Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Basque   Listen
noun
Basque  n.  
1.
One of a race, of unknown origin, inhabiting a region on the Bay of Biscay in Spain and France.
2.
The language spoken by the Basque people.
3.
A part of a lady's dress, resembling a jacket with a short skirt; probably so called because this fashion of dress came from the Basques.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Basque" Quotes from Famous Books



... King Ferdinand's abolition of the Salic law of succession in Spain, so as to assure the throne to his new wife, raised up a party of absolutists against him. His brothers, Don Carlos and Francisco, became the heads of this movement and rallied their supporters around them, in the Basque provinces. In Portugal kindred dissensions rent the land in twain. Dom Miguel's claims to the crown were disputed on behalf of the constitutional government by the Duke of Palermo. Across the seas, Dom Pedro ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... hard to find, even in sensational fiction, a more daring leader than Lord Cochrane, or a career which supplies so many thrilling exploits. The manner in which, almost single-handed, he scattered the French fleet in the Basque Roads is one of the greatest ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... and its descendants in the East, Greek, Latin, all modern Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, etc.), all Germanic languages (English, German, Scandinavian, etc.), all Slav languages (Russian, Polish, etc.)—in fact, all the principal languages of Europe, except Hungarian, Basque, and Finnish. The main tendency of this group of languages has been, technically speaking, to become analytic instead of synthetic—that is, to abandon complex systems of inflection by means of case and verbal endings, and to substitute prepositions and auxiliaries. Thus, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... been done] all would at this moment show well or poorly the dominant language, just as in Cataluna, Valencia, the Baleares Islands, and the Basque provinces, Castilian is known. But this is not a matter which can be remedied in a brief time. Consequently, if an alcalde who is beginning to administer justice in Cagayan has to go immediately to Cebu, he will surely arrive there without knowing the language, although he had given ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... long black hair scattered over the straw bolster contrasted with the olive pallor of his face. It occurred to me he might be a Basque. It didn't necessarily follow that he should understand Spanish; but I tried him with the few words I know, and also with some French. The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear to his lips puzzled me utterly. That afternoon the young ladies from the Rectory (one of them ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad

... it. He remembered. And—and I ought to have explained before. Mrs. Gray told me to, at once—about this red gingham dress, you know, and why I'm not in black. She said you'd think 'twas queer. But there weren't any black things in the last missionary barrel, only a lady's velvet basque which Deacon Carr's wife said wasn't suitable for me at all; besides, it had white spots—worn, you know—on both elbows, and some other places. Part of the Ladies' Aid wanted to buy me a black dress and hat, but the other part thought the money ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... picturesque dresses of the Pyrenean peasantry—so different from the eternal blue blouse which they had met in northern and central France. Here was worn the "barret," of scarlet or white, the rich brown jacket and red sash of the peculiar costumes of the Basque and Bearnais peasants—a fine race of men, and one, too, historically noble. They saw carts drawn by large limbed cream-coloured oxen; and passed flocks of sheep and milch goats, tended by shepherds in picturesque dresses, and guarded by numbers of large Pyrenean ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... vaguely down at herself. She had no belt to stick her violets in. She wore no belt. She wore a basque. A basque is a beltless something that you can't remember, but that females did, once upon a time, cover the upper half of their forms with. Basques buttoned down the front with ten to thirty buttons, and may be studied at leisure ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... she should avoid having any tight-fitting garments that bring the fact into relief. She should not wear the long coat, but she can effectively modify it to suit her needs, by only having a skirt, or tabs, or finishing straps in the back. If her jacket or basque is finished off with a skirt effect, it is best to have the little skirt swerve away just at the hip-line, half revealing ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... Cardinal made him put on a shabby cassock, with a false beard of grizzled hair and eyebrows to match, which were all fastened on with a certain liquid so firmly to the skin that it was necessary to apply vinegar in which the ashes of vine-twigs had been steeped, when they instantly fell off. My Basque was at length dressed in a torn, threadbare cassock, masked by his false beard, with an old hat upon his head, a breviary under his arm, and a tolerably thick stick in his hand, and received an order to post himself near the little gate of the Luxembourg stables. The Cardinal ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, Basque minorities overseas departments: black, white, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... soon as received to buy them ice or wine; and how in their delirium the sweet, fresh voice of the child of the regiment would soothe them, singing above their wretched beds some carol or chant of their own native province, which it always seemed she must know by magic; for, were it Basque or Breton, were it a sea-lay of Vendee or a mountain-song of the Orientales, were it a mere, ringing rhyme for the mules of Alsace, or a wild, bold romanesque from the country of Berri—Cigarette ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... There is a Basque legend told of the giant Tartaro, who caught a young man in his snares, and confined him in his cave for dessert. When, however, Tartaro fell asleep, the young man made the giant's spit red hot, bored out his one eye, and then made his escape ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... drink called whisky in modern parlance, is involved in considerable obscurity. Some authorities consider that the word is derived from the first part of the term usquebaugh; others suppose it to be derived from the name of a place, the Basque provinces, where some such compound was concocted in the fourteenth century. In Morewood's History of Inebriating Liquors, he gives a list of the ingredients used in the composition of usquebaugh, and none ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... family moved to a two story house "out Meriwether Road" but didn't get along so well. Minnie was hungry lots and came to town to get scraps of food. When she was a "good big girl" she came to town one day with her hair full of cukle-burrs, dressed in her mother's basque looking for food, when she saw a man standing in front of a store eating an orange. She wanted that peeling. No one kept their cows and pigs up and when the man threw the peeling on the ground a sow grabbed it. Minnie chased the pig right down Hill Street, was hollering and making plenty of noise, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... persons with a repressed manner, which characterises both men and women of their ancient race, and they spoke to him in Basque. Some freed their hands from the folds of the long blanket, which each wore according to his fancy, to shake hands with him; others nodded curtly. Men from the valley of Ebro muttered "Buenas"—the curt ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... of an ancient and noble race, said to have been of Basque origin. His father held a high post in the household of Louis XIII, who became the child's godfather, and gave him his own name. At the age of fifteen, the young Louis showed an uncontrollable passion for the life of a soldier. He was sent to the seat of war in Holland, to serve under the Prince ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... been more circumstantial and particular than the case required. The other districts which they inhabit are principally those of Catalonia, Murcia, and Valencia; and they are likewise to be met with in the Basque provinces, where they are called Egipcioac, or Egyptians. What I next purpose to occupy myself with are some general observations on the habits, and the physical and moral state of the Gitanos throughout Spain, and of the position which ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... Language.—The Basque language stands alone amongst European tongues, having affinity with none of them. According to Farrar, "there never has been any doubt that this isolated language, preserving its identity in a western corner of Europe, between two mighty kingdoms, resembles ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

... very year of the storming of Carthage.[3] It is not to be wondered at that the Jews gave every help they could to the infidels who, before long, attacked the kingdom of the Wisigoths. Within twenty years Spain, up to the very mountains of the {78} Basque land and of the Asturias, was conquered by the followers of Muhammad, and silence fell upon the country which had appeared to be the home of ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton

... economic and political power. Spain remained neutral in World Wars I and II, but suffered through a devastating Civil War (1936-39). In the second half of the 20th century, it has played a catch-up role in the western international community. Continuing concerns are large-scale unemployment and the Basque separatist movement. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... men passed, in brown velveteens, enormous trousers, and basque caps. They were young, ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... were the usual scenes of his dramas. Finally from France itself, and from the oldest provinces of France, he drew subject-matter for two of his novels, An Iceland Fisherman and Ramuntcho. This proved a surprise. Our Breton sailors and our Basque mountaineers were not less foreign to the Parisian drawing-room than was Aziyade or the little Rahahu. One claimed to have a knowledge of Brittany, or of the Pyrenees, because one had visited Dinard or Biarritz; while in reality neither Tahiti nor the ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... her blue cotton dress, a band of embroidery in the neck of its close-fitting basque, and around her waist a long, white apron which reached beyond her ample hips to the middle of her back, lingered this morning, dust-cloth in hand, at the door of my sitting-room. There was something else ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... now equalised, the inhabitants of the remaining provinces of Spain differ as widely from one another as they do from the sister kingdom, while the folklore of Asturias and of the Basque Provinces is very closely allied with that of Portugal. To judge the Biscayan by the same standard as the Andaluz, is as sensible as it would be to compare the Irish squatter with Cornish fisher-folk, or the peasants of Wilts and Surrey with the Celtic races of the West Highlands of Scotland, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... the privilege of Roman citizenship from Julius Caesar, whom its people had aided against Pompey's officers. The tribes in the northwest of Spain, however, were savage and unquiet, and their language, the Basque, which still exists, shows that they were never perfectly conquered ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... only by means of the Basque language that the problem can be attempted. The physical conformation of the still extant Iberians, has nothing definitely characteristic about it. The ancient mythology has died away. The tribes most immediately allied have ceased to be other than unmixed. So the language alone remains—and ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham

... and one body of estates. Nevertheless its provinces represented well-marked ancient divisions. Leon had once been a separate kingdom, and was still coupled with Castile itself in the full title of that monarchy; while Galicia, Asturias, and the three Basque provinces were inhabited by peoples of different political history, of different stock, and living under different customs. Navarre, Granada, and Portugal, although within the Iberian peninsula, were, at the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, still independent; ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... Basque, the prejudices—and for some time the laws—ran stronger against them than any which I have hitherto mentioned. The Basque Cagot was not allowed to possess sheep. He might keep a pig for provision, but ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell

... went home and lost his appetite. He was haunted by the elegant basque and graceful shoulders of the fair unknown, during the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... Celtic Polyglott Grammar, giving a Comparative View off the Breton, Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and Basque Languages. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various

... "No! not a basque at all, but a man's black satin waistcoat! and next came objects about which there could be no doubt,—a pair of dingy old trousers, and a swallow-tailed coat! Imagine the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... years after the first Spanish caravel had touched the shores of North America, we find the French putting forth efforts to share in some of the results of the discovery. In the year 1504 some Basque, Breton and Norman fisher-folk had already commenced fishing along the bleak shores of Newfoundland and the contiguous banks for the cod in which this region is still ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... "going into business" when they "got their money," but as time went on and Archie displayed little aptitude for managing money, she talked less about this. Adelle would have been content to buy the Basque villa they had rented and establish herself and Archie there in complete idleness and luxury, provided he would always be "good" to her, by which she meant faithful to those unconsidered marriage vows made in the Paris consulate, and not ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... the possibility of the introduction of French, Italian, and even Belgian stories through the medium of priests of those nationalities must not be overlooked. Furthermore, there is a no inconsiderable number of Basque sailors to be found on the small inter-island steamers that connect one end of the archipelago with the other. Even a very cursory glance at the tales in this collection reveals the fact that many of them are more or less close variants and analogues of tales distributed throughout the world. How ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... from Biscay of a new revolt, extending through all the Basque provinces; and they are only waiting for some eligible pretender to come forward to give to this happy country another ruler. Advices from all parts are indeed crowded with reports of a rebellious spirit, so that a dozen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... appraisingly, at the loose basque, which, because of the budding beauty of her form rather than because of any merit of its own, had seemed to him most charming and attractive. Close examination did not show this to be the case. It was ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... shipbuilders and engineers, of Pointhouse, Glasgow, have recently built a somewhat unique and certainly interesting steamer, for the conveyance of passengers between Port an Basque, in Newfoundland, and Sydney, Cape Breton, in connection with the Newfoundland and Canadian systems of railways. The distance from port to port is about one hundred miles, and the vessel has been designed to make the run in six hours. Messrs. Reid, of Newfoundland, who ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... purpose of the Jacobin policy is a systematic and total destruction of the country, man and beast, buildings, crops, and even trees, there are cantons and even provinces where the entire rural and working population is arrested or put to flight. In the Pyrenees, the old Basque populations "torn from their natal soil, crowded into the churches with no means of subsistence but that of charity," in the middle of winter, so that sixteen hundred of those incarcerated die "mostly of cold and hunger;"[41105] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... made the isle of Oleron, and then sir Edward Hawke sent an order to vice-admiral Knowles, requiring him, if the wind permitted the fleet, to proceed to Basque road, to stand in as near to the isle of Aix as the pilot would carry him, with such ships of his division as he thought necessary for the service, and to batter the fort till the garrison should either abandon or surrender it. But the immediate execution of this order ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... himself to the assertion that "Scotchmen and Irishmen are more unlike Englishmen, the native of Normandy more unlike the native of Provence, the Pomeranian more unlike the Wurtemberger, the Piedmontese more unlike the Neapolitan, the Basque more unlike the Andalusian, than the American from any part of the country is to the American from any other." Max O'Rell, on the other hand, writes: "L'habitant du Nord-est des Etats Unis, le Yankee, differe autant de l'Americain de l'Ouest et du Midi que l'Anglais ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... children were to be delivered up to him in name of damages, and the witches were directed to procure such victims accordingly. After this grand fiction he confined himself to the petty vengeance of impeding the access of confessors to the condemned, which was the more easy as few of them could speak the Basque language. I have no time to detail the ingenious method by which the learned Councillor de Lancre explains why the district of Labourt should be particularly exposed to the pest of sorcery. The chief reason seems to be that it is a mountainous, a sterile, and a border country, where ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... (1775-1860), eldest son of the ninth Earl of Dundonald, a captain in the Royal Navy, and M. P. for Westminster, had done brilliant service in his successive commands—the 'Speedy', 'Pallas', 'Imperieuse', and the flotilla of fire-ships at Basque Roads in 1809. In the House of Commons he had been a strong opponent of the Government, an advocate of Parliamentary Reform, and a vigorous critic of naval administration. In February, 1814, he had been appointed to the 'Tonnant' for the American Station, and it was while ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... superintendent followed the blood sign, urging the unwilling dogs ahead and leading the more unwilling Basque shepherds, who had no stomach for meetings with a wounded grizzly in the brush. Half a mile from the cienega the dogs stopped before a thicket, bristled their backs and growled impatient remonstrance to the superintendent's efforts to ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... England I was authorised to look out for a person competent to translate the Scriptures in Basque (Spanish). I am acquainted with a gentleman who is well versed in that dialect, of which I myself have some knowledge. Perhaps it would not be unwise to engage him to translate St. Luke as a ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... mouths puckered in warning, and Mrs. O'Brien caught the smouldering gaze of a flaxen-haired woman in very full black skirts and black basque of an antique cut, who had but now approached the group; with her race's nimbleness of wit she added, "Sure there's dirty ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... was marked by a decided advance in both the development and the application of sea-power. Previously its operation had been confined to the Mediterranean or to coast waters outside it. Spanish or Basque seamen—by their proceedings in the English Channel—had proved the practicability of, rather than been engaged in, ocean warfare. The English, who withstood them, were accustomed to seas so rough, to seasons so uncertain, and to weather so boisterous, that the ocean had ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... heavy veil with a quick gesture. She was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty peculiar to the Basque province. But, once you had seen her eyes, and comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their deep shadows and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived only ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... root of the verb. These slight differences in the form of the verb, according to the nature of the pronouns governed by it, is found in the Old World only in the Biscayan and Congo languages (Vater, Mithridates. William von Humboldt, On the Basque Language). Strange conformity in the structure of languages on spots so distant, and among three races of men so different,—the white Catalonians, the black Congos, and the copper-coloured Americans!) an ingenious method of indicating beforehand, either by inflexion of the personal ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... him. We kings should become better acquainted, don't you think? I will ask him what he considers the proper price for telling fortunes, and find out what his ideas are on the subject of horse-trading. And no doubt he will ask me what I think about his coming marriage with the Princess of Basque. She is to arrive to-night, I believe, and be married tomorrow, to this King whom she ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell

... center of commercial affairs for the Basque country, its citizens must, at any rate, go to Biarritz if they want to live "the elegant and worldly life." The prosperity and luxury of Biarritz are very recent; it goes back only to the Second Empire, when it was but a village of a thousand ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... Governor of Fort Independence was a French sergeant, an old comrade of Parachapee. He had never left the fort since it had been built in 1828; and, strange to say, he commanded it with the consent of the Argentine Government. He was a man about fifty years of age, a Basque by birth, and his name was Manuel Ipharaguerre, so that he was almost a Spaniard. A year after his arrival in the country he was naturalized, took service in the Argentine army, and married an Indian girl, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... his staede. But when he doth it himself, he appeareth vnto them in likenesse of a man.'[449] De Lancre says that in the Basses-Pyrenees 'le lieu ou on le trouue ordinairement s'appelle Lanne de bouc, & en Basque Aquelarre de verros, prado del Cabron, & la les Sorciers le vont adorer trois nuicts durant, celle du Lundy, du Mercredy, & du Vendredy.—Les iours ordinaires de la conuocation du Sabbat, ou pour mieux dire les nuicts, ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... by the great races out of the fruitful lands to take refuge in mountains and deserts. The retainers of the couvade in Asia are the Miau-tsze of China and the savage Tibareni of Pontus. In Europe they are the Basque race of the Pyrenees, whose peculiar manners, appearance, and language, coupled with their geographical position, favour the view that they are the remains of a people driven westward and westward, by the pressure of more powerful tribes, till they came to these last ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... the succession. Her daughter Isabella was born a few months later. After the death of the king (1833), the Carlists resisted the exclusion of their favorite from the throne. Don Carlos was proclaimed in the Basque provinces, and a civil war arose. The queen, Maria Christina, as regent, was supported by the moderados (moderates) and the liberals, and was allowed to recruit for her army in England and France. The ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... French 100%, rapidly declining regional dialects and languages (Provencal, Breton, Alsatian, Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Flemish) ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... Hittites, another Pelasgians, and so on. And all of them, in each of the theories, have as a fact a great many unexplained characteristics, different from those of our historical nations. Some of these characteristics, most markedly the Basque, but also not a few at greater distance, have definite American similarities. It might not be a far guess that these fragments represent an eastward movement, which later in the history of the Aryan development met and was pushed ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... whom we had fallen, while I hesitated at our carriage door whether I should summon him as Mozo or Usted, was master of that lingua franca and recovered us from the customs without question on our part, and understood everything we could not, say. I like to think he was a Basque, because I like the Basques so much for no reason that I can think of. Their being always Carlists would certainly be no reason with me, for I was never a Carlist; and perhaps my liking is only a prejudice in their favor from the air of thrift and work which pervades their beautiful ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... trail, Watson's Peak, 8500 feet high, with its basaltic crown, looms before us. At our feet is a big bed of wild sunflowers, their flaring yellow and gold richly coloring the more somber slopes. Here I once saw a band of upwards of 2000 sheep, herded by a Basque, one of that strange European people who seem especially adapted by centuries of such life to be natural shepherds. Few of them speak much American, but they all know enough, when you ask them how many sheep they have, to answer, "About sixteen hundred." The limit allowed on any government reserve ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... opened the tied flap, but started back with instant perception of something wrong, for there, on his pile of ragged quilts, lay the Basque herder, with flushed face and rolling eyes, crazed with fever and entirely helpless. "You'd better not come in here, Wetherford," Ross warned. "Joe is here, horribly sick, and I'm afraid it's something contagious. It ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... pursuit of the same calling, make such fusions. In this fraternity of vagabonds, those of the Mediterranean seaboard represented the East, those of the Atlantic seaboard the West. Many Basques conversed with many Irishmen. The Basque and the Irishman understand each other—they speak the old Punic jargon; add to this the intimate relations of Catholic Ireland with Catholic Spain—relations such that they terminated by bringing to the gallows in London one almost King of Ireland, the Celtic Lord de Brany; from which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... friend?" said Pantagruel. "What do you want, and what is your name?" The man answered him in German, gibberish, Italian, English, Basque, Lantern-language, Dutch, Spanish, Danish, Hebrew, Greek, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... either from panic or treachery, left our flanks exposed; thus the legions had to bear the brunt. They had already lost their standards and were being cut down in the trenches, when a fresh reinforcement suddenly changed the fortune of the fight. Some Basque auxiliaries,[322] originally levied by Galba, who had now been summoned to the rescue, on nearing the camp heard the sound of fighting, and while the enemy were occupied, came charging in on their rear. This caused more consternation than their numbers ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... A NEW LANGUAGE.—Much interest has been excited by the report that Mr. GLADSTONE, during his stay at Biarritz, used up his spare moments by studying the Basque tongue. AUTOLYCUS hears that, contrary to his usual habit, the Right Hon. Gentleman has in this matter an ulterior purpose. Occasionally, in the heat of debate in the House of Commons, Mr. ABRAHAM drops into his native tongue, and addresses the SPEAKER in Welsh. Mr. GLADSTONE, desiring to add a fresh ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... perplexities were evidently leaving their traces on his features, but he had lost none of his determined, defiant looks. During the more ceremonious part of the reception his two daughters stood near him. Mrs. Stover wore a rich black silk dress, with a basque of the same material, both being embroidered with violet-colored wreaths and trimmed with bugles. Mrs. Patterson wore a similar dress and basque, embroidered in white. Both ladies wore lace collars and had natural ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... deep-blue eyes and a skin of extreme whiteness, found abundantly in Ireland, and amongst the offspring of Irish emigrants, are, in all probability, tokens of descent from this appallingly ancient people. The type appears occasionally in the Basque provinces, and on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, but nowhere else. Few civilised races inhabit the land where the fossil relics of their own lineal ancestors mark the furthest point of human occupancy; yet it would seem to be so with the true Irish. In what other way can this ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... that cow-punchers affect as the expression of their chiefest vanity. But Mrs. Yellett was not wholly mannish in her tastes, and to offset the boots she wore a bodice of the type that a generation ago used to be known as a "basque." It fitted her ample form as a cover fits a pin-cushion, the row of jet buttons down the front looking as if a deep breath might cause them to shoot into space at any moment with the force of ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... home, and study it closely at your leisure, by the fireside. It is a type, not from any Oxford font, not in the Basque nor the arrow-headed character, not found on the Rosetta Stone, but destined to be copied in sculpture one day, if they ever get to whittling stone here. What a wild and pleasing outline, a combination of graceful curves ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... a careful critic; for on yesterday she eyed The new dress I was airing with a woman's natural pride, And she said: "Oh, how becoming!" and then softly added, "It Is really a misfortune that the basque ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... as they race the strand, their dash into the water, or their nervous pausing at the rim of the wet—here is poetry for you, the poetry of glorious days in youth-land. Curiously enough his types are for the most part more international than racial; that is, racial as are Zuloaga's Basque brigands, manolas, and gipsies. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... these dialects were of Latin origin, some as in the Germanies and Scandinavia, mixed original Teutonic and Latin; some, as in Brittany, were Celtic; some, as in the eastern Pyrenees, Basque; in North Africa, we may presume, the indigenous tongue of the Berbers resumed its sway; Punic also may have survived in certain towns and villages there. [Footnote: We have evidence that it survived in the fifth century.] But men paid ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... to Mr J. N. D'Andrea, is built on the Basque principle, under one roof, with covered balconies on the south side, the northside being kept low to give the sun an opportunity of shining in winter on the house and greenhouse adjacent, as well as to assist in the more picturesque grouping of the two. On this side is placed, approached by porch ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... the Basque province—small, muscular and proud, agile of movement and with bodies beautifully trained; plain of ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin

... proportioned to their present condition and their birth. She had charged herself with the maintenance of two former nuns, noble and well educated, who, at the fall of their community, had been recommended, or had procured a recommendation, to her. Mesdames de Brinon and du Basque were these two vagrant nuns. Madame de Maintenon, instinctively attracted to this sort of ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... afterwards Sir Eliab Harvey, one of Nelson's captains at Trafalgar. But unfortunately he so violently resented the appointment of Lord Cochrane, who was only a post-captain, to carry out the attack on the French fleet in Basque Roads, which he himself, who was an admiral, had also suggested, and used such violent and insubordinate language towards Lord Gambier, the Commander-in-chief (who, though a most incompetent officer, had had nothing to do with the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... began to show, the air was cutting; it bit with frost. And then we turned down the dark boreen, the mare venturing into it with some misgiving. I think the Friar was praying in an undertone in his native Basque as we passed through the narrow mountain boreen. At the end of it we came to the shallow river with the shingly bottom. Again the mare required some persuasion before she ventured in, the wheels ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... instincts which in after years led me away from these paths of peace already existed within me; but they were dormant. From the accident of my birth I was torn by conflicting forces. There was some Basque and Bordeaux blood in my mother's family, and unknown to me the Gascon half of myself played all sorts of tricks with the Breton half. Even my family was divided, my father, my grandfather, and my uncles being, as I have already said, the reverse of clerical, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... 'berretta.' The women tie a gaudy handkerchief round their heads, and compel one corner to stand forward from behind the ear in a triangle, in proportion to the size and stiffness whereof the lady seems to think herself well dressed. But the pretty Basque handkerchief will soon give place to the Parisian bonnet. For every cove among the rocks is now filled with smart bathing-houses, from which, in summer, the gay folk of Paris issue in 'costume de bain,' to float about all day on calabashes—having literally no room for the soles of their ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... years male, 82 years female (1992) Total fertility rate: 1.8 children born/woman (1992) Nationality: noun - Frenchman(men), Frenchwoman(women); adjective - French Ethnic divisions: Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, and Basque minorities Religions: Roman Catholic 90%, Protestant 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim (North African workers) 1%, unaffiliated 6% Languages: French (100% of population); rapidly declining regional dialects ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... with him to a great feast which he was giving for his daughter's marriage, who was called Gyptis, according to some, and Petta, according to other historians. A custom which exists still in several cantons of the Basque country, and even at the centre of France in Morvan, a mountainous district of the department of the Nievre, would that the maiden should appear only at the end of the banquet, and holding in her hand a filled wine-cup, and that the guest to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... simulation of death and resurrection, would be an exchange of life or souls between the man and his totem. The primitive belief in the possibility of such an exchange of souls comes clearly out in a story of a Basque hunter who affirmed that he had been killed by a bear, but that the bear had, after killing him, breathed its own soul into him, so that the bear's body was now dead, but he himself was a bear, being animated by the bear's ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... opinion that it is impossible to arrive at any clear or correct opinion concerning it without having, however slightly, investigated its racial descent and the language which, among Eastern dialects, has so long been as great a puzzle to the philologist as has Basque among the European languages. Respecting the origin of the Japanese we know practically nothing—at any rate nothing authentic. The native legends and histories afford us neither guide nor clue in the matter. These legends and histories ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... in 1833, and the infant Isabella was proclaimed queen, with her mother as regent. The liberals supported her, the absolutists gathered around Don Carlos, and for years there was a bitter struggle in Spain, the strength of the Carlists being in the Basque provinces and Spanish Navarre,—a land of mountaineers, loyal in nature and ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... for the man who could tell us! What is a Basque?—what is an Etruscan?—what is a Magyar?—above all, what is a Cagot? Miss Caroline, my dear, there are deep questions in all arts and sciences; and, without knowing it, you have lighted on one of the deepest and most interesting. The most learned man that breathes can ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... arrived in the St Lawrence in July and took up their headquarters at Tadoussac. Already they had captured several Basque fishing or trading vessels. At Tadoussac they learned that at Cap Tourmente, thirty miles below Quebec, there was a small farm from which the garrison of Quebec drew supplies; and, as a first effort ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... province is Burgos, the capital (pop. 30,167). Few parts of Spain are poorer; education makes little progress, and least of all in the thinly peopled rural districts, with their widely scattered hamlets. The peasantry have thus every inducement to migrate to the Basque Provinces, Catalonia and other relatively prosperous regions; and consequently the population does not increase, despite the excess of births ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... a rather remarkable resemblance to a mountain sheep, but to-night the likeness was further increased by a grizzled bunch of frizzled hair that stood out on either temple like embryo horns. Mrs. Taylor looked, as it were, "in the velvet." She wore a brown sateen basque secured at the throat by a brooch consisting of a lock of hair under glass. It was observed, also, that for the evening she had removed the string which she commonly wore around her two large and widely separated front teeth, and which were being drawn together ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... untidy and totally unconscious of her personal appearance. She told me herself that she was not even conscious then of her personal existence. She was a mere adjunct in the twilight life of her aunt, a Frenchwoman, and her uncle, the orange merchant, a Basque peasant, to whom her other uncle, the great man of the family, the priest of some parish in the hills near Tolosa, had sent her up at the age of thirteen or thereabouts for safe keeping. She is of peasant stock, you know. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... but the sun was bright and the sea thundered on the beach and the battered breakwaters. To the east and south are the Pyrenees—lower summits, it is true, but bold and fine in outline. The dominant peak, being the first of the chain, is Larhune (a Basque word, not French), where English blood was spilt when Clauzel held it for Napoleon against the English. Further to the south, and across the Bidassoa, in Spain, rises the sharp ridge of the Jaisquivel, beneath which lies Fuentarabia. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts

... reply. "They speak a language which seems to be about one-third Basque, mixed oddly with Greek. It merely proves another hypothesis of mine, namely, that the Atlantean influence reached eastward to the Pyrenees mountains and the Hellenic peninsula, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... was a man's business to consider this subject of Death continually, to wonder upon it, and, if he could, to extract its meaning. Of the men I had met so far in life, only the Scotch and certain of the Western French went on in this metaphysical manner: thus a Breton, a Basque, and a man in Ecclefechan (I hope I spell it right) and another in Jedburgh had already each of them sent me to my bed confused upon the matter of free will. So this Western innkeeper refused to leave ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... poem, the Chanson de Roland deserves to be named the Iliad of the Middle Ages. On August 15, 778, the rearguard of Charlemagne's army, returning from a successful expedition to the north of Spain, was surprised and destroyed by Basque mountaineers in the valley of Roncevaux. Among those who fell was Hrodland (Roland), Count of the march of Brittany. For Basques, the singers substituted a host of Saracens, who, after promise of peace, treacherously ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... excursions, just like a wandering charity-student of the old Tuna converting his tales into courses in picturesque geography. With hungry delight he recollected the abundant milk of Galicia, the red sausages of Extramadura, the Castilian bread, the Basque apples, the wines and ciders of all the districts he had traversed, with his luggage on his shoulder. Guards were changed every day,—some of them kind or indifferent, others ill-humored and cruel, who ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... consistency. In the last century in the houses of the rich there were couriers who preceded the carriages and were known as "Basques," who could run for a very long time without apparent fatigue. In France there is a common proverb, "Courir comme un Basque." Rabelais says: "Grand-Gousier depeche le Basque son laquais pour ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... some writers that Basque navigators discovered the American continent a century before Cabot or Columbus; but evidence in support of such claims is either wanting or unconvincing. "Ingenious and romantic theories," says ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... and white silk, with an over-skirt of soft, rich lace. This, after it was completed, was tried on at least half a dozen times, and the effect carefully studied before the long mirror. Anna, who cared much less for dress than her sister, decided upon a black flounced skirt and velvet basque. This was Mr. Everett's taste, and whatever ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... him, however, at first sight of the new arrivals. Ma Briskow resembled nothing so much as one of those hideous "crayon enlargements" he had seen in farmhouses—atrocities of an art long dead—for she was clad in an old-fashioned basque and skirt of some stiff, near-silk material, and her waist, which buttoned far down the front and terminated in deep points, served merely to roof over but not to conceal a peculiarity of figure which her farm dress had mercifully hidden. Gray discovered that Ma's body, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... big bunch of feathers fastened to a stick, advanced to the fire and made a few impressive gestures. She was garbed in the wide, gathered calico skirt, the velvet basque trimmed with silver buttons, and the high brown moccasins so dear to feminine Navajos. The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith

... earthenware figures used to be for sale for the pleasure of children. Although the Spanish race is a mixed one and various peoples have been in power from time to time, at one period the country was, with the exception of Basque, entirely Romanized. It is interesting to note the lingering influence of this mighty Roman nation and find in this century that some of the main features of the great Roman feast are retained in the ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... by the French to share in the advantages of these discoveries was in the year 1504. Some Basque and Breton fishermen at that time began to ply their calling on the Great Bank of Newfoundland, and along the adjacent shores. From them the Island of Cape Breton received its name. In 1506, Jean Denys, a man of Harfleur, drew a map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Two years afterward, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... groups of men sang old Spanish and Basque folk songs, after which Don Carlos's own orchestra, which had played in the great hall during dinner, took up a position in the centre of the patio and ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage

... went little Miss Liddy Ember with an almost passionate creative pride in the gown of her hand, so that she would murmur her patron an occasional warning: "Mis' Sykes, throw back your shoulders, you hev to, to bring out the real set o' the basque;" or, "Don't forget you want to give a little hitch to the back when you stand up, Mis' Sykes." And to one and another Liddy said proudly, "I declare if I didn't get that skirt with the butterflies just like a magazine cover." And there, too, was Ellen Ember, wearing a white book muslin and a rosy ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... the cream atop. Says the fox, "Here is the bowl; one shall have the cream, and the other all the rest: choose, friend, which you like." The bear told the fox to take the cream, and thus bruin had only the mud.—A Basque Tale. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... be based upon their names. The Parthians affect, in their names, the termination -ac or -ah, as, for instance, in Arsac-es, Sinnac-es, Parrhaces, Vesaces, Sana-trseces, Phraataces, etc.—a termination which characterizes the primitive Babylonian, the Basque, and most of the Turanian tongues. The termination -geses, found in such names as Volo-geses, Abda-geses, and the like, may be compared with the -ghiz of Tenghiz. The Turanian root annap, "God," is perhaps traceable ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... settin in its horizon, and its gorjus light pores in a golden meller flud through the winders, and makes the young lady twice as beautiful nor what she was before, which is onnecessary. She is magnificently dressed up in a Berage basque, with poplin trimmins, More Antique, Ball Morals and 3 ply carpeting. Also, considerable guaze. Her dress contains 16 flounders and her shoes is red morocker, with gold spangles onto them. Presently she jumps up with a wild snort, and pressin her hands to ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... the Basses-Pyrenees, found several of his compatriots of the Basque country amongst the Chasseurs de Vincennes who occupied the courtyard. Some had voted for him, and reminded him of the fact. They added, "Ah! We would again vote for the 'Red' list." One of them, quite a young man, took him aside, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... a Basque shallop, with mast and sail, an iron grapple, and a kettle, came boldly aboard us, one of them appareled with a waistcoat and breeches of black serge, made after our sea fashion, hose and shoes on his feet: all the rest (saving ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... mother. "Yes, we've got several. Miss Stanhope, do you know there's a sculpture in town? and what do you think? He wants to make a basque relief out o' one o' them photographs of my 'Lijah. But I don't know as ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley

... language. Roughly, four distinct languages are at present spoken in Spain: Castilian, the language of Madrid and the central uplands, the official language, spoken in the south in its Andalusian form; Gallego-Portuguese, spoken on the west coast; Basque, which does not even share the Latin descent of the others; and Catalan, a form of Provencal which, with its dialect, Valencian, is spoken on the upper Mediterranean coast and in the Balearic Isles. Of course, ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... attendant seemed to be a pet which she took delight in adorning, and truly, the little girl was not unconscious that her childish beauty was enhanced by richness of attire. A crimson satin tunic, like a basque, was fastened around her waist by a golden band, beneath which fell a blue silk skirt as far as the knees, while high upon the ankles were laced deer-skin buskins, profusely bedecked with shining beads and colored porcupine quills. Around her arms, above the elbows, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... delightfully, but set it aside. She considered favorably a black-and-white striped silk of odd gray effect, and, though she was sorely tempted to wear it, finally let it go. There was a maroon dress, with basque and overskirt over white silk; a rich cream-colored satin; and then this black sequined gown, which she finally chose. She tried on the cream-colored satin first, however, being in much doubt about it; but her penciled eyes ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... her beauteous and distressed damsel was to escape. So, before all the decencies of Hendrik had recovered from the shock of the Hoop, she threw them into a new and worse "conniption" by an even more daring innovation upon their good, easy notions of her; for the next thing she did was—a basque and flounces. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... and his brother Diogo were really natives of one of the Basque provinces, they might rightly be included among the foreign artists who played such an important part in Portugal towards the end of Dom Manoel's reign and the beginning of that of his son, Dom Joao III. Yet the earlier work of Joao ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... learned, all are almost known. They are to each other like the Tuscan, Lombard, and Sicilian dialects of Italia, or the Castilian, Portuguese, and Galician in Espana. Only the language of the Negrillos is very different from the rest, as, in Espana, is the Vizcayan [i.e., Basque]. There is not a different language for each of the islands, because some of them—as, for example, Manila, and even Panai, which is more than four hundred leguas smaller—contain several languages; and there are languages each of which prevails in several ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... make from three kinds of roots and the grain they use for making bread, called, as we have said in our first book, yucca, ages, and maize; they likewise use the fruit of the palm-trees. The Germans, Flemings and English, as well as the Spanish mountaineers in the Basque provinces and the Asturias, and the Austrians, Swabians, and Swiss in the Alps make beer from barley, wheat, and fruits in the same manner. The Spaniards report that at Comogra they drank white and red ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... England and France had begun early. As Michelet says: "The population of the North saw appear among them mercenary soldiers, the routiers, for the most part in the service of England. Some came from Brabant, some from Aquitaine; the Basque Marcader was one of the principal lieutenants of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. The mountaineers of the South, who to-day descend into France and Spain to gain a little money by huxtering, did so in the Middle Ages, but then, their sole ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... that it is neither a Basque word, nor a Saxon. Whether it is a mere expansion of ydwr, the water, in Welch, I cannot pretend to say, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various



Words linked to "Basque" :   tongue, France, French Republic, Spain, Basque Homeland and Freedom, Kingdom of Spain, Espana, European, Basque Fatherland and Liberty



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com