead of us. I could see slashers and clawbeaks and funnelmouths and gulpers and things like that getting out of our way in a hurry. Then we were out of the water and shooting straight up in the air. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper

... back and she, with her arm before her face, did not see the awesome look that leaped across his countenance. His arm dropped and for a moment his face was the battle-ground of fierce, contending wills and furious passions. Then his whole body writhed as if in a convulsion, his arms sprang straight up in the air and a cry of mortal agony, of defeat, despair and hopeless, futile ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... must enjoy the sunshine, and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but indulged the lad's fancy. One day he thought to give him a great treat, and when they were out in the meadows, he drew from under his coat a bow and arrow, and shot the arrow high up in the air. He expected to see him in an ecstasy of delight: his own children clapped their hands in transport, but Simon stood silent, and ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... are quite up in the air about what we are to do next. Monday afternoon I went around to headquarters to get a laisser-passer to take Harold Fowler back to England. While the matter was being attended to, an officer came in and told me that Baron von der Lancken wanted very much to see ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... horse nor touched a saddle. And then, too, these curbed bits in the mouths of animals that had been trained with the common bridle, produced a most rebellious temper, causing many of them to rear up in the air as though they had suddenly been transformed into monstrous kangaroos, while the riders showed signs of having taken lessons in somersets. Some of the scenes are more than ludicrous. Horses and men are acting very awkwardly, also, with the guiding of ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... gentleman is simple and soon told. Holding one hand up in the air, he held up with the other, between the thumb and finger, a little pinch of phosphorus and bi-sulphide of carbon, which gave the blue light. If inconvenient to hold up the other hand, he had a reserve pinch of blue-light under that invisible thumb. It is a curious instance of the thorough credulity ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... one day, like a great scarlet globe, and the river, to the duckling's vast bewilderment, was getting hard and slippery, when he heard a sound of whirring wings, and high up in the air a flock of swans were flying. They were as white as snow which had fallen during the night, and their long necks with yellow bills were stretched southwards, for they were going—they did not quite know whither—but to a land where the sun ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... answered,—'O Bhima, exhibit today upon Jarasandha the strength thou hast luckily derived, the might thou hast obtained from (thy father), the god Maruta.' Thus addressed by Krishna, Bhima, that slayer of foes, holding up in the air the powerful Jarasandha, began to whirl him on high. And, O bull of the Bharata race, having so whirled him in the air full hundred times, Bhima pressed his knee against Jarasandha's backbone and broke his body in twain. And having killed him thus, the mighty Vrikodara ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... each other, to find out their mistake, it kep' 'em so on a keen run. They would git it headed towards us, and then it would kick up its heels, and run into some lot, and canter round in a circle with its head up in the air, and then bring up short ag'inst the fence; and then they would leap over the fence. The first one had white pantaloons on, but he didn't mind 'em; over he would go, right into sikuta or elderbushes, and they would wave their hats at it, and holler, and whistle, and bark ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. And by his side with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... of letters actively concerned with the present condition of literary criticism. This is a novel preoccupation for them and one which is, we believe, symptomatic of a general hesitancy and expectation. In the world of letters everything is a little up in the air, volatile and uncrystallised. It is a world of rejections and velleities; in spite of outward similarities, a strangely different world from that of half a dozen years ago. Then one had a tolerable certainty that the new star, if the new star was to ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... the synchrony, but naturally mentioned neither client to the other. His office was far down-town and far up in the air. Its windows gave an amplitudinous vision of the Harbor which Mr. Ernest Poole has made his own, but which was now a vestibule to the hell of the European war. All the adjoining land was choked far backward with a ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... der Kaiser!" That would put them up in the air higher than a balloon. We would feel like getting out and hitting one another, but we dare not even raise a finger because a sniper would take it off. But after a lull there is always a storm, so before many minutes ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... of her own spirit. She was as a swan which never before could get its wings quite open, and so which never could get up into the open, where alone it can sing. For swans, and storks make their music only when they are high, high up in the air. Then they can give sound to their strange ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... one belonged the mysteries of the "duftar-room"; to the other the great, reflected wilderness of the "Memsahib's room" where the shiny, scented dresses hung on pegs, miles and miles up in the air, and the just-seen plateau of the toilet-table revealed an acreage of speckly combs, broidered "hanafitch ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... get up there?" asked Trot. "You had to get up in the air before you could drop down, an'—oh, Cap'n Bill! He says he's from Phillydelfy, which is a big city way at the other ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum

... any flesh on her bones," Mrs. Babcock rejoined; "an' as for Lois, nothin' ever did ail her but spring weather an' fussin'. I guess Mis' Field's well enough, but havin' all this property left her has made a different woman of her. I've seen people's noses teeter up in the air when their purses got heavy ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... little short of seven thousand feet up in the air right here in Clarkeville," continued Ned in about the same tone of exultation he might have used had he found a gold mine. "Now, listen. How many cubic feet of gas ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler

... the floor with a dry broom. Use a damp mop and so pick the germs up and carry them out instead of driving them up in the air as dust. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... went among them and preached a wonderful sermon to them, telling them how they ought to praise God for all he had given them. And the birds didn't fly away, but all crowded round to listen. At the end St. Francis gave them his blessing and told them to fly away, and they rose up in the air and flew away in the form of a great cross, to north, south, east, and west. St. Francis loved all animals, even earthworms, which he would pick up tenderly from the path and put into safety. And he would never allow people to cut trees ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay

... that Q. T. survey, too!" thrust Blake. "I sure did play the fool, didn't I? But I was all up in the air over the way I had worked out that central span, and didn't think of anything but the committee you'd appointed to pass on the competing plans. Those judges were all right. I ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... well. To make our task easier, Leglise suggested that he should hold on to the head of the bed with both hands and throw himself back on his shoulders, holding his stumps up in the air. It was a terrible, an unimaginable sight; but he began to laugh, and the spectacle became comic. We all laughed. But the dressing was easy and was ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel

... playing with it, catching it now on one shoulder, now on the other, then in his hands, and on his arms and feet. Next he threw up two ivory balls, quickly adding others in succession, till there were no less than eight kept in motion at the same time, flying up in the air. ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... and the fact that "the rationale found necessary to support the present tax leaves other States free to impose comparable taxes on the same property."[737] Evidently in this area of Constitutional Law the Court is still much at sea or better perhaps, "up in the air." ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... point where we saw the light, and in half an hour, it was but too plain that a large ship was on fire in the midst of the broad sea. I gave the word to fire off five guns, and we then lay by, to wait till break of day. But in the dead of the night, the ship blew up in the air, the flames shot forth, and what there was left of the ship sank. We hung out lights, and our guns kept up a fire all night long, to let the crew know that there was help ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... moment's warning the calf threw her hind legs up in the air, then bolted straight for the gate, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope

... didn't go and hand a sauce-bowl over my partner's shoulder! My hand met the bowl, and ... Maud was sitting opposite, and she said that never in all her life had she seen anything so appalling! The bowl flew up in the air, turned a somersault, and the sauce rained down in showers upon his knees! He had his serviette spread open, of course, but still it was bad enough. There was silence all round the table. He sat stock still, staring at his hands, all brown and dripping; then he said, in a very small, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... changing their positions. The Brazilian ship now began drawing away, aided by her own engines, and by the tow ropes extending from the other side of the lock wall. The Nama, which had been partly lifted up in the air, as a vessel in the Arctic Ocean is lifted when two ice floes begin to squeeze her, now dropped down again, and began ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton

... letter of the alphabet; but she cut short the word. "Why should you hear it? And now that you are here, you drive him away. And the best is," she laughed, "I am sure you will not remember any of his pieces. I wish I could not—not that it's the memory; but he seems all round me, up in the air, and when the trees move all together...you chase him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the order of Compositae, have aeronautic apparatus—tufts, plumes, fly-wheels—which keep them up in the air and enable them to take distant voyages. In this way, at the least breath, the seeds of the dandelion, surmounted by a tuft of feathers, fly from their dry receptacle and waft gently ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... Furthermore, its science is splendid. I am looking forward to its conclusion. "The Cave of Horror" is a damn good yarn, well written, interest sustained: but I didn't care for "The Stolen Mind." The truth is that that particular story didn't hang together very well. It left one up in the air, as it were, and far from satisfied me. Too, the science involved, to say the least of it, was not very sound or plausibly put. In reading the story I felt that the author was one who should be encouraged to write more—nothing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... thousand men and gather 'em all in at a single scoop. Then we'd take their cannon, their money, their ammunition, and everything they had that was worth carrying away. As for the others, we chucked 'em into the water, walloped 'em on the mountains, snapped 'em up in the air, devoured 'em on the ground, and beat 'em everywhere. So at last our troops were in fine feather—especially as Napoleon, who had a clever wit, made friends with the inhabitants of the country by telling them that ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof

... stuff! We don't know it; it may work anyway. If it bursts up in the air the stope roof'll be down on us. It may fire back, too—and we'd be hit behind ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... below him, which was spread out like a gigantic map. He never wearied of observing it when simply "loafing" up in the air, as at present. The sun was fairly above the eastern horizon, though clouds drifted along in scattered masses, and it was as yet impossible to tell what the day ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... powder-horn, and jumped onto my head. Then they all formed in line, and marched and hooted and yelled; and when the snakes joined the procession, the devils leaped on their backs and rode. Then some smaller ones rocked up and down on springing boards, and when the snakes came opposite, darted way up in the air and dived down their mouths, screeching like so many Pawnee Indians for scalps. When the snakes was in front of us, the little devils came to the end of the snakes' tongues, laughing and dancing, and singing like idiots. Then the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... far kept his laughter to himself, but now he could contain himself no longer. He laughed aloud, and then louder and louder as he heard the echoes all laughing with him. The faces below, too, were so very ridiculous—some of the people staring up in the air, and others at the rock where the echo came from; some having their mouths wide open, others their eyes starting, and all looking unlike themselves in the torchlight. His mirth ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... a root of a tree I fell over that made these bruises on my knees. I was watching a hawk that was still and quiet up in the air, and when it made a swoop all of a sudden ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... time. father has sold Nelly to old Si Smith. she was lame in her hind leg and when she stands in the stable she holds her hind leg up in the air all the time, and when she goes out she limps auful but after she goes a while she aint lame. so last nite father hiched her up and took me and we drove over to Wire Shaws in Kensington and when we came back he took out the whip and hit her under the belly with it 2 times and you aught ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute

... seemed disposed to cut their jokes upon me; and them that do that, generally find, in the long run, I am upsides with them, that's a fact. A cat and a Yankee always come on their feet, pitch them up in the air as high and as often as ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... other could stand a chance against me? and she was very severe with him, and said, 'You ought to be ashamed—you are proposing to me conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.' So he just tossed her up in the air about thirty feet and caught her as she came down, and said he was ashamed; and put up his handkerchief and pretended to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she petted him, and begged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything in the world he could ask but that; but ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain

... neighbor was replaced by the most fussy restlessness. When we surprised him on the lowest wire of the fence, he was terribly disconcerted, not to say thrown into a panic. He usually stood a moment, holding his long tail up in the air, flirted his wings, turned his body this way and that in great excitement, then hopped to the nearest bowlder, slipped down behind it, and ran off through the sage bushes like a mouse. More than this we were never able to see, and ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... dark mass of horses and riders down the valley. And all waited for Holley to speak. "They're linin' up," began the rider. "Havin' some muss, too, it 'pears.... Bostil, thet red hoss is raisin' hell! He wants to fight. There! he's up in the air.... Boys, he's a devil—a hoss-killer like all them wild stallions.... He's plungin' at the King—strikin'! There! Lucy's got him down. She's handlin' him.... Now they've got the King on the other side. Thet's better. But Lucy's hoss won't stand. Anyway, it's ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... head lower than its shoulders, and its long tail twitching, it slouched down the path, treading as softly as a kitten. I waited until it had passed and then fired into the short ribs, the bullet ranging forward. Throwing its tail up in the air, and giving a bound, the cougar galloped off over a slight ridge. But it did not go far; within a hundred yards I found it stretched on its side, its ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... beetles. Also notice that he places his feet on the ground very much as does Buster Bear. That big, bushy tail of his is for the purpose of warning folks. Jimmy never shoots that little scent gun without first giving warning. When that tail of his begins to go up in the air, ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... you can't take the drug and stay awake, you'll simply remain inside the locked ship. It will be better anyway to keep the Mooncat well up in the air and ready to move most of the time we're on ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... mind, that borne upon the wind come the spirits of the drowned, wailing and crying for the sepulture which had been denied them? But there were other sounds in that wind, too. Evil, murderous thoughts, perhaps, which had never taken body in deeds, but which, caught up in the air, now hurled themselves in impotent fury through the world. How I wished the wind would stop. It seemed full of horrible fancies, and it kept knocking them into my head, and it wouldn't leave off. Fancies, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the air. First, one sleek bird, hovering near his ragged house as it swung and dangled in the wind, uttered his hoarse cry, quite by chance as it would seem, and in a sober tone as though he were but talking to himself. Another answered, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... Fun during his Second Time on Earth that he decided to make it a sure-enough Renaissance, so he married a Type-Writer 19 years old, that he met in a Hotel Lobby, and then Joel did go up in the Air. ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... my best friends," he began, "was working alongside of me, and I guess he got dizzy or something, for he leaned up against the big belt that ran all the machinery and he was lifted right up in the air and tore to pieces before he ever knew what struck him. The boss came in and seen it, and the second question he asked, he says, 'Say, is the machinery running all right?' It wasn't ten minutes before there was another man in there doing the ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... the neighborhood of his family-circle, you notice only his glossy black cap and the white feathers in his handsome tail; but let a Hawk or a Crow come near, and you find that he is something more than a mere lazy listener to the Bobolink: far up in the air, determined to be thorough in his chastisements, you will see him, with a comrade or two, driving the bulky intruder away into the distance, till you wonder how he ever expects to find his own way back again. He speaks with emphasis, on these occasions, and then reverts, more sedately ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... a new one for me," confessed Joel, frankly. "Why, honest to goodness, it seemed to jump up in the air just ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... arrivals every minute. On looking upwards we saw air-ships speeding towards us from every quarter. Some brought passengers and landed them, but it was evident that most of the air-ships were about to take part in the display, as they remained up in the air instead of coming down to ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... love? Oh, good heavens!" and M. Mauperin shrugged his shoulders, and half joining his hands looked up in the air. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... bit of gossip, but certain important reasons compel me to. That which you mentioned before about the reasons of state was fulfilled. Fulfilled to the very letter. All possibilities of prosecuting this person at present have simply gone up in the air. ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma

... on heard what was neither bark nor yelp, but a something which is best described as a roar, and they saw Buck's body rise up in the air as he left the floor for Burton's throat. The man saved his life by instinctively throwing out his arm, but was hurled backward to the floor with Buck on top of him. Buck loosed his teeth from the flesh of the arm and drove in again for the throat. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... three high up in the air when a sportsman saw us, and shot at us with his arrow. It struck our young friend; and, slowly singing her farewell song, she sank like a dying swan down into the midst of the lake in the wood. There, on its banks, under a fragrant ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... cried Brownie, tossing his cap up in the air, and bounding right through the scullery into the kitchen. It was quite empty, but there was a good fire burning itself out—just for its own amusement, and the remains of a capital supper spread on the table—enough for half a dozen people ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock

... darkness; it looked very near, and my heart thrilled as I watched. Suddenly a stream of red sparks swooped upwards into the air and circled towards us. Involuntarily I stooped under cover, then raised my head again. High up in the air a bright flame stood motionless lighting up the ground in front, the space between the lines. Every object was visible: a tree stripped of all its branches stood bare, outlined in black; at its foot I could see the barbed wire entanglements, the wire ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... they'll soon get over that idea, and find their real fright up in the air," Bert Dodge ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... the monologues of Caponsacchi, of Pompilia, and of the Pope. For the valuation, however, of this loftier testimony we require a sense of the level ground, even if it be the fen-country. A perception of the heights must be given by exhibiting the plain. If we were carried up in the air and heard these voices how should we know for certain that we had not become inhabitants of some Cloudcuckootown? And the plain is where we ordinarily live and move; it has its rights, and is worth understanding ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... his sombrero from his head, and placing it on the muzzle of the guard's rifle, held the piece up in the air so that the hat projected above the edge of the over-turned coach. Instantly a sharp fusillade broke from the Indian's position, and one bullet, better aimed than the majority, passed clean through the sombrero, whirling it ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... any case, a strange creature, with two inclined planes, one on either side, that looked like wings; and, at the back, it showed a screw-propeller sticking up in the air, like a tail. The whole thing rested on ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... best neighbors. I say a bullet ought to let daylight through his onery carcass, and I'll be the one to fire it." With this remark he raised his gun to his shoulder and pulled the trigger; but before the weapon went off Jasper knocked the barrel up in the air, and the lead went ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... observed to the west, a flock of vultures, wheeling high up in the air; and, down upon the plain below, hundreds of jackals and hyenas were seen leaping about. So large an assemblage of these carrion-feeding creatures called for an explanation; and, on riding nearer, the hunters saw a ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... us, he jumped up in the air, so's to speak, and when he lit 'twas right on our necks. His daughter, who seemed to be the sanest one in the lot, run ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... by some time upon this, only driving as the burning ship drove, waiting for daylight; when, on a sudden, to our great terror, though we had reason to expect it, the ship blew up in the air; and in a few minutes all the fire was out, that is to say, the rest of the ship sunk. This was a terrible, and indeed an afflicting sight, for the sake of the poor men, who, I concluded, must be either all destroyed in the ship, or be in the utmost distress in ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... as their two elders, who reclined at table in attitudes scarcely less majestic than those of the Fates on the Parthenon pediment. Meffia sprawled uncouthly and was forever spreading her knees apart, generally with one up in the air. Her postures were so disgusting that Brinnaria was hot all over with determination not ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... important. He scorned to take any notice of old Sam, but strode on his way till he came to the potato piece, when he deliberately crossed the little dry ditch, trod down the tiny hedge, and then sticking his nose up in the air, as much as to say, "I'll teach old Inglis to stop up old tracks," he stamped along more pompously than ever, while Sam stopped by a turn in the road and watched him with eyes that seemed fascinated, so eagerly did they ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... such a conquest over myself, I thought my education was complete; but Lily had further refinements in store. She made me hold the piece of toast on my very nose while she counted ten, and at the word ten I was to toss it up in the air, and catch it in my mouth as it came down. I was a good while learning this trick, for I did not at all see the use of it. I could smell the bread distinctly as it lay on my nose, and why I should not eat it at once I never could understand. I have often peeped in at the dining-room ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... the staff on the tower and fluttered out in gay answering to the morning breeze, children in the village began to run about shouting, men and women appeared at cottage doors, and more than one cap was thrown up in the air. But old Doby and Mrs. Welden, who had been waiting for hours, standing by Mrs. Welden's gate, caught each other's dry, trembling old hands ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... tom-cat, a shoulder of mutton, and at last a donkey. The humor lies in the contrast between what Jack did and what anybody "with sense" knows he ought to have done, until when royalty beheld him carrying the donkey on his shoulders, with legs sticking up in the air, it could bear no more, and burst into laughter. This is a good realistic droll to use because it impresses the truth, that even a little child must reason and judge and use ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... "Go, gentlemen, go and rub yourselves against those untangible combinations, as you are pleased to call Watt's engines; against those pretended abstract ideas; they will crush you like gnats, they will hurl you up in the air out of sight!" ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... said that he meant, if I went I mustn't look upon things with the eye of a 'Creation Searcher' and a man (here he p'inted his forefinger right up in the air and waved it round in a real free and soarin' way), but look at things with the eye of a private investigator and a woman (here he p'inted his finger firm and stiddy right down into the wood-box and a pan of ashes). It ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... day told me you worked miracles. I have wanted to see one all my life. Gratify me, won't you? Oh, something very easy to begin with. Send one of the guards up in the air, or turn your ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... man must instantly strike the wings downwards, and sit as far back as he can; he will by this means check the projectile force, and cause the car to alight very gently with a retrograde motion. The car, when up in the air, may be made to turn to the right or to the left by forcing out one of the fins, having one about eighteen inches long placed vertically on each side of the car for that purpose, or perhaps merely by the man inclining the weight of his ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... constantly to revise his hasty inferences, he considered tremendously tiresome. It left one all up in the air! ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... remote abstractions, up in the air, out of reach, of no practical value or application; they touch the very life and soul of Harvard University. For want of such thoughts, many of the brightest and most intellectual of her students, graduates from the philosophical ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... suddenly grave—"of course Maurice is always 'the boy stands on the burning deck'; but you can't help seeing that he's fed up on poor old Eleanor! Sometimes I wonder he ever does come home! If I were in his place, when she gets to nagging I'd go right up in the air! I'd say, well,—something. But he keeps ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... approached the companion, and began to descend into the cabin. P—— and I had already preceded him. Every thing below seemed in the greatest medley. The four chairs, lying on the floor, stuck their sixteen legs right up in the air; and the books, with their covers horribly distorted, were scattered in every corner. The sofa pillows appeared to have been playing "bo-peep" with each other, for three had hid themselves under one sofa, and the fourth ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... only time I ever flew, or ever had a chance to, or ever wanted to, that I can remember. Very likely you have already heard how once, a long time ago, I thought I could fly, and persuaded an eagle to take me up in the air to give me a start. That old story has been told a good deal, and I believe has even been put into some of Mr. Man's books for ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine

... 'ard, Kid, hold 'ard. This ain't a fight," says he. "Look your prettiest," he whispers. "Please, Kid, look your prettiest," and he pulls my leash so tight that I can't touch my pats to the sawdust, and my nose goes up in the air. There was millions of people a- watching us from the railings, and three of our kennel-men, too, making fun of Nolan and me, and Miss Dorothy with her chin just reaching to the rail, and her eyes so big that I thought ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... to a purple mountain, and a chill wind began to blow. How we shivered with the cold! Then we huddled close together to get warm. We were now heavy again—so heavy that we could not stay up in the air. ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long



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