Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Coil   Listen
noun
Coil  n.  A noise, tumult, bustle, or confusion. (Obs.)






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 |





"Coil" Quotes from Famous Books



... or victory Was his device, "and there was no mistake," Except his last; and then he did but die, A blunder which the wisest men will make. Aloft, where mighty floods the mountains break, To stand, the target of the thousand eyes, And down into the coil and water-quake, To leap, like Maia's offspring, from the skies— For this all vulgar flights he ventured ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... make them out, but his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the sight. And as he watched he saw the hair swell like waves riding over the water, saw it drop and flutter, coil and uncoil of its ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... formed a protecting cordon about his shops, had been cut, and that by an experienced hand, probably by someone wearing rubber gloves, who must have come prepared for that very purpose. During the night the current was supplied to the wires from a storage battery, through an intensifying coil, so that the charge was only a little less deadly than when coming direct from ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... he cried. "Here, one of you, come and loosen this knot and coil the ropes up carefully.—But, I say, Mr Denham, how did ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... platinum wire, the electric arc between two carbons, an electric machine spark, an induction coil spark, and a vacuum tube glow. Also a large nail was magnetized by being wrapped in the current, and two helices were suspended and seen to direct and attract ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various

... at a time, and me first." Carson took the part coil of rope from Smoke's hand. "You'll have to cast off. I'll take the rope and the pick. Gimme your hand so I can slip ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... dinghy wouldn't do, father; it would be too small. We should have to go in the gig, with four men to row. I should like to take the big coil of Manilla cable aboard, with one end loose and handy, and a good rope ready. Then I should get astern and make the end fast to one of the fans of the screw, and give the cable a hitch round as well so as to give a good hold with the loop before we ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... bank; then fixing his eyes upon his partner he resigned himself to the drag of the whirlpool, staking his life on a single throw of the rope. Once the plaited rawhide was wetted it would twist and bind in the honda and before Creede could beat it straight and coil it his partner would be far out in the centre of the vortex. Planting his feet firmly on the rock the big cowboy lashed the kinks out of his reata and coiled it carefully; then as the first broad swirl seized its plaything and swung him slowly around Creede let ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... eyes, however, gazing out of its great hollow orbits; another consists of a central nucleus, with arms of stars radiating forth in all directions, like a star-fish, or like the scattering fire-sparks of some pyrotechnic wheel revolving; a third resembles a great wisp of straw, or twist or coil of ropes; a fourth, a cork-screw, or other spiral, seen on end; a fifth, a crab; a sixth, a dumb-bell—many of them scroll or scrolls of some thin texture seen edgewise; and so on. It is even a suggestion of the author's, that some of the spiral and armed wheels may be revolving ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... covert ways, I knew them all, and I so plied their art that to the earth's end the sound went forth. When I saw me arrived at that part of my age where every one ought to strike the sails and to coil up the ropes, what erst was pleasing to me then gave me pain, and I yielded me repentant and confessed. Alas me wretched! and it would have availed. The Prince of the new Pharisees having war near the Lateran,[2]—and not with Saracens nor with Jews, for every ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri

... night after the murder one of the middle watch saw a man come on deck and hastily fling something overboard. At least, that was the intention, apparently, but as a fact, either through agitation or a bad aim, the packet did not go overboard, but landed on a coil of rope on the lower deck forward. It proved to be a small canvas bag containing seven of these bits of rock, or, at any rate, pieces like them. Now, the man on the watch is not inclined to swear to it, but he believes the thrower was Majendie. Majendie ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... the glossy, black tresses. "I'll try my hand," said she. "The secret is plenty of pins; you don't use enough of them. Pins, I expect, are scarce in the pa." She had fastened up one long coil, and was holding another in place with her white fingers, when a gruff voice ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... off this mortal coil, I will not call on you, friend Hoil; And I think that I shall do, My good Tompkins, without you. But I pray you, charming Kate, You will come, but not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... itself, too; they were born on it, or within the sound of its surges; they lived on it, they fought on it, and it was their wish through life to die on it, as if only on its boundless expanse their free spirits could be emancipated from this mortal coil. This same spirit still exists and animates the breasts of the officers and men of our navy, of our vast mercantile marine; and, though mentioned last, not certainly in a less degree of the owners of the superb yacht fleets which grace the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... shall next make the further complaint that, even when making every effort to do the civil, the result is apt to kill with kindness; and—as King CHARLES THE FIRST, when they were shuffling off his mortal coil, politely apologised for the unconscionable long time that his head took to decapitate—so I, too, must draw attention to the fact that the duration of formal ceremonious visits, is far too protracted and long ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... ends. Never again shall the far-shining mountains allure us, No more shall the icy mad torrents appall. Fold up the sling ropes, coil down the cinches, Cache the saddles, and put the brown bridles away. Not one of the roses of Navajo silver, Not even a spur shall we save from the rust. Put away the worn tent-cloth, let the red people have it; We are done with all shelter, we are done ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... mysterious manner, had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward extremity of the deck certain blue figures lounging about seemed to be quite a long way off, indeed in another world. Here and there on the deck were circles of yellow or white rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as Audrey could coil her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the deck-house and they gazed within. The sight of the interior drew out of the ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation: "What a darling!" And at the words she saw that Mr. Gilman, ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... care of herself in the water, no one went overboard to her rescue. Harriet flung out a coil of rope. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge

... cried Tom. But the doughty sailor did not fear the weapon. Catching up a coil of rope, he cast it at the lieutenant. It struck him in the chest, and he staggered back, ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... source and essence, behind the veil. Crudely, unmanageable as yet, he felt it, rushing loose behind appearances. There was this amazing impact of a twisting, swinging force that stormed down as though it would bend and coil the very ribs of the old stubborn hills. It sought to warm them with the stress of its own irresistible life-stream, to beat them into shape, and make pliable their obstinate resistance. Through all things the impulse poured and spread, ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... of seeing the luxury and extravagance which must tempt one to feel hard and bitter, I should fear. We go on quietly and happily. You know our school is large. Thank God, we are all well, save dear old Fisher, who met with a sad boating accident last week. A coil of the boat raft caught his ankle as the strain was suddenly tightened by a rather heavy sea, and literally tore the front part of his foot completely off, besides dislocating and fracturing the ankle-bone. He bears the pain well, and he is doing very well; but there may ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... door of the rear room, which did not boast a lock, he saw a lamp burning dimly upon a shelf in a corner; upon the bed opposite a woman and a man, both sleeping, and under the one window a coil of rope ladder, as if ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... his watch—an immense affair that would have made a load for a small child. He pried open its gigantic case and showed the dazzling array of brass wheels and the glittering coil of steel. It could not but be attractive to a savage mind, and the Indian's eyes sparkled as ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... gulfs, Like fiends that hemm'd him round— I would not lead a diver's life For every pearl that's found. And I've heard how the sea-snake, huge and dark, In the arctic flood doth roll; He hath coil'd his tail, like a cable strong, All round and round the pole: And they say, when he stirs in the sea below, The ice-rocks split asunder— The mountains huge of the ribbed ice— With a deafening crack like thunder. There's many an isle man wots not of, Where the air is heavy with groans; ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... my face in scales, as if I had had the scrofula. Another source of great discomfort is to be found in the long riding-habit. It is requisite to be very warmly clad; and the heavy skirts, often dripping with rain, coil themselves round the feet of the wearer in such a manner, as to render her exceedingly awkward either in mounting or dismounting. The worst hardship of all, however, is the being obliged to halt to rest the horses in a meadow ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... had been filled, they were hoisted by hand-power on to a derrick which had been fixed to the mizen mast, swung inboard and then shovelled into a melting tank alongside the engine-room. The melter was a small tank through which ran a coil of steam pipes. The ice came up in such quantity that it was not melted in time to keep up with the demand, so a large heap ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... which is being erected to take the place of the one burned. That the magnesia should have endured the ordeal successfully was not unexpected, for we know that it is used by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company as a lining to the shells of its coil boilers, and it is there subjected to a very intense heat resulting from the forced draught used in this type of boiler. Instances could be multiplied indefinitely, but I refrain from occupying further time with them, citing, however, one recent ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various

... sat down upon a coil of rope, and went to sleep. During his sleep, he had a vision. He seemed to hear the sound of a clanging trumpet, and the sky became blood red, and he knew that the day of judgment had come. Whilst he was fervently praying to God, he saw an enormous monster ...
— Thais • Anatole France

... aboard, I hurried down one ladder after the other, till I reached the heavy darkness of the lowermost hold. Having nothing to do but sleep, I stumbled over some oblong boxes, climbed onto one, and composed myself for the night, using a coil ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... working day and night in their enthusiasm. The apparatus was then brought to New York and gentlemen of the city were invited to the University to see it work before it left for Washington. The visitors were requested to write dispatches, and the words were sent round a three-mile coil of wire and read at the other end of the room by one who had no prior knowledge ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... same moment Quipsome Hal sprang forward, exclaiming, "How now, brother and namesake? Wherefore this coil? Hath cloth of gold wearied yet of cloth of frieze? Is she willing to own her right to this?" as he held out ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on his wrinkled face as he could assume, he walked forward to demand a boat of Captain Kendall. As he was passing in the waist, a coil of signal line dropped down from the gaff above, square upon the top of his hat, forcing it far down upon his head. Mr. Hamblin immediately threw himself into an undignified passion. When he had with some difficulty extricated his head from the linings of his hat, he looked ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... heart, Hamilton, in the end of September, returned to Scotland. Foreseeing the King's ruin, he had resolved to withdraw altogether from the coil of affairs, and retire to some place on the Continent. In vain did his brother Lanark fight against this resolution; and not till he had received several affectionate letters from the King did he consent to remain in Britain on some last chance of being ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... and mighty wrong,' said Magsie. 'Come along this minute, Master Jasper, and bring wi' ye a coil o' rope and as many other strong lads as ye can find in the school. Be quick, for it is Miss Hollyhock, no less, that ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade

... Clear blue, intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large, protrusive, rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme mobility, which he shuttles about—eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all—in a very singular manner when speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very small, and dressed a la D'Orsay rather than well—this is Pickwick. For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to guess pretty well what he is and what ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... be forgotten the taste of the morning river air; never to be forgotten the grain of the stone on which his elbows leaned, or the tawny coil of the waters below him; never to be forgotten the purple dome and dark cross of Paul's, with its edge of gold on one side and the rosy east away and ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... before the glass, into which he asked of her mother's reflected face, while she knotted a fallen coil of hair into its ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... that the fair and abundant hair, at least, had not been made use of to take down the severe primness of her outward style. It did take it down in spite of all, the moment the gray straw was removed. The great round coil behind was all real and solid, though it was wound about with no thought save of security, and fastened with a buffalo-horn comb. Hair was a matter of course; the thing was, to keep it out of the way; that was what the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... we are changed, not thou art fleet: The man thy presence feels again Not in the blood, but in the brain, Spirit, that lov'st the upper air, Serene and vaporless and rare, Such as on mountain-heights we find And wide-viewed uplands of the mind, Or such as scorns to coil and sing Round any but the eagle's wing Of souls that with long upward beat Have won an undisturbed retreat, Where, poised like winged victories, They mirror in unflinching eyes The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,— Man always with his Now at strife, Pained ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... was the biggest snake I had ever seen. He was sunning himself, after the cold night, and he must have been asleep when Antonia screamed. When I turned, he was lying in long loose waves, like a letter 'W.' He twitched and began to coil slowly. He was not merely a big snake, I thought—he was a circus monstrosity. His abominable muscularity, his loathsome, fluid motion, somehow made me sick. He was as thick as my leg, and looked as if millstones couldn't crush the disgusting vitality out of him. He lifted his hideous ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... accidents are most likely to occur. These stations are each provided with a ladder of sufficient length to reach from the pier to the water at low tide, with hooks at one end, by means of which it is attached firmly to the pier; a boat hook fastened to a long pole; a life preserver or float, and a coil of rope. These are merely deposited in a conspicuous place. In case of accident, any one may use them for the purpose of rescuing a person in danger of drowning, but at other times it is punishable by law to interfere with them, or to remove them. The station ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... words can utter. I was carried with my mother on board the ship. The sails were unfurled, while we were grouped on the quarter-deck. Most of the family went into the cabin; but my father sat on a coil of ropes, and I stood between his knees, encircled by his arm, and looking up in his face, which was occasionally convulsed with marks of strong but suppressed feeling. The vessel bounded over the waves of the German Ocean. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... prints their "interviews" at equal length. We have an impartial acquaintance with the tastes and views of cardinals and comic singers; and the future of the papacy is given almost as much space as Little Tich's talent for water-colour, and his fondness for the 'cello and his baby. Moreover, that coil of cable which makes the whole world kin has burdened us with the celebrities of the universe. When to these are added the celebrities of the past, of every period, country, and variety, the brain reels. ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... man had not kept constantly pouring water upon it. It was needful to be very cautious in managing the line, for the duty is attended with great danger. If any hitch should take place, the line is apt to catch the boat and drag it down bodily under the waves. Sometimes a coil of it gets round a leg or an arm of the man who attends to it, in which case his destruction is almost certain. Many a poor fellow has lost his ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne

... maddening memories of the past. It were better, doubtless, that I never see her more, for in my hatred I might kill her. But mark you, Arthur, I will find my child; she is now the only tie that binds me to humanity; the only link that chains me to this mortal coil which men call life. I must have my darling child. The day after to-morrow I will return here to know where she is secreted; if that be divulged to me, I swear by all that men hold as sacred, whether in heaven or earth, to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... complexity; complexness &c adj.; complexus^; complication, implication; intricacy, intrication^; perplexity; network, labyrinth; wilderness, jungle; involution, raveling, entanglement; coil &c (convolution) 248; sleave^, tangled skein, knot, Gordian knot, wheels within wheels; kink, gnarl, knarl^; webwork^. [complexity if a task or action] difficulty &c 704. V. complexify^, complicate. Adj. gnarled, knarled^. complex, complexed; intricate, complicated, perplexed, involved, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... vessel's side. It was gone again in an instant, but, as it disappeared, both lads sprang from the side and with a few strokes reached the spot where they had seen the face disappear; then they dived under water and soon grasped her. As soon as they came to the surface a sailor, who had seized a coil of rope, flung it to them, and, grasping it, they were quickly by the ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... her iron-gray hair from its pins and patted the narrow row of frizzes into place; the flat side bands, the concise coil of hair on top were as severely disdainful of untoward circumstance or passing fashion as they had been any morning these forty years ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... house. The poor animal would scream, and exhibit every symptom of extreme terror, but was not kept long in suspense; for the snake, after eyeing his victim keenly, would spring on it with the rapidity of thought, coil three turns round the body, and in an instant every bone in the goat's skin was broken. The next process was, to stretch the carcass to as great a length as he could before uncoiling himself; then to lick it all over; and he commenced ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... in the midst of the circle. The file and coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The beach-comber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... us before had told us we could get some meat (carne) from them. These men were finely mounted, wore long leggins made of hide, dressed with the hair on, which reached to their hips, stiff hats with a broad rim, and great spurs at their heels. Each had a coil of braided rawhide rope on the pommel of the saddle, and all these arrangements together made a ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... have died full of years; but of my relative the local paper remarked in a touching obituary notice that he "was cut off prematurely in the midst of his mature prime." When I was young, Speyside men mostly shuffled off this mortal coil by being upset from their gigs when driving home recklessly from market with "the maut abune the meal;" but the railways have done away in great measure with this cause of death. Nowadays the centenarians for the most part fall ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... died of dysentery and fever before quitting the bay, and the surgeon had fourteen others in his list, unable to do any duty. At his well-judged suggestion, I ordered the cables, which the small size of the ship had made it necessary to coil between decks, to be put into the holds, our present light state permitting this to be done on clearing away the empty casks; by this arrangement more room was made for the messing and sleeping places; and almost every morning they were washed with boiling water, aired with stoves, and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... sat listening in silence. Then Copley Banks glanced at the steward, and the man took a coil of rope from ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... tells. Wychecombe, too, was aware that these particular halyards were new, for he had assisted in reeving them himself, only the week before. It was owing to this circumstance that they were long enough to reach him; a large allowance for wear and tear having been made in cutting them from the coil. As it was, the ends dropped some twenty feet below the ledge ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... present; but at a distance, her eye demurely devoured him; was he near her, she wooed him with such a god-like mixture of fire, of tenderness, of flattery, of tact; she did so serpentinely approach and coil round the soldier and his mental cavity, that all the males in creation should have been permitted to defile past (like the beasts going into the ark), and view this sweet picture a moment, and infer how women would be wooed, and then go and do ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... her knees in prayer, an angel came,[132] and bade her rise. "Eve, arise from thy penance," he commanded. "Behold, thy husband hath left his mortal coil. Arise, and see his spirit go up to his Creator, to appear before Him." And, lo, she beheld a chariot of light, drawn by four shining eagles, and preceded by angels. In this chariot lay the soul ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... after the Master heard that little bleating cry which told of new life in the world, that Tara, with infinite care and precaution, lowered her great bulk upon the bed in a coil—she had been standing—the centre of which was occupied by four glossy Irish Wolfhound puppies, who had arrived respectively at ten, eleven, twelve, and half-past twelve that night. The four, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... which assail the strongest man under such circumstances, Paul gave way to his grief as he waved his hand to his old friend, and bade farewell to France, watching the steeples of Bordeaux as they fled out of sight. He seated himself on a coil of rope. Night overtook him still lost in thought. With the semi-darkness of the dying day came doubts; he cast an anxious eye into the future. Sounding it, and finding there uncertainty and danger, he asked his soul if courage would fail him. A vague dread seized his mind as he thought ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... portions of the line; (4) the apparatus are independent of each other, and consequently there may be a disturbance in one or several of them without the others suffering therefrom; (5) either a strong or weak luminous intensity may be produced, since, that depends only upon the size of the coil employed; (6) there is no style of lamp that may not be used, since each lamp is mounted upon a special circuit; (7) any number of lamps may be lighted or extinguished without the others being influenced thereby; (8) when a fire ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... recognized in Learning the only guide for such as me. I may say that I married her for the furtherance of my fortunes, and have come to love her for her own sake. Many and many the 'tween-watch have I passed in a coil of rope in the tops, a volume of the classics in my hand. And 'my happiest days, when not at sea, have been spent in my brother William's little library. He hath a modest estate near Fredericksburg, in Virginia, and none holds higher than he the worth of an education. Ah, Richard," he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... a notion I could put my finger upon her now, if I choosed. Captain, you haven't got a coil of two-inch which you could lend me—I ain't got a topsail brace to reeve and mine are very queer just now. I reckon they've been turned end for end so often, that ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... showed against the pale ground. And he found her there, erect under the stars, smiling and healthy, a picture of all that is good. The milky whiteness of her skin was accentuated by her beautiful black hair, caught up in a huge coil, and her big black eyes, which beamed with all the gentleness of spouse and mother. Her straight brow, her nose, her mouth, her chin so boldly, purely rounded, her cheeks which glowed like savory fruit, her delightful little ears—the whole of her face, full ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... don't know. If it had come to that she would have been most likely fished out, what with her natural want of luck and the good many people on the quay and on board. And just where the Ferndale was moored there hung on a wall (I know the berth) a coil of line, a pole, and a life-buoy kept there on purpose to save people who tumble into the dock. It's not so easy to get away from life's betrayals as she thought. However it did not come to that. He followed her with his quick gliding walk. Mr. Smith! ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... passengers, abandoned of its friend in the velvet cap, a motionless and apparently objectless coach. How it was to be dislodged and conveyed down the "vast abrupt" became matter of conjecture to the four, when presently some men came to the spot with a large coil of cable-cord, which they proceeded to pass through the two hindmost side-windows of the diligence, threading it like a bead on a string; and then they gradually lowered the lumbering coach down the side of the descent, amid the evvivas of the vagabond ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... waited to hear no more, but hurried to the structure indicated— a building all but ready to fall down. In a harness closet they found a few old straps and a coil of fence wire. ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield

... loosely fixed to the shaft, but securely fastened to the end of a slender line ten fathoms long, generally made of walrus hide. The line is fastened at its other end to the boat, in the forepart of which it lies in a carefully arranged coil. There are from five to ten such harpoon lines in every hunting boat. When the hunters see a herd of walrus, either on a piece of drift-ice or in the water, they endeavour silently and against the wind ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... SHERIFF found that neither law nor guile could overcome Robin Hood, he was much perplexed, and said to himself, "Fool that I am! Had I not told our King of Robin Hood, I would not have gotten myself into such a coil; but now I must either take him captive or have wrath visited upon my head from his most gracious Majesty. I have tried law, and I have tried guile, and I have failed in both; so I will try what may be done ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... want to). I understand the questions you are worrying over—moral ones, aren't they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside. They are nothing to you now, ha-ha! You'll say you are still a man and a citizen. If so you ought not to have got into this coil. It's no use taking up a job you are not fit for. Well, you'd better shoot yourself, or ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... it comes from the measuring reel, a coil of thread. Burns, 584. See Skeat. Cu. hankle, to entangle, ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom

... themselves in the soil, and form new stems, which in turn, when sufficiently grown, are cut away and replaced by a subsequent growth. Such is its tenacity of life, that when the Singhalese wish to grow the rasa-kindu, they twist several yards of the stem into a coil of six or eight inches in diameter, and simply hang it on the branch of a tree, where it speedily puts forth its large heart-shaped leaves, and sends down its rootlets ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... procession for the Bad Lands that set out from the cross-line fence a few minutes later, the two free rangers starting under escort to repair the damage done to a despised fence-man's barrier. One of them carried a wire-stretcher, the chain of it wound round his saddle-horn, the other a coil of barbed wire and such tools as were required. After they had proceeded a little way, ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... whole, I believe, a pleasant one and the company in the cabin congenial. One night at the dinner-table the conversation chanced upon the subject of electro-magnetism, and Dr. Jackson described some of the more recent discoveries of European scientists—the length of wire in the coil of a magnet, the fact that electricity passed instantaneously through any known length of wire, and that its presence could be observed at any part of the line by breaking the circuit. Morse was, naturally, much interested and it ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... their habitation; for their cabin half burrowed in the mountain, and half clung, like a swallow's nest, to the side of the deep declivity that terminated the northern limit of the summit. Had it not been for the windlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a few heaps of stone and gravel, which were the only indications of human labor in that stony field, there was nothing to interrupt its monotonous dead level. And, when they descended a dozen well-worn steps to the door of their cabin, they left the summit, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... alternation is such, that no two adjacent leaves stand directly over or in front one of the other, but a little to one side or a little higher up. Now, in the alternate arrangement the successive leaves of each spiral cycle alternate one with another till the coil is completed. For the sake of clearness this may be illustrated thus:—Suppose the spiral cycle to comprise five leaves, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then 2 would intervene between 1 and 3, and so on, while the sixth leaf would be the ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... lilac. She was slender and graceful, with that air at once exquisite and unassuming that he had seen in the Englishwoman of his dreams. Though he could get no more than a side glimpse of her face, he divined that it was pure and that it must be thrown into relief by the heavy coil of coppery-brown hair. But what he noticed in her first was that which he thought of concerning other women last—a something holy and withdrawn, a quality of devotion without which he had no conception ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... plains will greet the horrific vision before this time next year; and many a venal wretch coming to possess our land, will occupy till the day of final doom a tract of six feet by two in some desolate and unfrequented swamp. The toad will croak his requiem, and the viper will coil beneath the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... elements. There is no such nuisance as having to stay and put the lights out. Besides this, he was quite uncertain in what temper Royston would be found; and apprehended some desperate outbreak from the latter, which would bring things, already sufficiently complicated, into a more perilous coil. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... officio. Nevertheless, Scott Brenton, looking at him, was fully conscious that he would become yet more beautiful, once he had been bleached a little, to say nothing of having had some of the puckers straightened out. And, besides, he was so curiously invertebrate, had such a tendency to coil himself to the likeness of a shrimp. In time, beyond a doubt, he would come out all right. For the present moment, though, he was a trifle problematic ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... they wouldn't surrender, more power to them. A Bavarian officer, in fact, concluded the eventful career of Sapper O'Toole, the company rum-swallowing champion. True he brained that officer with a coil of barbed wire on the end of a pick helve, even as the bullet entered his heart; but he was a great loss to us. And it was just as we surged over their bodies that ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... moved. "Good luck—take care of yourself!" he cried for the last time, as they turned the pier-head; and as long as he could see he waved his cap. Then he went right forward and sat on a coil ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... cripple, or deformed, just as she loved him in spite of his madness. But he knew well enough how women, even the most wretched, value their hair when it is beautiful, what care they bestow upon it and what consolation they derive from the rich, silken coil denied to fairer women than themselves. There is something in the thought of cutting off the heavy tress and selling it which appeals to the pity of most people, and which, to women themselves, is full ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... so many a glorious sight, To leave so many lands unvisited, To leave so many books unread, Unrealized so many visions bright;— Oh! wretched yet inevitable spite Of our short span, and we must yield our breath, And wrap us in the unfeeling coil of death, So much remaining of unproved delight, But hush, my soul, and vain regrets be still'd; Find rest in Him Who is the complement Of whatsoe'er transcends our mortal doom, Of broken hope and frustrated intent; In the clear vision and aspect of Whom All wishes ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... ravines and dells along, Wrapping thy cliffs in purple glow, And reddening the dark lakes below; Nor faster speeds it, nor so far, 575 As o'er thy heaths the voice of war. The signal roused to martial coil, The sullen margin of Loch Voil, Waked still Loch Doine, and to the source Alarmed, Balvaig, thy swampy course; 580 Thence southward turned its rapid road Adown Strath-Gartney's valley broad, Till rose in arms each ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... Edgar fully believed, that a majority of the men on board would be sufficiently swayed by motives of humanity to insist upon bringing us ashore our clothing, and at least a few of the more obvious necessities of life, such as a spare sail, a coil or two of line, a few nails, a hammer, a saw, a trifle of crockery, some cooking utensils, and, above all, our fowling-pieces and some ammunition. Miss Merrivale, however, was positive that they would not; and as the time dragged slowly by without any sign of the reappearance of ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... by what ungracious means she had brought him to know that he loved her better than his own will, that his wish for her happiness was stronger than his pride; it was enough that he was now somehow brought to give proof of it. Beaton could not be aware of all that dark coil of circumstance through which Dryfoos's present action evolved itself; the worst of this was buried in the secret of the old man's heart, a worm of perpetual torment. What was apparent to another was that he was broken by the sorrow that had fallen upon ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... The shell is broken, and the contents extracted whole. Any number of these are strung at pleasure upon the long elastic fibre that traverses the branches of the cocoanut tree. Some of these tapers are eight or ten feet in length; but being perfectly flexible, one end is held in a coil, while the other is lighted. The nut burns with a fitful bluish flame, and the oil that it contains is exhausted in about ten minutes. As one burns down, the next becomes ignited, and the ashes of the former are knocked into a cocoanut shell kept ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... conditions. Fuels. Reversibility of Dynamo. Electric arc. Mechanism to maintain the arc. Resistance coil. Parallel carbons for making arc. Series current. Incandescent system. Multiple circuit. Subdivision of electric light. The filament. The glass bulb. Metallic filaments. Vapor lamps. Directions for ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... the females wore a sort of red jacket and the conical Malay hat; but those are used only on "state occasions." The single garment was secured at the waist by being drawn into a belt of rattans, colored black. Above this was worn a coil of many rings of large brass wire; and all of them seemed to be provided with this appendage. There was some variety in the use of this ornament; for some wore it tightly wound around the body, while others had ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... pair—which is as true as though the Holy Father at Rome had said it—and as long as they were civil, Shaitan would rest; but if they durst molest you, there was no saying where he would be, if once you had to let him out! To think of the virtue of that ugly face and bit of a coil of wire!' ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... is the matter? Am I so alarming that a simple question from me is enough to drive all the blood out of your cheeks? Really and truly, if I had not had the thing from Plotina I should have left it in the Phoenician's hands and not have made all this coil ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die,—to sleep,— To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,[10] Must give us pause:[11] There's the respect[12] That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,[13] The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,[14] The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare

... dense smoke arising from two braziers burning mysterious compounds. The juggler, naked except for his loin-cloth, appeared and commenced salaaming profoundly, continuing his exaggerated salaams for some little while. Eventually he produced a long coil of rope. To Colonel Barnard's inexpressible surprise, the rope began paying away, as sailors would say, out of the juggler's hand of its own accord, and went straight up into the air. Colonel Barnard ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... the coil so that it fell at my feet, and I did as directed, as otherwise we would have been crushed under the vessel. As it drew taut, the boat swung in gently against the side of the Sea Gull. Above us Henley hung, leaning far enough out so he ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised his hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebrae of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from a ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... gentle, sallow face and a faded black cotton gown, opened the door. Her hair hung in depressed but genteel ringlets on each side of her countenance; at the back it formed a scant coil upheld by a comb. Tom thought he observed a gleam of hope in her eye when she saw them. She spoke with ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... out, Sim and Dick ran past, the one with a plank, the other with a coil of rope, sent by Abel to the rescue. Sir Thomas followed them at ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... blowing strong; the tide running strong—everything strong but the qualifications of the commanding officer; in which case, it is well that preparations for the landing begin early. There should be a coil of rope made ready at either end of the boat, and also a light line with a grapnel attached to It. What is a grapnel? How strange that question sounds to us now, mighty mariners that we have become! But of ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... days of the time fixed for the nuptials, the beautiful virgin while at play with companions of her own sex, her time having come, impelled by fate, trod upon a serpent which she did not perceive as it lay in coil. And the reptile, urged to execute the will of Fate, violently darted its envenomed fangs into the body of the heedless maiden. And stung by that serpent, she instantly dropped senseless on the ground, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... mine; and he set his heel on it with a vehemence that made me anxious to be off. I could not resist one look back as I left the garden, if only to make sure that I had not been dreaming. No, they were there still, and he was lifting the coil of her hair, which I suppose had come down when the cap was pulled off, and it took the full stretch of his arm to do so, before it fell heavily ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like a lower animal; to creep out of sight and coil herself away and die; had become this woman's instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child who was dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all ministration but such as her ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... flames, Mr. Sothern began by burning his arm, and passing it through the gas-jet very slowly, twice stopping the motion and holding it still in the flames. He then picked up a poker with a sort of hook on the end, and proceeded to fish a small coil of wire from the grate. The wire came out fairly white with the heat. Mr. Sothern took the coil in his hands and cooly proceeded to wrap it round his left leg to the knee. Having done so, he stood on the ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... or osiers were not pliant enough to work well in fastening his coils of grass cables together. He tried several things and at last succeeded best when he used the long thread-like fibre of the century-like plant. He had, however, to make a stout framework of rods. He would first coil his grass rope into this frame and then sew it together with twine or thread ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison

... heaven, as in deep and sonorous accents, he implored forgiveness for the sufferer, for the sins committed during her mortal coil. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... firm hold of the Snake by the back of the neck, and that it was trying to fly upwards with its enemy. In vain the dreadful creature tried to bite the gallant bird; in vain it hissed and stuck out its wicked little spiky tongue; in vain it tried to coil itself round the bird's body; the Kookooburra was too strong and too clever to lose its hold, or to let the Snake get power ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... But I love him the better for it.... True, he's past loving.... And now we must tell our Queen. What a coil at the day's end! She'll grieve for him. Not as I shall; Ferdinand, but as youth for youth. They were much of the same age. Playmate for playmate. See, he wears her colours. That is the knot she gave him last—last.... Oh God! When ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... riding hat, the hair should be dressed low down, as it will be worn when riding, in order to obtain a comfortable fit; for the hat must fit the head and not be perched on the top of it, or it will not "remain" if the horse goes out of a walk. The old arrangement of dressing the hair in a coil of plaits at the nape of the neck has quite gone out, but it was a far neater one for riding than the "tea-pot handle" and other curious knobs and buns of the present time. The pulled-out style, in bad imitation ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... in the air like creeper sprays, free and unconfined, and not like her feet, chained down, but absolutely bare of any ornament at all. And on her hair was not a star, but a great yellow moonstone, that shone with a dull glimmer like a rival moon of her own, and over her left shoulder a long coil of dark hair came out from behind her head and hung down like a serpent, ending in a soft wisp like a yak's tail that was tied round with yellow silk. And the only thing that she retained of what ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain

... admirers as uniting the wisdom of the serpent with the guilelessness of the dove. Who better than he then, in this double capacity, to coil himself around the rebellion, and to carry ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... During this period his domestic lot was not a happy one. He lost his wife, quarreled with his elder sons, and involved himself in a series of lawsuits.[181] Litigation seems to have been an inveterate vice of his maturity, and he bequeathed to his descendants a coil of legal troubles. Having married one of his daughters, Anna, to Count Ercole Trotti, he had the misery of hearing in 1596 that she had fallen an innocent victim to her husband's jealousy, and that his third son, Girolamo connived ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... interrupt me not yet! let it be! I but say what is due to yourself—due to me, And must say it. He rushed incoherently on, Describing how, lately, the truth he had known, To explain how, and whence, he had wrong'd her before, All the complicate coil wound about him of yore, All the hopes that had flown with the faith that was fled, "And then, O Lucile, what was left me," he said, "When my life was defrauded of you, but to take That life, as 'twas left, and endeavor ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... he was dozing; but for all that it was unbearable—this feeling of being bound by coil after coil of rope until he could not stir a finger. A terrifying numbness began to creep over him—as if his body had died. The thought came to him like a shock that he had an active, commanding intelligence, ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... was pretty in a daringly demure fashion, like a wicked little Puritan, or a poverty-stricken Cleo de Merode, with her smooth brown hair parted in the middle, drawn severely down over her ears, framing the lovely oval of her face and ending in a simple coil at the neck. Some serpent's wisdom had told Sophy to eschew puffs. But I think her prettiness could ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... turtle's kiss, And gentler than a little miss; A jewel for a lady's ear, And Mr. Walpole's pretty dear. He laughs and cries with mirth or spleen; He does not speak, but thinks, 'tis plain. One knows his little Guai's as well As if he'd little words to tell. Coil'd in a heap, a plumy wreathe, He sleeps, you hardly hear him breathe. Then he's so nice, who ever saw A drop that sullied his sofa? His bended leg!-what's this but sense?- Points out his little exigence. He looks and points, and whisks about, And says, pray, dear Sir, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... the office, to be used in tying loads of lumber on the delivery wagons, and Mr. Bobbsey caught up a coil and ran toward the place where Tommy was struggling ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope

... what time it was when Don Antonino gently stirred them with his big foot. They sprang up wide awake and saw in the starlight that he had a pair of oars and a coil of rope ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... the skipper from down below, And he looks aloft and he looks alow. And he looks alow and he looks aloft, And it's, "Coil up your ropes, there, fore and aft." With a big Bow-wow! Tow-row-row! Fal de rai de, ri do ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... heard the sound of oars used with great caution. A boat was crossing the river now and coming towards them. Captain Cable went forward and took a coil of rope. He clambered laboriously to the rail and stood there, watching the shadowy shape of the boat, which was now within hail. It was swinging round on the tide with perfect calculation ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... singular and tenacious a sort that even a Maury or a Talleyrand, could still be the symbol for it?—Enough, and Clergy has strength, the Clergy has craft and indignation. It is a most fatal business this of the Clergy. A weltering hydra-coil, which the National Assembly has stirred up about its ears; hissing, stinging; which cannot be appeased, alive; which cannot be trampled dead! Fatal, from first to last! Scarcely after fifteen months' debating, can a Civil Constitution of the Clergy be so much as got to paper; ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... endeavour to make off if one meets them, but during the intense heats of the latter part of July and August they never think of escaping, but at any sight or sound which they may consider inimical, they instantly coil themselves for a spring. The most intolerable proceeding on their part, however, that he described, was their getting up into the trees, and either coiling themselves in or depending from the branches. There is something too revolting ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... vesti. cloud : nubo. clover : trifolio. club : klubo, (cards) trefo. clue : postesigno. coal : karbo. coast : marbordo. coat : vesto; "-tail", basko. cockle : kardio. cocoa : kakao; "-nut", kokoso. cod : gado, moruo. coffee : kafo. coffin : cxerko. coil : rulajxo, volvajxo. coin : monero. coke : koakso. colander : kribrilo, cold : malvarm'a, -umo. colleague : kolego. collect : kolekti, amasigi. collective : opa. college : kolegio. colony : kolonio. colour : koloro. comb : kombi; (fowl's) kresto. combine : kombin'i, -igxi, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... say, 'the action of disease.' It may be, but that explains nothing. Perhaps in such states the spirit is working in a manner less limited by the body than in health, and so showing some slight prelude of its powers when it has shuffled off this mortal coil. But be that as it may, these morbid phenomena, and the other more familiar facts already referred to, unite to show us that the sphere of recollection is much wider than that occupied at any given moment by memory. Recollection is the servant of Memory, as our great ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... don't cry!' she whispered, and her little white hand passed in a soothing, hesitating gesture over the coil of rich chestnut hair. 'Don't cry! I am afraid you have suffered. Oh, how I wish I could help you! Do tell me ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... seemingly bound to them by a great coiled rope, spotted and banded, was the body of Professor Bumper. His arms were pinioned to his sides and there was horror and terror on his face, that looked imploringly at the youths from above the topmost coil of ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... profile outline. The head itself was nobly rounded, and sternly classic as any well authenticated antique, but it was no marvel that it habitually bowed under the heavy glittering mass of silver hair, which wound in coil after coil and was secured at the back by a comb of carved jet, thickly studded with small silver stars. The extraordinary lustrousness of these waves of gray hair that rippled on her forehead and temples like molten metal, lent a weird and wondrous effect to the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... soft roundness of a child's, the blue eyes filled with all a child's terror and entreaty; the other, pale, too,—though upon it there still lingered the brown of the summer sun—but firm of outline, its crown a heavy coil of braids, its centre, eyes that were ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... regret this hasty impulse and return, I withdrew a few steps and waited. And sure enough, in less than five minutes, he came slinking back. Picking up the coil with more than one sly look about, he examined it closely. Suddenly he gave a sharp cry and went staggering out. Had he discovered that the seeming puzzle possessed the same invisible spring which had made the one handled by ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green



Words linked to "Coil" :   choke coil, roll, hand-build, secondary coil, solenoid, forge, corolla, transformer, condenser, tubing, gyre, primary winding, work, spark coil, read/write head, induction coil, round shape, whorl, verticil, preventive, primary, field winding, uncoil, coil spring, construction, mold, spiral, helix, contraceptive, shape, ringlet, armature, contraceptive device, twine, field coil, volute, curl, rotor coil, head, turn, prophylactic device, tube, handbuild, structure, wrap, choke, primary coil, Tesla coil, form, curlicue, ignition coil, birth control device, gyrate, mould, scroll, wind, reactor



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com