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Floor   Listen
noun
Floor  n.  
1.
The bottom or lower part of any room; the part upon which we stand and upon which the movables in the room are supported.
2.
The structure formed of beams, girders, etc., with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into stories. Floor in sense 1 is, then, the upper surface of floor in sense 2.
3.
The surface, or the platform, of a structure on which we walk or travel; as, the floor of a bridge.
4.
A story of a building. See Story.
5.
(Legislative Assemblies)
(a)
The part of the house assigned to the members.
(b)
The right to speak; as, the gentleman from Iowa has the floor. (U.S.) Note: Instead of he has the floor, the English say, he is in possession of the house.
6.
(Naut.) That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.
7.
(Mining)
(a)
The rock underlying a stratified or nearly horizontal deposit.
(b)
A horizontal, flat ore body.
Floor cloth, a heavy fabric, painted, varnished, or saturated, with waterproof material, for covering floors; oilcloth.
Floor cramp, an implement for tightening the seams of floor boards before nailing them in position.
Floor light, a frame with glass panes in a floor.
Floor plan.
(a)
(Shipbuilding) A longitudinal section, showing a ship as divided at the water line.
(b)
(Arch.) A horizontal section, showing the thickness of the walls and partitions, arrangement of passages, apartments, and openings at the level of any floor of a house.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Floor" Quotes from Famous Books



... whose house stood on one of the corners of the Place des Recollets, and under whose windows the insurgent contingents must have passed. The municipal councillor's servant remained for a long time parleying before consenting to admit them, and they heard poor Granoux calling from the first floor in a ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... them were attached heavy galvanized iron flanges which served to cover the food receptacles. One of these flanges is labelled o in figure 17. The food receptacles were provided by boring holes in a 2 by 4 inch timber securely nailed to the floor immediately outside of the exit doors. Into these holes aluminum cups fitted snugly, and the iron flanges, when the doors were closed, fitted so closely over the cups that it was impossible for the animals ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... was the earliest form of woven lace, and, indeed, it may claim an origin as early as the first garments worn by mankind. In the earliest remains of antiquity a fringe often decorates the edges of garments, curtains, and floor-covering, and seems to be a natural and fitting finish to what would otherwise be a hard, straight line. In the various Assyrian and Egyptian monuments this ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes

... horizontal are identical, tho level, as the more popular word, is more loosely used of that which has no especially noticeable elevations or inequalities; as, a level road. Flat, according to its derivation from the Anglo-Saxon flet, a floor, applies to a surface only, and, in the first and most usual sense, to a surface that is horizontal or level in all directions; a line may be level, a floor is flat; flat is also applied in a derived sense to any plane surface without irregularities or elevations, as a picture may ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... as the two girls stood for a moment in the doorway. Miss Shelby glanced around in a coldly indifferent way, holding up her broadcloth skirt that it might escape the ravellings and scraps scattered over the floor. She was a tall brunette as elegantly dressed as any figure in madame's latest ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston

... who answered him. He sat out of sight upon the floor, hunched against the chair of one of Valentina's ladies, who now and again would toss him down a morsel from her plate, much as she might have ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... extensive, generally live in one house, the quarters being separated according to the families. Those houses are built very high, so that there are generally two pike lengths from the ground to the first floor. The whole household make use of only one stairway, which is constructed so cunningly, that when all are inside they remove it from above, and thus they are safe from their enemies. Many of those Tagabaloyes live near the Christians, and those peoples ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... in a dingy bar-room, with saw-dust strewn upon the floor, and the odor of stale beer and tobacco-smoke in the air—here suddenly the boy sprang forward, with a cry: "Father!" And a man who sat with bowed head in a corner gave a start, and lifted a white face and stared at him. He rose unsteadily ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... and consumed the wine, Richard's exhaustion assumed the form of a lethargic torpor. To sleep was now his overmastering desire. She fetched him rugs and pillows, and he made himself a couch upon the floor. She had demurred, of course, when he himself had suggested this. She could not conceive of any one sleeping anywhere but in a bed. But Dick made ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... parlour, flourishing their big hats and executing clumsy scrapings with their feet while bowing in mock fashion to the two nervous widows, who sat in one corner regarding them askance: the leader of these lawless ones dropped his cloak from his shoulders, left it trailing on the pantile floor, and made a rapid signal with his hand to Sophie to pause an instant before she ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... to await him outside, he went in, and saw two men, swart and very huge, with horny noses, feeding their fire with any chance-given fuel. Moreover, the entrance was hideous, the door-posts were decayed, the walls grimy with mould, the roof filthy, and the floor swarming with snakes; all of which disgusted the eye as much as the mind. Then one of the giants greeted him, and said that he had begun a most difficult venture in his burning desire to visit a strange god, and his attempt to explore with curious search ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... with joyous hearts and desirous of seeing that Suta (who had returned). And anxious to hear the message of Partha's, fraught with virtue and profit, all the kings with Dhritarashtra at their head, went to that beautiful hall. Spotlessly white and spacious, it was adorned with a golden floor. And effulgent as the moon and exceedingly beautiful, it was sprinkled over with sandal-water. And it was spread over with excellent seats made of gold and wood, and marble and ivory. And all the seats were wrapped with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... valiant pull you would never have expected of the Little Prophet. Such a pull it was that, to his own utter amazement, he suddenly found himself lying flat on his back on the barn floor with a very slippery something in his hand, and a fair-sized but rather dilapidated turnip at ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... continually neglected his duties, and on the occasion of a change of officers he was dismissed as a useless member of the staff. At Louisville he upsets a carboy of sulphuric acid which ruins the handsome furniture of a broker's office on the floor below, and again finds himself adrift in an unappreciative world. Yet he had proved himself, in spite of all drawbacks, an adept of uncommon skill in telegraphy; and so widespread in scientific circles was his reputation, that he was sent for to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... whom he gave the floor, in the order of the list, was a lame boy, who came forward on a crutch, and began ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... over the gunwale and slumped in the bottom of the pirogue, which was larger than they expected, a clumsy yet seaworthy craft with a wide floor and space to crowd a dozen men. Fire had helped to hollow it from a giant of a cypress log, for the inner skin was charred black. Three roughly made paddles were discovered. This was tremendously important, and all they lacked was a mast and sail to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... rubber. You must not hunt the elephants, for they are my elephants. Those tusks that fifty years ago your grandfather, with his naked spear, cut from an elephant, and which you have tried to hide from me under the floor of this hut, are my ivory. Because that elephant, running wild through the jungle fifty years ago, belonged to me. And you yourself are mine, your time is mine, your labor is mine, your wife, your children, all are mine. They belong ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis

... regiment were killed. A possible reason, however, which we have since found out is that some heavy guns of our own have placed themselves beside us, thus letting us in for all the shells that miss the enemy. We are rather irate at it. But to return to our house. It has six bedrooms on the first floor, and some attics; the rooms are quite middle-class looking, though the furniture in the dining-room is of nice walnut. The Germans looted the place and smashed the mirrors over the mantelpiece, whilst there is a bullet hole through the door. I ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie

... are out! The fire burns low! I thrust back the little dressing-table, with its pretty oval mirror, beveled edges, and dainty drapery of pale pink silk and pure white mull. I tenderly take that withered rose from off the floor, where I rudely tossed it in my anger ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... true. Confronting them, and extending from side to side across the passage and from roof to floor, was a great rough stone. Immense and solid it seemed when they ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... pupils, and but two masters, but the great Dutch school, Deventer, under the renowned tuition of Hegius, boasted 2200 scholars, divided into eight forms. Many an old woodcut shows us the pupils gathered around the master as thick as flies, sitting cross-legged on the floor, some intent on their books and others playing pranks, while there seldom fails to be one undergoing the chastisement so highly recommended by Solomon. These great schools did not suffice for all would-be scholars. In many ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... little table in front of the window, with a small looking-glass upon it, and a cane-seated chair was placed by the bedside and the floor was covered with a faded piece of drab-coloured carpet of no perceptible pattern, worn into holes in ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... rendered our investigations and those of justice so difficult that, at present, we cannot form the least idea of what has passed in The Yellow Room in which Mdlle. Stangerson, in her night-dress, was found lying on the floor in the agonies of death. We have, at least, been able to interview Daddy Jacques—as he is called in the country—a old servant in the Stangerson family. Daddy Jacques entered The Room at the same time as the Professor. This chamber adjoins the laboratory. Laboratory and Yellow Room are in a pavilion ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... to bed, which meant simply rolling ourselves up in our blankets on the floor. I lay awake for some time anticipating the excitement of the next evening. It is not all play, this raiding of wild cattle. It is a risky business, and you must have expert lassoers to lead the way, or there ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... Across the floor of jasper, in that palace which was a fitting residence for one rightly known as "The Magnificent," the blood of Ibrahim flowed to the feet of Roxalana. The disordered clothing, the terrible expression of the face of the dead man, the gaping wounds which he had received, bore witness that ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... of sunshine. In the open fireplace, between the brasses, stood a blue jug filled with white lilacs, and the big punch-bowl on the sideboard was crowded with roses. There were antlers over the doors, and the pictures on the walls were of game and fish, and on the floor was a bear-skin, which was one of the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... the tables. Nay, there were signs which had cost thirty or forty pounds. {82} In the seventeenth century, England abounded with excellent inns of every rank. The traveller sometimes in a small village lighted on a public-house, such as Walton has described, where the brick floor was swept clean, where the walls were stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelt of lavender, and where a blazing fire, a cup of good ale, and a dish of trout fresh from the neighbouring brook, were to be procured at small charge. At the larger houses of entertainment were to be found ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... at the pile of clothes on the floor and I knew what he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple—a mere matter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clothes again? I stirred the pile with my foot. There was a long linen arrangement which might have been anything. ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... accumulation of sounds which ever stunned my ears. I felt that I was bruised, and that the berth was unusually hard and cold; and, after groping about in the pitch-darkness, I found that I had been thrown out of it upon the floor, a fact soon made self-evident by my being rolled across the cabin, a peculiarly disagreeable course of locomotion. It was impossible to stand or walk, and in crawling across to my berth I was assailed by my portmanteau, which was projected violently ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... these posts, which may be called open doors or windows all round the house, are shut in at night by roughly-plaited cocoa-nut leaf blinds. During the day the blinds are pulled up, and all the interior exposed to a free current of air. The floor is raised six or eight inches with rough stones, then an upper layer of smooth pebbles, then some cocoa-nut leaf mats, and then a layer of finer matting. Houses of important chiefs are erected on a raised platform of stones three feet high. In the centre of ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... was tested this individual crossed the bridge and found the post; and the third time he crossed the bridge and climbed down the post directly. The others did not succeed in descending the post even after having crossed the bridge safely, but, instead, finally fell to the floor from awkwardness or exhaustion. On the basis of these and other similar observations, Kishi says that the dancer possesses a fair degree of ability to ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... of sulphur is the simplest and cheapest. To effect such combustion, it suffices to place a piece of iron plate upon the floor of the room, and on this to place bricks connected with sand, or, what is better, to use a small refractory clay furnace (as advised by Mr. Pasteur), of oblong form, 8 inches in width by 10 in length, and having small apertures in the sides in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various

... best to have protection for the floor, it gives the nurse a comfortable feeling quite beyond description to know, that, no matter what may happen, the carpet ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... shuffling footfall was heard on the floor. Hugh Ritson was in the darkened room. He lifted the shaded lamp from the table, approached the bedside, and held the lamp with one hand above his head. The light fell on the outstretched body of his father and the bowed ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... battle of Chancellorsville (fought May 2nd and 3d, 1863), was the darkest in the history of the Civil War. President Lincoln walked the floor the whole night long, crying out in his anguish, "O what ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... his aide-de-camp; there was a notable gathering on the stage or platform, consisting of the president, professors and governors of the university, together with those men of distinction whom the university proposed to honour with a degree. The floor, or pit, of the house was filled with the commencing bachelors; the gallery was crowded with spectators, chiefly ladies. After the ceremony we were invited to assist at the dinner given by the students ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... reaching the threshold of bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that of the sun or moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end to end, and the cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and hung on pillars of silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while the lintel was silver and the hook of the ...
— The Odyssey • Homer

... of the looking-glass. With my left hand I would hold the handkerchief above my head, and with the other clutch the pistol at my side, and then, at the word, and as the handkerchief fluttered to the floor, I would take careful aim and pull the trigger. Sometimes I died and made speeches before I expired, and sometimes I killed my adversary and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... mouth and muscles suggested it. Was he a lunatic, indeed? But the sense of disgusted outrage changed all at once to horror, as, with a countenance still more hideously livid and twisted, his visitor slid helplessly from his seat and lay a huddling heap of clothes on the floor. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... themselves only in each other's society. The infancy of Dea had coincided with the youth of Gwynplaine. They had grown up side by side. For a long time they had slept in the same bed, for the hut was not a large bedchamber. They lay on the chest, Ursus on the floor; that was the arrangement. One fine day, whilst Dea was still very little, Gwynplaine felt himself grown up, and it was in the youth that shame arose. He said to Ursus, "I will also sleep on the floor." And at night he stretched himself, with the old man, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... itself was melancholy in the extreme. The place which, only a few short hours before, had been the seat of kindly intercourse and of social gaiety, was now entirely deserted, save by a few miserable wretches, who were either stretched in irrecoverable intoxication on the floor, or prowling about, like beasts of prey, in search of plunder. The sofas, drawers, and other articles of furniture, the due arrangement of which had cost so much thought and pains, were now broken into a thousand ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor

... know people I don't like.' Will Belton as he said this was thinking of Captain Aylmer, and he pressed the heel of his boot hard against the floor. ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... Aunt Becky, suddenly, appearing in the parlour, where the general had made himself comfortable over his novel, and opening her address with a smart stamp on the floor. The veteran's heart made a little jump, and he looked ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... seated at breakfast in the hotel. Joan had wisely left the bargaining with the landlord to her companion, and he, knowing something of Serbian ways, which reck little of politeness when curiosity can be sated, chose a sitting room on the first floor with three bedrooms adjoining. The sitting room was a huge place, big enough to serve as a studio if necessary. Three large windows commanded a view of the main street, and the solid oak door opened into the corridor behind, which also ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... and blank, with a little sinister window high up, from which something was every now and then waved above the house-roofs.... The tower was gone in a moment, and there was a heap piled up on the floor of a great room with open beams—a granary, perhaps. The heap was of curved sharp steel things like sickles: something moved and muttered underneath it, and blood ran out on the floor. Then I was instantly myself, and the pain was with me again; and then there fell on me a sense of faintness, so ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... looking out on the yard. In the left corner, rear, the icebox. Immediately to the right of it, in the rear wall, a window opening on the side porch. To the right of this, a china cupboard, and a door leading into the hall where the main front entrance to the house and the stairs to the floor above are situated. On the right, to the rear, a door opening on to the dining room. Further forward, the kitchen range with scuttle, wood box, etc. In the centre of the room, a table with a red and white cloth. Four cane-bottomed chairs are pushed under the table. In front ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... Guiscard was lodged and entertained, and served with Imperial pomp: one day, as he passed through the gallery of the palace, a door was carelessly left open to expose a pile of gold and silver, of silk and gems, of curious and costly furniture, that was heaped, in seeming disorder, from the floor to the roof of the chamber. "What conquests," exclaimed the ambitious miser, "might not be achieved by the possession of such a treasure!"—"It is your own," replied a Greek attendant, who watched the motions of his soul; and Bohemond, after some hesitation, condescended to accept this magnificent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... four children, Emma, Willie, Johnnie and Jimmie. All looked at me, and thought I was "a spry little fellow." I was very shy and did not say much, as everything was strange to me. I was put to sleep that night on a pallet on the floor in the dining room, using an old quilt as a covering. The next morning was Christmas, and it seemed to be a custom to have egg-nog before breakfast. The process of making this was new and interesting to me. I saw them whip the whites of eggs, on a platter, to a stiff froth; the yolks were thoroughly ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... have, on such an occasion as the present, an apartment with 'a good view' (the expression being one he had often heard in use among tourists); and he therefore asked for a favourite room on the first floor, from which a bow-window protruded, for the express purpose of affording such ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... with gray hair and short white beard, sitting near a window, a somewhat limp bag on the floor beside him. She paused inside the doorway and stood ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... a waiter ahead to announce him, and leisurely mounted the stairs. No. 56 was the sitting-room of a private suite on the first floor. The waiter was holding the door open. As he approached it a faint perfume from the interior made him turn pale. But he recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to close the door sharply upon ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... slowly, with a stricken light in his eyes which I couldn't quite understand. I intended to put the Colt on the table. But something must have been wrong with my vision, for the loathsome thing fell loathsomely to the floor. I felt sick and shaken and a horrible misty feeling of homelessness settled down about me, of a sudden, for I remembered how closely I had skirted the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... indeed "had a room for him." She had rooms a-plenty. There was the chintz chamber on the third floor, where the Irish poet (who seemed not to expect very much for himself) had been put; and there was the larger, handsomer chamber on the second floor, where the Hindoo philosopher (who had loomed up big and important through a vague Oriental ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... we are going to have our dinners; that is all," replied Tom, who had by this time reached the cabin floor. ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... immediate cause for alarm. I am laid with comparative gentleness upon a hard floor, which gives me the sensation of metallic coldness. I am lying at full length. To my extreme surprise, I find that the ropes with which I was bound have been untied and loosened. The tramping about around me has ceased. The next instant I hear ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne

... at the top, each forming a kind of cone. On the weather side each cone was covered with a few boughs and a little grass. The other side was left open to let the light in and the smoke out. Furniture they had none. A little grass on the floor served for chairs, tables, and beds. The only articles of manufacture to be seen among the people were a few rude baskets, and a sort of sack in which they carried the shell-fish which formed part of their food. They had also ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne

... that if she could not go alone she would not go at all. In that she was right; for whatever favour the young heir to the family honours might retain for his fair cousin, who was at any rate a Trefoil, he had none for his uncle's wife. She was shown into his own sitting-room on the ground floor, and then he immediately joined her. "I wouldn't have you shown upstairs," he said, "because I understand from your note that you want to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... Great Dauphin, Mademoiselle Choin (to whom Les Aigues was given), added a number of farms to it. Bouret furnished the house with all the elegancies of Parisian homes for an Opera celebrity; and to him Les Aigues owes the restoration of its ground floor in the style ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... nature. This also passed, but left behind it a feverish distaste for many of the mere objects around him. Long after he had returned to sanity and such hopeless cheerfulness as a man might have on a desert island, he disliked the regular squares of the pattern of wall and floor and the triangle that terminated his corridor. Above all, he had a hatred, deep as the hell he did not believe in, for the objectless iron peg ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... but only for a moment; something seemed to urge her on. After some searching she found the spring; the door flew open, and, holding her candle high, she went in. She could not suppress a cry of terror when she saw that her uncle lay stretched upon the floor. He moaned a little as she went towards him, and she was thankful to hear his voice. Broken glass was strewed upon the floor, and there was an unpleasant chemical odour in the room. She knelt beside her uncle, and found that his head and face were cut, that blood was flowing freely, ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke

... under the stress of his worry about herself and the temper which nature had made chivalric giving way to acerbity. Yes, Tollman was right—it required a sacrifice to save a wreck—and because he was right the sun grew dark and the future as black as the floor of the sea. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... a large and handsomely furnished house. On the first floor was a great corridor. A number of men were gathered round a doorway. Within he heard the clashing of steel and the shouts of men in conflict. Bursting his way in through the doorway ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... opinions is pursued, the truer the opinions that survive are likely to be. When the pragmatist talks of opinions, it is opinions as they thus concretely and livingly and interactingly and correlatively exist that he has in mind; and when the anti-pragmatist tries to floor him because the word 'opinion' can also be taken abstractly and as if it had no environment, he simply ignores the soil out of which the whole discussion grows. His weapons cut the air and strike no blow. No one gets wounded in the war against ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... a broad standpoint it is without style or distinction. It has none of those Corinthian pillars which your homesteads in America have. Yet there is in it a simple elegance. It has no carpets, but a shining mahogany floor, for there are few carpets in this land of heat. It is a place where music and mirth and family voices would be fitting; but there are no family voices here, save such as speak with a negro lisp ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the condition ready to be swallowed, by an apparently involuntary motion, it is placed upon the back of the tongue, which carries it backwards to the top of the pharynx, where the constrictions of the pharynx, aided by the muscles of the tongue and floor of the mouth, with a sudden and violent movement thrust it beyond the epiglottis, in order to allow the least necessary time to the closure of the glottis, after which, by the compression of the oesophagus, it is forced into ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... building that was jammed in between two tenements, which, relatively, in their own class, were even more disreputable than was the little frame house itself. A secondhand-clothes store occupied a portion of the ground floor, and housed the proprietor and his family as well, permitting the rooms on the second floor to be "rented out"; the garret above was ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... slumber, at nine thirty-two three of the members were awake with heads protruding out of their bunks, trying to peer through the gloom, while the fourth dreamt that a tea-tray was falling down a never-ending staircase. On the floor of the forecastle something was cursing prettily and ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... furniture and china, had left him in the dining room where the side-board had several bottles of wine and whiskey on it. She waited for a long time hoping he would return to show her the inventory, but as he did not appear she went into the dining room where she found him drunk upon the floor. She looked at the paper he held in his ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith

... miraculous interposition had caused so unknown an arrest of ordinary nature; Jerusalem was not then known, it was Jebus, a city of Jebusites; and the fact which subsequently created its sanctity did not occur till more than four centuries afterwards (viz., on the threshing-floor of Araunah). But Shiloh existed, and Horeb, and Sinai, and the graves of the Patriarchs. And all those places would have expounded the reference of the miracle, would have traced it to the very source of its origin; so as to show not then only, not to the contemporaries ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... sleeping heavily in the adjoining room. And the wind got up in the night: it played with the muslin curtains, flinging them out like streamers into the room; played with the flimsy parasol lamp-shade until it tilted, and the little lamp was thrown on to the floor. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... is here he's hiding," Sue went on. "Maybe there's a hole under the floor of the shop and he's there, just as once at Grandpa's farm in the country we found where a hen had her nest under the floor in the barn. And it had eggs ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope

... a "specific method" for shoeing, which is to cut away the toe right in the center of the foot, cut away the bars on the inside of the foot, cut and clean away all around on the inside of the hoof, then to let the animal stand on a board floor, so that his feet would be in the position a saucer would represent with one piece broken out at the front and two at the back. This I consider the most inhuman method in the art of shoeing. Turn this saucer upside down and see ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... more and more spirit, and finally recognized Tom all in a moment somehow and announced the fact by one great disconnected bark and a saltatory motion. This done he turned to and also ate a voracious supper. Robinson rolled himself up in George's great-coat and slept like a top on the floor. Next morning he was waked by a tapping, and there was Carlo seated bolt upright with his tail beating the floor because George was sitting up in the bed looking about ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... orange-peel, Cold chicken aplenty for a meal, Gingerbread enough to fill Two such boys as Jake and Bill. Well, they ate and ate and ate, Gobbled at an awful rate Till I'm sure they soon weighed more Than double what they did before. And then, it's awful, still it's true, The floor gave way and they went thru. Filled so full they couldn't fight. Slowly they sank out of sight. Father, Mother, Cousin Ann, Cook and nurse and furnace man Fished in forty-dozen ways After them, for twenty days; But not a soul has chanced to get A ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson

... to ear, was running the broom-handle up and down the row of bells outside the servants' hall. Mike was belabouring the gong as if his life depended on his exertions. The stable-boy was blowing shrilly through a tin whistle, and the fat old cook was dashing trays of empty mustard-tins on the stone floor, and going off into peals ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... into a great hall, not ill-furnished, the floor strewed plentifully with rushes, and warmed by an enormous fire of blazing oak. By the door stood two pikemen in armour, like a pair of statues; in the centre of the floor was a heavy oaken board, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... down their burdens on the floor and begin to mop their faces. The OLD MAN stretches out his fine coat and hat and buckled ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... taken Mrs. Morrough and her affairs into the highest favour. Even the luck-insurance of a trivial loss was not wanting to her, as in her hasty exit she had dropped her new teapot, which broke into many pieces on Mrs. Doyne's floor. So that, as has been said, she never beheld it in its beauty. But the very skies had cleared above her head, swept by a waft of wind that scattered the clouds faster and further than a drift of withered ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... room on the first floor—a handsome chamber overlooking the courtyard—and in answer to the inquiries that I made I was informed by the landlord that Monsieur de Marsac was not ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... a gentleman who resided near Krakhut, presented Mr. Howard with a portion of a stone which had been brought to him the morning after its fall by the person who was on duty at his house, and through the roof of whose hut it had passed, and buried itself several inches in the floor, which was of consolidated earth. Before it was broken it must have weighed upwards of ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... comforts of an English bed-room in a good hotel, how miserably short does the appearance of a French one fall in the estimation of the tired traveller. In exchange for the carpeted floor, the well-curtained windows, the richly tapestried bed, the well cushioned arm-chair, and the innumerable other luxuries which await him; he has nought but a narrow, uncurtained bed, a bare floor, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... Heloise and me afterwards. The fiances came and stood quite close to them, with only a bank of flowers between; and they said the palms were pretty and were growing very tall, and the Marquis coughed, and Victorine began scrabbling with her toes on the marble floor in that irritating way she has, and they neither of them spoke. At last the Marquis dashed at it, and said, as she already knew, their parents had arranged they should marry, and he hoped he would make her happy. At that ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... man much muffled in a large cloak was ushered in, and at Gerrard's invitation, sat down on the floor. When Badan Hazari was gone, he lowered the cloak a little, and looked at Gerrard as though he expected recognition, ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... little, narrow prison-like window, barred with an iron grating. Two or three images without chasubles, dark and without visages, hung upon the walls. Several common board coffins were standing right on the floor, upon wooden carrying shafts. One in the middle was empty, and the taken-off ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... occur in nodules inclosed in the solid body of rock, and in which condition they are seldom of value. The greater abundance are in the veins of the dark-green soft chlorite, and some few in horizontal beds. The minerals are found in the first condition by examining all the veins running from floor to ceiling of the tunnel. The ores of calcite first mentioned are very conspicuous, they being white in the dense black rock. They may be chipped from, as there are about thirty or forty of them exposed in each shaft, and the character of the minerals examined to see if anything ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... inadequacy, made her impatient; she felt it impossible to come near to anything so ineffectual as that futile hand and, taking the pillow from the other side of the bed, laid it on the floor. She started to ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... armed guards on the outside of the door adding to the isolation of the council. General Bambos, though short of stature, weighed an eighth of a ton. His uniform gleamed with blue, scarlet and gold, and the crimson sash around his waist, with its gilt tassels almost touching the floor, was six inches nearer his head in front than at the rear. His crimson countenance was set off by a prodigious mustache, the waxed ends of which, when he grinned, tickled his temples. He was short-breathed, asthmatic and possessed a tempestuous temper. The big curved sword at his side flipped ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... time in the same way. Thus defined, you see that the force of habit extends throughout the entire universe. It is a habit for the earth to revolve on its axis once every twenty-four hours and to encircle the sun once every year. When a pencil falls from your hand it has a habit of dropping to the floor. A piece of paper once folded tends to crease in the same place. These are examples of the force of habit in nonliving matter. Living matter shows its power even more clearly. If you assume a petulant ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... mother of Ab were not more than two years past their honeymoon. They, in their way, were glad that their union had been so blest and that a lusty man-child was rolling about and crowing and cooing upon the earthen floor of the cave. They lived from hand to mouth, and from day to day, and this day had been a good one. They were there together, man, woman and child. They had warmth and food. The entrance to the cave was barred so that no ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... once amid serious breakers on a stormy shore. He wanted to retreat, to get away from the house as fast as possible. But there was no escape, for he heard John telling him to come and meet the young woman. For a few seconds he stood as if rooted to the floor, staring straight before him. Notwithstanding her own agitation, Jess could hardly keep from smiling at the captain's confusion. She felt sorry for him, so acting upon the impulse of the instant, she crossed the room ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody

... careless fellow you are!" screamed she, her notes on the second added line above the treble staff. "You are spilling it all over the floor! I wish you could learn to ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic

... the floor, "you should not use such words. You know well that I do not take you with me because there may be danger yonder among the Hebrews. Moreover, it is not ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... splendor. Edward accused her, also, of having connived at his brother Alfred's death. The story is, that he caused her to be tried on this charge by the ordeal of fire. This method consisted of laying red-hot irons upon the stone floor of a church, at certain distances from each other, and requiring the accused to walk over them with naked feet. If the accused was innocent, Providence, as they supposed, would so guide his footsteps that he should not touch the irons. Thus, if he was innocent, he would go over ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... wardrobe, and the shelf over the door, where the image of an angel stood. He patted it, and hugged it, and looked so very funny with his ugly black face by the pretty white one, that Neddy rolled on the floor, and Aunt Jane laughed till her glasses flew off. By and by he came down, and had a nice breakfast, and let them tie a red ribbon over the bandage on his neck. He liked the gay color, and kept going to look in the glass, and grin and chatter at ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... judge through this opening, our stratagem has succeeded. Our Venus has done wonders, and the admirable engineer, who has contrived this piece of machinery, has so well disposed everything, so cunningly cut the floor of his grotto, so well hid his wires and springs, so well adjusted his lights, and dressed his personages, that but few people could have escaped being deceived; and as the Princess Aristione is extremely superstitious, there is no, doubt that she fully believes ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere

... grayish veined Greek marble similar to that used in Venice and Ravenna was almost exclusively used as a background. It formed a most admirable setting for the inlaid marble mosaics which were laid in rebated panels in the marble slabs, making a perfectly smooth surface. In the floor mosaics green serpentine and red or purple porphyry are the usual colors besides the gray, while brighter reds, gold, blues, white, and a variety of other glasses (smalti) are employed with the serpentine and porphyry in ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration - Vol 1, No. 9 1895 • Various

... spacious tale from age to age; Where history's pen its praise or blame supplies And lies like truth, and still most truly lies; He wand'ring mused, and as the moonbeam shone Through the dim lattice o'er the floor of stone, And the high-fretted roof and saints that there O'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer; Reflected in fantastic figures grew Like life, but not like mortal life to view; His bristling locks of sable, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... gold. About the same time primroses and auriculas begin to tuft the dripping rocks, while frail white fleur-de-lis, like flakes of snow forgotten by the sun, and golden-balled ranunculuses join with forget-me-nots and cranesbill in a never-ending dance upon the grassy floor. Happy, too, is he who finds the lilies-of-the-valley clustering about the chestnut boles upon the Colma, or in the beechwood by the stream at Macugnaga, mixed with garnet-coloured columbines and fragrant white narcissus, which the people of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... table over which Hadria bent forward towards her audience, appeared to be applauding this sentiment vigorously. It rocked to and fro on the uneven floor with ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... is a brass plate set into the shoe near the heel with a loose disc inside it from which extends a plug that as you step falls and hits the floor. ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... floor above me, Nayland Smith, I knew, at that moment would be restlessly pacing his room, the exact situation of which I could not identify, because of the quaint, rambling passages whereby one approached it. It was in regard to Karamaneh, however, that my misgivings ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... and the people, trained by many a previous disaster, stuck to their seats. There they sat, the back rows only moving a little, and there, in disciplined lines, they drooped and failed, nodded, and fell forward or slid down upon the floor. I am told by Parload—though indeed I know nothing of the reasoning on which his confidence rests—-that within an hour of the great moment of impact the first green modification of nitrogen had dissolved and passed away, leaving the air as translucent as ever. The rest of that wonderful ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... best of days Seatown was not beautiful. I have read in books romantic descriptions of Glebeshire coves, Glebeshire towns with the romantic Inn, the sanded floor, fishermen with gold rings in their ears and strange oaths upon their lips. In one book I remember there was a fine picture of such a place, with beautiful girls dancing and mysterious old men telling mysterious tales ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... Jean Lanni told Judy Stokes resignedly when she arrived at his studio the following evening. He watched Droozle fascinatedly as the snake moved his restless tail over the margins of newspapers spread on the floor. "He doesn't know yet that I know. I discovered the fraud only ...
— Droozle • Frank Banta

... there was danger in passing the place. At length they took courage, and sped hastily by. But not hastily enough—Madeleine had recognized them both. Her pulse seemed to stop and her heart to sink within her, and without uttering a sound she slipped down on the floor under the window. In the passage, outside her door, she heard Morten go grumbling back from the bedroom which he and Fanny usually occupied, and in which she was ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland

... come for St. James's, and the Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth came into the apartment. The little monkey, in a fit of renewed lassitude after his cake, had flung himself on the floor, to repose at his ease. He rose, however, upon their appearance, and the sweet Princess Augusta said to the queen, "He has been so good, up-stairs, mamma, that nothing could be better behaved." I could have kissed ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... be a little more than two feet broad. This latter work he was able to carry on indoors during the evening, while Lord Reginald assisted him in drawing out the plan. They agreed that it was important to give the boat a flat floor, though she might be made more seaworthy by having a deep keel, which could be easily ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... back window and saw a neat lawn, bordered with flowering shrubs. He put his grip on the floor and came back to the ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault

... bird came in and wanted to serve up the dinner, but he could nowhere see the cook. In his alarm and flurry, he threw the wood here and there about the floor, called and searched, but no cook was to be found. Then some of the wood that had been carelessly thrown down, caught fire and began to blaze. The bird hastened to fetch some water, but his pail fell into the well, and he after it, and as he was unable ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... redolent of suds, and in a grove of damp clothes hung on lines sat a man with a crying baby laid across his lap, while he fed three small children standing at his knee with bread and molasses. How he managed with one arm to keep the baby from squirming on to the floor, the plate from upsetting, and to feed the hungry urchins who stood in a row with open mouths, like young birds, was past my comprehension. But he did, trotting baby gently, dealing out sweet morsels patiently, and whistling to himself, as if ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... generally assumed to be less digestible than the nib. They are separated by being passed through revolving gauze drums, the holes in which are the same size and shape as the germs, so that the germs pass through whilst the nib is retained. If a freakish carpenter were to try separating shop-floor sweepings, consisting of a jumble of chunks of wood (nib), shavings (shell) and nails (germ) by sieving through a grid-iron, he would find that not only the nails passed through but also some sawdust and fine shavings. ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... softly, and the music, which I cannot compare to any earthly strain, ceased in a moment. Presently I was more than startled to see in the gloomier background of the cavern a great white serpent glide like a ghost along the floor and come straight towards us. His milk-white body was speckled all over with jewelled scales, and shone with a pale blue phosphorescence; his eyes blazed in his head like twin carbuncles, and in spite of my instinctive ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... mighty different world, and we were all ignorant together. The Lord let us in on the ground floor, gave us corner lots, and then started in to improve the adjacent property. We didn't have to know fractions to figure out our profits. Now a merchant needs astronomy to see them, and when he locates them they are out somewhere near ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... vigorous enforcement of laws to that end;" and the Democratic party, in its annual convention of this year, rejected, by an immense majority, and with enthusiastic cheers, a resolution, proposed from the floor, in ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... sensible to set about building a house without ascertaining what strength of foundation would be needful, or without knowing the sort of material we were going to use. One has heard of a house being built in which it turned out that there was a room with no doorway, or floor to which no stair led up; but we do not commend such exploits as the last word in architecture, nor would we commend a farmer who planted his crops without attention to the nature of the soil. There ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... stationed at Peterborough, engaged in the trigonometrical survey, when the officer entered the cathedral with his spurs on, and was immediately beset by the choristers, who demanded money of him for treading the sacred floor with armed heels. Does any one know the origin of this singular custom? I inquired of some of the dignitaries of the Cathedral, but they were not aware even of its existence. The boys, however, have more tenacious memories, ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various

... wall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but, for the benefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... special terms are ordered at times to clear the docket. It is difficult to see from any facts presented in support of this bill why the United States court does not find accommodations which fairly answer its needs in the rooms now occupied by it. The floor space furnished for the terms of the Federal court is stated to be 75 by 100 feet, which, it must be admitted, provides ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... your heart, that you may feel the difference at night, my lady —when the stars, and neither sun nor moon, will be in the sky, and all the flowers they shine on will be their own flitting, blinking, swinging, shutting and opening reflections in the swaying floor of the ocean,—when the heat will be gone, and the air clean and clear as the thoughts of ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... victory. We won by five goals to three." And I remember that she seemed to describe afterwards a sort of saturnalia. Apparently, when the victorious fifteen or eleven came into the refectory for supper, the whole school jumped upon the tables and cheered and broke the chairs on the floor and smashed the crockery—for a given time, until the Reverend Mother rang a hand-bell. That is of course the Catholic tradition—saturnalia that can end in a moment, like the crack of a whip. I don't, of course, like the tradition, but I am bound to say ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford



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