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noun
Hoop  n.  
1.
A pliant strip of wood or metal bent in a circular form, and united at the ends, for holding together the staves of casks, tubs, etc.
2.
A ring; a circular band; anything resembling a hoop, as the cylinder (cheese hoop) in which the curd is pressed in making cheese.
3.
A circle, or combination of circles, of thin whalebone, metal, or other elastic material, used for expanding the skirts of ladies' dresses; crinoline; used chiefly in the plural. "Though stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale."
4.
A quart pot; so called because originally bound with hoops, like a barrel. Also, a portion of the contents measured by the distance between the hoops. (Obs.)
5.
An old measure of capacity, variously estimated at from one to four pecks. (Eng.)
Bulge hoop, Chine hoop, Quarter hoop, the hoop nearest the middle of a cask, that nearest the end, and the intermediate hoop between these two, respectively.
Flat hoop, a wooden hoop dressed flat on both sides.
Half-round hoop, a wooden hoop left rounding and undressed on the outside.
Hoop iron, iron in thin narrow strips, used for making hoops.
Hoop lock, the fastening for uniting the ends of wooden hoops by notching and interlocking them.
Hoop skirt, a framework of hoops for expanding the skirts of a woman's dress; called also hoop petticoat.
Hoop snake (Zool.), a harmless snake of the Southern United States (Abaster erythrogrammus); so called from the mistaken notion that it curves itself into a hoop, taking its tail into its mouth, and rolls along with great velocity.
Hoop tree (Bot.), a small West Indian tree (Melia sempervirens), of the Mahogany family.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hoop" Quotes from Famous Books



... tree and ran after her. Never was such a race. They ran, and they ran, and they ran, and they ran, until they came to the One Hair Bridge. And then, balancing herself with the ring like a hoop, Molly Whuppie sped over the bridge light as a feather, but the giant had to stand on the other side, and shake his fist at her, and ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... surprise and shock sustained by the bear, his limbs got inextricably mixed up with the iron hoops, and he looked for all the world as if he were performing some juggling feat with them. One hoop had somehow got round his neck and right fore leg at the same time, while another had lodged on his hind quarters. He fairly lost his temper and spun round and round, snapping viciously at his encumbrances. The girl laughed as she had not laughed for many a long day. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... he can do any more," said Freddie. "There's a barrel hoop over there. Maybe he'll jump through it ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... said the squire. "It would be a thousand pities. Why, he's the most remarkable tree on the whole estate! See and have a hoop put round him at the top, keeper. And then put a railing round him, so that the cows can't get at him and do him harm. We'll keep this fine old willow-tree as long as we possibly can. I'm exceedingly ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald

... rising superior to failure, because of an ever stronger joy in right and shame for wrong. In the other, we have a "good goose" who does the right for the picture card that is set before him,—a "trained dog" sort of child, who will not leap through the hoop unless he sees the whip or the lump of sugar. So much for the training of the sense of right and wrong! Now for the provision which the kindergarten makes for the growth of certain practical ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... of the jumping-off place of creation! Will I go with you, friends and fellow-citizens? No, not by a jugful. Do you think Byle is a plumb fool? I wouldn't mind going on a voyage with the madam and the young ones, but not with such an addle-pate as the near-sighted. Nor with Colonel Hoop Snake! No, there's no use arguing; I tell you once for all, I won't go. I'd no more trust in him than I'd trust you, old Muskingum, not to undermine your banks at Spring flood. A felon who would murder Alexander Hamilton—what crime wouldn't he commit? ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... to stand before the trio as before a tribunal of judges. His sword-knife had been taken from his belt before he had regained his senses, his hands were twisted behind his back and locked together in a bar and hoop arrangement. He certainly could offer little threat to the company, yet they ringed him in, weapons ready, watching his every move. The scout licked cracked lips. There was one thing they could not control, could ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... and shoulders into his float, a round canvas-covered hoop of cork, and set off at an easy stroke. Now that he was flat on the water, he could no longer see the lanes of seaweed, and he would be forced to depend entirely upon signals ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... Colonel Laporte, "I am old and gouty, my legs are as stiff as two sticks, and yet if a pretty woman were to tell me to go through the eye of a needle, I believe I should take a jump at it, like a clown through a hoop. I shall die like that; it is in the blood. I am an old beau, one of the old regime, and the sight of a woman, a pretty woman, stirs me to the tips of my ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... opportunity of accomplishing this in privacy, and at his leisure. Again approaching the figure, he tried to draw off the compromising circle; but it seemed tighter than ever, and he drew out a pair of scissors and, after a little hesitation, respectfully inserted it under the hoop and set to work to prize it off, with the result of snapping both the points, and leaving the ring entirely unaffected. He glanced at the face; it wore the same dreamy smile, with a touch of gentle contempt in it. "She don't ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey

... garland. Similar customs have been and indeed are still observed in various parts of England. The garlands are generally in the form of hoops intersecting each other at right angles. It appears that a hoop wreathed with rowan and marsh marigold, and bearing suspended within it two balls, is still carried on May Day by villagers in some parts of Ireland. The balls, which are sometimes covered with gold and silver paper, are said to have originally ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... insecurely balanced on a teaspoon, over one table and under another, through a hoop suspended from the ceiling, and deposited it in the wastebasket at the end of the corridor, in exactly two minutes and forty-seven seconds. (Kid McCoy had a stop-watch.) This was far ahead of anyone else's ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... that recurs incessantly within you. What a void! what a gap in our household! A habit, an attachment of twenty-five years growth, a girl who knew our whole lives and opened our letters in our absence, and to whom we told all our business. When I was a bit of a boy I trundled my hoop with her, and she bought me apple-tarts with her own money, when we went to walk. She would sit up for Edmond till morning, to open the door for him, when he went to the Bal de l'Opera without our mother's knowledge. She was the woman, the excellent nurse, whose ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... of the portable track. The line, which is preferably a flexible combination wire-and-cord cable, is stretched between the winding-drum on the track and detachably secured to the flying or gliding machine, preferably by means of a trip-hoop, or else held in the hand of the operator, so that the operator may readily detach the same from the flying-machine when the desired ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... sauntering close to the forbidden border, when the hoop which he was trundling slipped from him and ran into the desert. In a moment he was over after it; and just as he stooped to pick it up, he saw, right before him, a beautiful and sparkling flower. He would certainly ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... two years younger than Herbert, and would never join in any of his tricks against the girls. When they arrived next morning, they went off at once to see Caroline's pet hen and chickens; and though Herbert went with them, he stood aside with his hoop dangling on his arm, and with a look of contempt on his face at his cousin Charlie's delight at the sight of the chickens. Living in a town as Charles and Lizzie did, everything belonging to the country was new and delightful; and it ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples

... tore down the narrow lane; he shot between the posts like an arrow, and the tilting peg was driven far into the narrow hoop, wedging the ring on so firmly that it afterwards required force to loosen and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin

... animosity in the town is Mrs. Julia Neal Worthington. Aunt Martha told us that when Tim Neal came to town he had a brogue you could scrape with a knife and an "O" before his name you could hoop a hogshead with. "And that woman," exclaimed Aunt Martha, when she was under full sail, "that woman, because she has two bookcases in the front room and reads the book-reviews in the Delineator, thinks that she is cultured. When her folks first came to town they were as poor as Job's ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... bulkhead was a paper hoop and tried to dive through it," said Paresi. He spoke lightly but his ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn

... girls. Enquire two doors from the Brick Meetinghouse in Middle-street. At which place is to be sold women's stays, children's good callamanco stiffened-boddy'd coats, and childrens' stays of all sorts, and women's hoop-coats; all at very ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... twilight on the mountain, Irene took up her share of the tale, and told all about herself to that point, and then Curdie took it up again; and so they went on, each fitting in the part that the other did not know, thus keeping the hoop of the story running straight; and the king listened with wondering and delighted ears, astonished to find what he could so ill comprehend, yet fitting so well together from the ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... had I shadowed such a group Of beauties that were born In teacup times of hood and hoop, And when the patch was worn; And legs and arms with love-knots gay. About me leaped and laughed The modish Cupid of the day, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... was less than she had anticipated. It was not like the same place. The garden, the grass-plat, formerly so daintily trim that even a stray rose-leaf seemed like a fleck on its exquisite arrangement and propriety, was strewed with children's things; a bag of marbles here, a hoop there; a straw-hat forced down upon a rose-tree as on a peg, to the destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers, which in former days would have been trained up tenderly, as if beloved. The little square matted hall was equally filled with signs ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... is not an easy thing to open, even when you set about it in the right way; when you set about it wrongly, the whole structure must be resolved into its elements. Such was the course pursued alike by the artist and the lawyer. Presently the last hoop had been removed—a couple of smart blows tumbled the staves upon the ground—and what had once been a barrel was no more than a confused heap of broken ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Tunbridge beau, I saw coquetting t'other night In public with that odious knight! They rallied next Vanessa's dress: That gown was made for old Queen Bess. Dear madam, let me see your head: Don't you intend to put on red? A petticoat without a hoop! Sure, you are not ashamed to stoop! With handsome garters at your knees, No matter what a fellow sees. Filled with disdain, with rage inflamed Both of herself and sex ashamed, The nymph stood silent out of spite, Nor would vouchsafe to set them ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... glance, thus has the opportunity to elicit volleys of applause from crowds of men; and, without stopping to question the value of it, she makes herself doubly drunken with it. If to kick up her skirts is to attract attention—hoop la! If indecency is then the distinguishing feature of the evening, she is the woman for your money. So she jumps rather than dances. She has a whole set of lascivious motions, fashioned quickly, which outdo the worst imaginings ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... hook on board large enough to secure him, so another plan was adopted by Needham's suggestion. The bonetta was secured to a small line, while with the end of the peak-halyards a running bowline-knot was formed and placed over it, or rather round it. The fish was thus in the very centre of the hoop, or slip-knot it might be called, but a short distance before it, "We shall have the gentleman, no fear of it," observed Paddy, as he watched the shark dart forward towards the bait. Murray managed the line with the bait, Paddy kept the bowline ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... skin, and, as a tribute of respect to Neal's "game blood," carried it, in addition to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate brulee and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the hoop, which he hung up to a tree ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... what they raised from the land; the pigs they brought in the wagon with them, fish, caught with wires out of an old hoop skirt, and corn meal brought from the nearest mill, twenty miles away. Ox teams were the only means of ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... jewel in her hand—delicate Venus in gold and pearl, set in a hoop of diamonds. "I won't have it!" she said, dashing it from her with a sob of passion. "And we won't take your money either—not a farthing! We've got friends who'll help us. And I'll keep my mother myself. You shan't give her anything—nor my grandfather. So you needn't threaten us! You can't do ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... any individual at any period depends on the manner in which he has been brought up. So, too, the savage decorates himself after his own savage tastes. His smoky wigwam or his filthy mud hut is no stronger evidence of his barbarous condition than his party-colored face, or the hoop of metal in his nose. Call this desire to enjoy the beauty of the world and to be a part of it the lust of the eye, or whatever name you please, you will find, that, with exceedingly rare exceptions, it is universal in the race, and that its gratification, although it may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... throats, and neckties of the same hanging down before their long silk waistcoats, sleep in their pews—it is a sleepy time for the Church Service—beside their wives and children. The wives are grand in hoop, and powder, and painted face. We know what is meant by rank in the days of King George II. In this our parish church we who are or have been wardens of our Company, aldermen who have passed the chair, or aldermen who have yet to pass it, know what ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant

... of the plait contraband, beneath the view of the glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs, amidst the hurrahs of the troops, frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower or in the terrific warw-hoop of 'Vive l'Empereur!' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... and he showed me how to wurruk it wid me faat. Whin he slipped in one of the shaats of paper, wid hundreds of little kriss-kross holes through it, sot down on the stule and wobbled his butes, and 'Killarney' filled the room, I let out a hoop, kicked off me satan slippers, danced a jig and shouted, 'For the love of Mike!' which the same is thrue, that ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... scenes foreign to those actually present. I saw Grace's sweet image everywhere; I heard her voice at every turn. Now she was the infant I was permitted to drag in her little wagon, the earliest of all my impressions of that beloved sister; then, she was following me as I trundled my hoop; next came her little lessons in morals, and warnings against doing wrong, or some grave but gentle reproof for errors actually committed; after which, I saw her in the pride of young womanhood, lovely and fitted to be loved, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... this," and he held out a costly ring, a half hoop of diamonds. "I have heard all I wish from Percy. His sense of honor is none of the finest, but he is useful to me. You and I need not heat ourselves in a perfectly useless discussion. Miss Selby has a right to expect this ring. ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... digging, dabbling, delighted. What strikes us at first sight is the number of them. In ordinary life we meet the great host of children in detail, as it were; we kiss our little ones in the morning, we tumble over a perambulator, we dodge a hoop, we pat back a ball. Child after child meets us, but we never realize the world of children till we see it massed upon the sands. Children of every age, from the baby to the schoolboy; big children and tiny children, weak little urchins with pale ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... pares no nails: Some in C——l's Cabinet each act display, When nature in a transport dies away: Some more refin'd transcribe their Opera-loves On Iv'ry Tablets, or in clean white Gloves: Some of Platonic, some of carnal Taste, Hoop'd, or un-hoop'd, ungarter'd, or unlac'd. Thus thick in Air the wing'd Creation play, When vernal Phoebus rouls the Light away, A motley race, half Insects and half Fowls, Loose-tail'd and dirty, ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte

... feminine attractiveness. A great grandmother on my mother's side had been in her day a famous beauty. And when asked the secret of her charm, as she frequently was (to my infant imagination she appeared as a superhumanly radiant vision who walked about the streets in a hoop-skirt with an admiring throng in her wake, constantly being forced to explain why she was beautiful), she did not utter testimonials for anybody's soap, nor for a patent dietary system, nor even for outdoor exercise. ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton

... the voice still called for water; and when water was given it the last hoop was rent, the cask fell in pieces, and out flew a dragon, who snatched up the empress just as she was returning from her walk, and carried her off. Some servants who saw what had happened came rushing to the prince, and the poor ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... said one of the gay children, stopping her hoop and touching her brother upon the back with her stick; "she's got a little baby in her arms just as big as sissy—hasn't she Willie? And only see what an old ragged blanket it has on! Haven't you got any nice clothes ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... clear from this that its sign was the "Bell and Hoop," before it became the property of the Savage family, from whom there can be no doubt it got its name of "La Belle Savage." According to Stow, Mrs. Isabella Savage gave the inn to the Cutlers' Company, but ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz

... as near a scene of enchantment as tallow-candles could make it. The twelve bottle foot-lights flared and flickered as if they were conscious of the wonderful display of talent they were there to illumine, while the barrel-hoop chandeliers cast even a more brilliant light than one would have supposed. The flower decorations on the wall, forming the word that meant quite as much as if it had been spelled correctly, stood ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... claimant, with any sort of wild tale of prior invention, could find a speculator to support him. On they came, a motley array, "some in rags, some on nags, and some in velvet gowns." One of them claimed to have done wonders with an iron hoop and a file in 1867; a second had a marvellous table with glass legs; a third swore that he had made a telephone in 1860, but did not know what it was until he saw Bell's patent; and a fourth told a vivid story of having heard a bullfrog croak via a telegraph ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... it all came back, and after a while the elder woman was saying, "Well, once upon a time there lived a princess, my dear. All good stories begin so—don't they? She was a fat, pudgy little princess who longed to grow up and have hoop-skirts like a real sure-enough woman princess, and there came along a tall prince—the tallest, handsomest prince in all the wide world, I think. And he and the princess fell in love, as princesses and princes will, you know, my dear,—just as they do now, I am told. And the prince ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... very king of Ashantee, Sabina's black boy, who had taken to himself a scarlet umbrella, and a great cigar; while after him came, also like them in Struwelpeter, Caspar, bretzel in hand, and Ludwig with his hoop, and all the naughty boys of Bertrich town, hooting and singing in chorus, after the fashion of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth. A piece of hoop iron may be prepared by bending it back and forth at a point about one inch from the end, until the fragment is nearly broken off, or by cutting nearly through it with a cold chisel. When the iron has been heated red-hot, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... health-giving. Bracing barrack-square; magnificent pedestrian exercise. Come and be experimented on by Sergt.-Major Whizbang, the great military spellbinder. See the Adjutant put Company Commanders through the hoop. Screams of laughter at every performance. Best places in the ranks for those who arrive early. Twice daily (Sundays excepted) till further notice. Breakfast kept for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various

... an atrocious photograph—all photographs (cartes-de-visite they were called)—were libellous and atrocious in those days—of a girl in a black frock, the skirt a little distended at the feet by the small hoop of the day, a short black jacket, with black hair parted in the middle over a smudge of a face and gathered into a net at the back of the neck. Beneath it is written Deleah's ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... places, bridges of stone, bridges of wood, arbours and statues, and a flood of flowers everywhere, new flowers, rare flowers, parterre after parterre of flowers. Indeed, the roses bloom at Malmaison. It is youth, youth untrammeled and advancing, trundling a country ahead of it as though it were a hoop. Laughter, and spur janglings in tessellated vestibules. Tripping of clocked and embroidered stockings in little low-heeled shoes over smooth grass-plots. India muslins spangled with silver patterns slide through trees—mingle—separate—white ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began to hum ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... Moll all cock-a-hoop with a new delight, by reason of her dear husband offering to take her to London for a month to visit the theatres and other diversions, which put me to a new quirk for fear Moll should be known by any of our former playhouse companions. But this I now perceive is a very ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... one at hoop; And four at fives! and five who stoop The marble taw to speed! And one that curvets in and out, Reining his fellow Cob about,— Would I were ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... cloth, in quite a perfect imitation of a real woodchuck. It was stuffed with something soft to make it round and fat, and its eyes were two glass beads sewn upon the face. A big boy woodchuck wore knickerbockers and a Tam o' Shanter cap and rolled a hoop; and there were several smaller boy and girl woodchucks, dressed quite as absurdly, who followed after their mother ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... and he was a hobo because he liked the trade. He had been stealing a ride and he had slipped—and when he woke up we had him and he hadn't his leg. And if some people knew how to be obliging they'd make a noise like a hoop and roll away, so's other people could pound their ear in peace, like that big stiff of a doctor ordered ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... meanwhile the household had come back from the hay-field, and a woman's clear voice could be heard outside calling to the maids to make haste: "Quick, get your hoop and pails, it'll soon be sunset, and this year the fold's[5] rather far off. We must just milk the cows in the evening. Where's your wooden-platter, girl? Go and get it at once. Now be as quick as you can, I must just go and have look at the children." ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... ken, that through the smoke of war discerned the coming evil; how diligent the patriot's hand, that amidst awful responsibilities reached futureward to avert it! By almost a miracle the weak Confederation, "a barrel without a hoop," was held together perforce of outside pressure; ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... upon the steerage ladder, and am afraid I cheered the combatants on. It was really a glorious row. They hammered each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use hoop-iron knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few of the benches, and wrecked the mess table, but so far as I noticed the only one seriously hurt was a little chap who was ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... inconceivable speed in a circle that enclosed the group of planes. Again and again it whipped around them, while the planes, by comparison, were motionless. Its orbit was flat with the ground: then tilting, more yet, it made a last circle that stood like a hoop in the air. And behind it as it circled it left a faint trace of vapor. Nebulous!—milky in the moonlight!—but the ship had built a sphere, a great globe of the gas, and within it, like rats in a cage, the planes of the 91st Squadron ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown And unnamed, widens on into desolate lands. While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible hands Dismantled and rent; and reveal'd, through a loop In the breach'd dark, the blemish'd and half-broken hoop Of the moon, which soon silently sank; and anon The whole supernatural pageant was gone. The wide night, discomforted, conscious of loss, Darken'd round him. One object alone—that gray cross— Glimmer'd faint on the dark. Gazing up, he descried, Through the void air, its desolate ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... will bet you my head against your own - the longest odds I can imagine - that with honesty for my spring-board, I leap through history like a paper hoop, and come out among ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... 'twas worth its weight in gold! One washing-eve, the Dame, to rise at four, Sought early rest, and, capped and gowned, did droop Fast as a church, to judge from nasal snore, That broke the silence with a hoarse hor-hoop: When all at once with fitful start she woke; For that same tinkling Dutchman on the stair Had told the hour of four with clattering stroke, And waked the sleeper ere she was aware. "Odd drat the clock!" she sighed; but, knowing well The cackling thing struck two at least a-head, She turned; ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... the beat of drums is unheard as the troops march through the city. It was the regular "blump-blump" of military boots past my window which possibly aroused me into activity, although the companies crossing from station to cantonment no longer turn the head of the small boy as he rolls his hoop along the Champs lyses. This troubles me, and I always go to the curb to watch them when ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... all these hoops with a netting, the total length of which was about twenty-five feet. They also faced each hoop with a netting, leaving an aperture large enough for the ducts to enter. It was long and tedious work to make the netting, as this was done by cutting the hide of an elk and the hide of a mule deer into strips and plaiting ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... from somewhere on Parade, there came the clear note of a bugle, which seemed to draw the attention of all. We could see, ascending the great flagstaff at the end of its halyard, the broad folds of the flag. Following this was hoisted a hoop or rim of torches, which paused in such position that the folds of the flag were well illuminated. A moment of silence came at that, and then a clapping of hands from all about the Parade as the banner floated out, and the voices of men, deep throated, greeting the flag. Again the ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... for the Rose Minuet. First come ten little girls walking two and two. They wear bodices and overdresses of the very palest pink, flowered with deep-pink roses. Their fichus and petticoats are white. Each couple carries between them a half-hoop of pink roses. When they come to a halt the rose hoops, held high, form a rose bower through which the rose-dancers approach. They are maids of the court, who wear rose-pink bodices and overdresses over white. Wreaths of tiny pink rosebuds on their powdered ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... "'Ah,' cried Father Hoop, 'be good enough to leave me out, if you please. I have been too uncomfortable the first time to have any wish to come back. If they would give me an immortality of bliss for a single day ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... look aloft. The Lunardi was transformed: every inch of it frosted as with silver. All the ropes and cords ran with silver too, or liquid mercury. And in the midst of this sparkling cage, a little below the hoop, and five feet at least above reach, dangled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... into private hands by grant of Charles II. The lawyers bought it from the heir of the first grantee, and since 1733 have enjoyed the Inn rent-free. The opening into Holborn was made on the purchase by the society, in 1594, of the Hart on the Hoop, which then belonged to Fulwood, whose name is commemorated by Fulwood's Rents, now nearly wiped out by a station of the ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... size, though, one has to be careful. One cannot decide lightly upon a croquet-lawn here, an orchard there, and a rockery in the corner; one has to go all out for the one particular thing, whether it is the last hoop and the stick of a croquet-lawn, a mulberry-tree, or an herbaceous border. Which do we want most—a fruit garden, a flower garden, or a water garden? Sometimes I think fondly of a water garden, with a few perennial ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... 'em later, just as we get gray hairs—sign of old age, you know. And he outgrows the exaggerated extremities. In a few months he'll be the prettiest thing you ever saw. You must teach him to stand on his head, jump through a hoop, tell fortunes and pick out the prettiest lady in the audience, and I'll get you a position with a circus when we go to America. You'd be known on the bills as the Royal Izor of the Foofops and her trained leopard, the ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... became an institution, though with some variation in the observers thereof, owing to the exigencies of calls, rides, and Ermine Williams's drive, which Lady Temple took care should happen at least twice a week. The most constant votaries of the mallet and hoop were, of course, the two elder boys, the next pair being distant worshippers only now and then admitted by special favour, but the ardour of their mother even exceeded that of Bessie Keith, and it was always a disappointment to her if she were prevented ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a body composed of a single piece of vellum stretched like a drum-head over a wooden or metal hoop to ensure the requisite degree of resonance; the parchment may be tightened or slackened by means of a series of screws disposed round the circumference of the hoop. Attached to the body, which has ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... opens a black hair bag and I slips the crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it was—five pound weight, like a hoop ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling

... bicycle against a ficus-covered post and crossed the verandah, a little surprised at the silence, for she was accustomed on her morning visits to being run into by Max on the red tricycle and to find little girls everywhere swinging, skipping, hoop-bowling, ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... with his bow, as God would. And to say that it is fat venison I be bold. But dressed it must be at once in all the haste, That old father Isaac may have his repast. Then without delay Esau shall blessed be, Then, faith, cock-on-hoop, all is ours! then, who but he? But I must in, that it may be dressed in time likely, And I trow ye shall see it made ready ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley

... a cold, and after school I was just going to bowl my hoop when Orris said to mamma it rained, and ma said she couldn't think of my going out in the rain, and so I couldn't go. After that Orris called me to come into her room, and gave me a fourpenny piece and two pictures, so ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow

... stumpier than the old one. The new piece is often of a different color from the rest of the body and {99} greatly resembles a "horn," being conical and pointed, and has thus given rise to another equally silly fable, viz., that of the horn snake, or hoop snake, which is said to have a sting in its tail and to be deadly poisonous. The lizards are all perfectly harmless, except the sluggish Gila monster (pronounced Heela, named from the Gila River in Arizona) which lives ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... letter to his cousin, under cover, to show him he was really going to clear his estate, but begged him to return it immediately and lend him 50 pounds. The accommodating cousin sent him 50 pounds, to aid him in wooing his heiress. He bought her a hoop ring, apologized for its small value, and expressed his regret that all he could offer her was on as small a scale, except ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... the Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol. iv. p. 266:—"Formula 12. He who shall labour under the disease of watery (or blood-shot) eyes, let him pluck the herb Millefolium up by the roots, and of it make a hoop, and look through it, saying three times, 'Excicumacriosos;' and let him as often move the hoop to his mouth, and spit through the middle of it, and then plant the herb again." "I divide," observes Pictet, "the formula thus: exci cuma criosos, and translate it, 'See the form ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... till about 4. In the interim, I heard some particulars, what these maids would testify; which testimony had I received before I had parted with him, I would not have parted with him for any consideration. But when I came thither in the afternoon, I heard col. Turner was arrested, and was then at the Hoop-tavern with the officers. I sent immediately the Marshal and his men to bring him to me. The officers and he came; and then col. Turner told me, I had brought all these things, but the officers prevented me; I was a very unfortunate man: Give ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... blanket wrapped about it, and the legs bent under and tied together. If a warrior, he is painted, and his pipe, ornaments, and warlike appendages are deposited with him. The grave is then covered with canes tied to a hoop round the top of the hole, then a firm layer of clay, sufficient to support the weight of a man. The relations howl loudly and mourn publicly for four days. If the deceased has been a man of eminent character, ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... had cost four dollars, useless. We were all in dismay. Just at that time Old Wittals happened to pass, on his way to Peterborough. He very good-naturedly offered to get the kettle repaired for us; which, he said, could be easily done by a rivet and an iron hoop. But where was the money to come from? I thought awhile. Katie had a magnificent coral and bells, the gift of her godfather; I asked the dear child if she would give it to buy another kettle for Mr. T—-. She said, "I would give ten times as much to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... have been mighty cock-a-hoop, but their joy is a good deal damped within the last twelve hours, for it is now universally believed that Althorp will be prevailed upon to remain, and will himself be at the head of the Government. His popularity is so great in the House of Commons, and there is such a dread of a dissolution, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... over and capsized him head foremost into the wind sail which was let down through the skylight into the little well cabin of the schooner. It so happened that there was a bucket full of Spanish brown paint standing on the table in the cabin, right below the hoop of the canvass funnel, and into it plopped the august pate of Paul Gelid, esquire. Bang had, in the meantime, caught him by the heels, and with the assistance of Pearl, the handsome negro formerly noticed, who, from his ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... now excessive long; and for the hoops, if you COULD but see them—stap my vitals, my dear, but there was a lady at Warwick's Assembly (she came in one of my Lord's coaches) who had a hoop as big as a tent: you might have dined under it comfortably;—ha! ha! ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... circle, hoop; grommet, gimmal, terret, manilla, lute; annulation, annulet. Associated Words: annular, annularity, annulate, signet, dactyliology, dactylioglyphy, dactylioglyph, cameo, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... also I saw the pot turn itself over, and throw down all the water. Again, we saw a tray with wool leap up and down, and throw the wool out, and so many times, and saw nobody meddle with it. Again, a tub his hoop fly off of itself and the tub turn over, and nobody near it. Again, the woollen wheel turned upside down, and stood up on its end, and a spade set on it; Steph. Greenleafe saw it, and myself and my wife. Again, my rope-tools fell down upon the ground before ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife: 'Love me and leave me not.'" (Merchant of Venice, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley

... I, with five natives, to pursue them, with orders to proceed as far as the Falls, if necessary. On the 11th, having ascended the river to a place called Oak Point, we overtook the schooner lying at anchor, while Mr. Stuart was taking in a load of staves and hoop-poles. Mr. Farnham joined our party, as well as one of the hands, and thus reinforced, we pursued our way, journeying day and night, and stopping at every Indian village, to make inquiries and offer a reward for the apprehension of our runaways. Having reached ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... gates are meant to be opened, whereas they are really meant to be kept shut. What actually happens when you want to open one is that you plunge halfway through a deep quagmire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various

... Jerry buy a paper? No? Well, you go up to Ellis's some day when the mornin' papers are put out for sale and watch him. He'll drive up to the door with that old hoopskirt of a horse of his—that's what the critter looks like, one of them old-fashioned hoop-skirts; there was nothin' to them but framework and a hollow inside, and that's all there is to that horse.—Well, Jerry he'll drive up and come in to the paper counter, his eyes shinin' and his nerves all keyed up and one hand shoved down into his britches pocket. ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln

... a European, would not be thought sufficiently perfect for the most ordinary purposes. They are rudely and inartificially formed by the goldsmith (pandei) from any old iron he can procure. When you engage one of them to execute a piece of work his first request is usually for a piece of iron hoop to make his wire-drawing instrument; an old hammer head, stuck in a block, serves for an anvil; and I have seen a pair of compasses composed of two old nails tied together at one end. The gold is melted in a piece of a ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... was to fall into the pond on the Common. She was driving hoop down the hill, and went so fast she couldn't stop herself; so splashed into the water, hoop and all. How dreadful it was to feel the cold waves go over her head, shutting out the sun and air! The ground was gone, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... a piece of a flat bar of the ordinary size from the forge hammer, and bent around the ankle, the ends meeting, and forming a hoop of about the diameter of the leg. There was one or more strings attached to the iron and extending up around his neck, evidently so to suspend it as to prevent its galling by its weight when at work, yet it had galled or griped till the leg had swollen out beyond the iron and inflamed and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... bright as a silver dollar. In the book we can smell the sawdust, hear the flapping of the big white canvas and the roaring of the lions, and listen to the merry "hoop la!" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... promontory hill, the calaboose stands all day with doors and window shutters open to the trade. On my first visit a dog was the only guardian visible. He, indeed, rose with an attitude so menacing that I was glad to lay hands on an old barrel-hoop; and I think the weapon must have been familiar, for the champion instantly retreated, and as I wandered round the court and through the building, I could see him, with a couple of companions, humbly dodging me about the corners. The prisoners' dormitory ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Northern demi-god who drank unwittingly at the ocean from a horn and could not empty it, but nevertheless caused the ebb of the sea, so our toper, if he cannot contain the cask, will bring it down to the third hoop if time and credit will but serve. It would require a ganger's staff to measure his capacity—in fact, the limit of the labourer's liquor-power, especially in summer, has never yet been reached. A man will lie on his back in the harvest field, under a hedge sweet with ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... replied the sailor, "I told you before as how I've got a sweetheart, as true a hearted girl as ever swung in canvas. What thof she may have started a hoop in rolling, that signifies nothing; I'll warrant ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... and by night had completed a walled village, containing a dwelling-house for the captain, another for his officers, a cooper's shop, hospital, bake-house, guard-house, and a shed for the sentinel to walk under. For their services the men received old nails, bits of iron hoop, and other metal scraps, with which they were highly delighted. The Americans were then living on the terms of the most perfect friendship with the natives. Many of the jackies had been taken into the families of the islanders, and all had formed most ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... stowed away in an old chest of drawers in the little garret-room where Charlie slept. She found there a head of Washington; one of Dr. Blair; a view of Boston; and an old French print called L'Ete, representing a shepherdess making hay in high-heeled shoes and a hoop; there were copies of these on bits of paper of all sizes, done with the pen or lead-pencil; and lastly, a number of odd-looking sketches of Charlie's own invention. The sight of these labours of art, was far from giving Miss Patsey pleasure, although ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... length, and seven in circumference, which hold about two hundred pounds weight, are most commonly used in Europe: but any size that best suits may be made use of. To bag hops, a hole is made through the floor of a loft, large enough for a man to pass through with ease. The bag must be fastened to a hoop, larger than the hole, that the floor may serve to support the bag; for the convenience of handling the bags, some hops should be tied up in each corner of the bag, to serve as handles. The hops should be gradually thrown into the bag, and trod down continually, ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... our canvas had gone long before. But Captain Oudouse had on the Petite Jeanne something I had never before seen on a South Sea schooner—a sea-anchor. It was a conical canvas bag, the mouth of which was kept open by a huge hoop of iron. The sea-anchor was bridled something like a kite, so that it bit into the water as a kite bites into the air, but with a difference. The sea-anchor remained just under the surface of the ocean in a perpendicular ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... "Captain Lee could make that fellow look like an ante bellum picnic in a thunderstorm, all hoop skirts and bombazine, before Count Zeppelin could get it under the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... with which precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at least—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourself, we know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas, is let down, the curtain drawn up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring, the orange-peel cleared away, and the sawdust shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete circle, we feel as much enlivened as the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... Citadel, ceiling, saloon, academy, organ, exhibition-house, library, Cornice, trellis, pilaster, balcony, window, turret, porch, Hoe, rake, pitchfork, pencil, wagon, staff, saw, jack-plane, mallet, wedge, rounce, Chair, tub, hoop, table, wicket, vane, sash, floor, Work-box, chest, string'd instrument, boat, frame, and what not, Capitols of States, and capitol of the nation of States, Long stately rows in avenues, hospitals for orphans or for the poor or sick, Manhattan steamboats and clippers taking the ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... ridge had caused the floes to sink on either side and there were pools of water there. A pioneer party with picks and shovels had to build a snow-causeway before we could get all our possessions across. By 8 p.m. the camp had been pitched again. We had two pole- tents and three hoop-tents. I took charge of the small pole-tent, No. 1, with Hudson, Hurley, and James as companions; Wild had the small hoop-tent, No. 2, with Wordie, McNeish, and McIlroy. These hoop-tents are very easily shifted and set up. The eight forward hands had the large ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton

... off my finger that had been my mother's—I believe it had served this same purpose at the wedding of her grandmother—and set the thin little hoop of gold upon the third finger of Marie's left hand. I ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator, and great general Of trotting 'paritors: O my little heart! And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop! What! I love! I sue, I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch'd that it may still go right! Nay, to be perjur'd, ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... with stone-coal cinders, within an inch of the top, packing them very hard to make them weigh heavy. They then put a false head one inch from the top, upon which they put two hundred copper cents. They then placed another head upon that, confining it tight with a hoop. After preparing it, they rolled it into the market-house where they had met. He had paid them the one hundred and sixty-five dollars for the cinders, which he supposed to be the most beautiful bogus, and when he lifted the keg he was satisfied all was right; and how could he doubt ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... heard the faint swish of feminine movement. She came and stood demurely at the top of the wide steps, a little hoop overflowing soft, white embroidered stuff ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... with whip and top and drum, The girl with hoop and doll, And men with lands and houses, ask The question ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... assistance of the venerable housekeeper, who is the family chronicler, prompted occasionally by Master Simon. There is the progress of a fine lady, for instance, through a variety of portraits. One represents her as a little girl, with a long waist and hoop, holding a kitten in her arms, and ogling the spectator out of the corners of her eyes, as if she could not turn her head. In another, we find her in the freshness of youthful beauty, when she was a celebrated belle, and so hard-hearted ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... Circularity — N. circularity, roundness; rotundity &c 249. circle, circlet, ring, areola, hoop, roundlet^, annulus, annulet^, bracelet, armlet; ringlet; eye, loop, wheel; cycle, orb, orbit, rundle, zone, belt, cordon, band; contrate wheel^, crown wheel; hub; nave; sash, girdle, cestus^, cincture, baldric, fillet, fascia, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... methods, and the question of preference depends upon the location of the vines, the space they may occupy, and the taste of the cultivator. There are four principal systems—the cane or renewal system, spur system, fan-training, and spiral or hoop training. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... his fondness for his father and mother and his sister that his heart was graduated early for any demand. The most unmusical people know that Mozart stands unrivalled among infant prodigies, that he was a pocket-Paderewski, at a period when most children cannot even trundle a hoop, and that he was deep in composition before the usual child is out of kilts. Everybody has seen the pictures of the littler Mozart and his little sister perched like robins on a piano stool and giving a concert before crowned heads, with the assistance ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... may imitate such a vortex by drawing the bowl of a spoon quickly through a cup of water. But in a limitless medium the vortex whirl must always be a closed ring, which may take the simple form of a hoop or circle, or which may be indefinitely contorted, looped, or, so to speak, knotted. Whether simple or contorted, this endless chain of whirling matter (the particles revolving about the axis of the loop as the particles of a string revolve when the string is rolled between the fingers) ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... the morning we took our loads of moose flesh, and set out to return to our wigwams. We had not travelled far before my moose-skin coat (which was the only garment I had on my back, and the hair chiefly worn off) was frozen stiff round my knees, like a hoop, as were my snow-shoes and shoe clouts to my feet. Thus I marched the whole day without fire or food. At first I was in great pain, then my flesh became numb, and at times I felt extremely sick and thought I could not travel one foot farther; ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... easiest and surest why of acquiring facts is to learn them in groups, in systems, and systematized knowledge is science. You can very often carry two facts fastened together more easily than one by itself, as a housemaid can carry two pails of water with a hoop more easily than one without it. You can remember a man's face, made up of many features, better than you can his nose or his mouth or his eye-brow. Scores of proverbs show you that you can remember two lines that rhyme better than one without ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... There is no such thing as a "hoop-snake" save in the vivid imaginations of a very ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... those tricycles," she continued in high-pitched soliloquy. "The nice thing about them is that they don't realise a bit how clever and educational they are. It would be dreadful to have them putting on airs, wouldn't it? And yet I suppose the knowledge of being able to jump through a hoop better than any other wolf would justify a certain amount ...
— When William Came • Saki

... disfigured by the universal adoption of jewelled nose-rings; their lips full, but not thick or coarse; their heads small, and exquisitely set on long, slender throats; their ears small, but much dragged out of shape by the wearing of two or three hoop-earrings in each; and their glossy, wavy, black hair, which grows classically low on the forehead, is gathered into a Grecian knot at the back. Their clothing, or rather drapery, is a mystery, for it covers and drapes perfectly, yet has no make, far less fit, and leaves every graceful movement ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... the rural wedding had all skedaddled—to borrow a Greek word—into the woods, in dire confusion, tearing dresses, pulling down 'back hair,' hitching hoop skirts, and tumbling over blackberry vines—but each intent on increasing the distance from the mad cow. Ann Harriet was not so fortunate; her size prevented her running, and a fiery peony on her bosom attracted the animal's attention, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... ground, where a tribe of gipsies have pitched their camp. Three of the vans are time-stained and travel-worn, with dull red roofs; the fourth is brightly picked out with fresh yellow paint, and stands a marked object at the side. Orange-red beeches rise beyond them on the slope; two hoop-tents, or kibitkas, just large enough to creep into, are near the fires, where the women are cooking the gipsy's bouillon, that savoury stew of all things good: vegetables, meat, and scraps, and savouries, collected as it were in the stock-pot from twenty miles round. Hodge, the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... that it is necessary to go outside of the field of electricity to describe. It is undoubtedly understood by the reader that all sound is produced by vibrations, or rapid undulations, of the surrounding air. If a membrane of any kind is stretched across a hoop, and one talks against it, so to speak, the diaphragm or membrane will be shaken, will vibrate, with the movement of the air produced by the voice. If a cannon be fired all the windows rattle, and are often broken. A peal of thunder will cause the same jar and rattle of ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... underwent a change. When a friend had made me a present of it a year before I regarded it in the light of a toy and rather resented the gift as too juvenile. "I wonder he did not give me a kite or a hoop," I mentally reflected. Then I had found it useful among Italians, who are a trifling people and like playthings; but now that it had saved my life and sent a bullet through a man's heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt for it. Not again would ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... in a lonely spot where none can witness my discomfiture, a gruff, sarcastic "haw-haw" falls like a funeral knell on my ear, and a lanky "Hoosier" rides up on a diminutive pumpkin-colored mule that looks a veritable pygmy between his hoop-pole legs. It is but justice to explain that this latter incident did not occur ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... suggests nothing to Gray which every beholder does not equally think and feel. His supplication to father Thames, to tell him who drives the hoop or tosses the ball, is useless and puerile. Father Thames has no better means of knowing than himself[197] His epithet, "buxom health," is not elegant; he seems not to understand the word. Gray thought his language more poetical as it was more remote from common use; finding in Dryden ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... in a swallowtail coat of immaculate cut stroll by with his best girl. She was dressed in silk with full hoop-skirts, ruffles, ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... visit to treat a new harvest of patients. Their daily effort toward the monthly finishing of 40,000 garments permanently diminishes their powers of vision. Every thirty days a new set of girls appears with glasses. They wear them as they would an ornament of some kind, a necklace, bracelet or a hoop through the nose. ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... will not let the dog alone," replied Mark indignantly, as he drew nearer to the bed whereon the suffering little sister lay, with lacerated arm and burning brow. "To think of this dear child, as she was innocently trundling her hoop along the side-walk, being attacked by that savage brute, and her life so narrowly saved! Indeed, I'll not let it alone. I'll shoot it the first time I set eyes upon it, and the old hag had better not say anything to me after I have done it. Poor ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play. They allow no game which is played while sitting, neither the single die nor dice, nor chess, nor others like these. But they play with the ball, with the sack, with the hoop, with wrestling, with hurling at the stake. They say, moreover, that grinding poverty renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, insidious, vagabonds, liars, false witnesses, etc.; and that wealth makes them insolent, proud, ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells

... year's planting, the juice is clearer, and requires far less trouble to prepare and refine. Before another year came round, the boys made a pair of wooden rollers of eighteen inches in diameter. These were covered with strips of hoop iron, nailed lengthways upon them at short intervals from each other, thereby obtaining a better grip upon the canes, and preventing the wood from being bruised and grooved. These rollers were worked by a horse mill, which Mr. Hardy had ordered from ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... is! Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!" ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens

... known; and yet during those deluges did a young gipsy girl lie in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing over her but a piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel-rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at each end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same condition; yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... One million of us, then, die annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot, drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops, breaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46; the other 845 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... weather, and on Sunday such a glorious farewell sight of Table Mountain and my dear old Hottentot Hills, and of Kaap Goed Hoop itself. There was little enough wind till yesterday, when a fair southerly breeze sprang up, and we are rolling along merrily; and the fat old Camperdown DOES roll like an honest old 'wholesome' tub ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon



Words linked to "Hoop" :   hoop ash, cock-a-hoop, croquet equipment, carabiner, tire, nose ring, napkin ring, curtain ring, towel ring, collar, hoop snake, frame, snap ring, skeleton, rim, barrel, cask, hoop pine, basketball hoop, wicket, wagon wheel, underframe, hula-hoop, farthingale, ring, embroidery hoop, encircle, gird, karabiner, goal



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