Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Leaden   Listen
adjective
Leaden  adj.  
1.
Made of lead; of the nature of lead; as, a leaden ball.
2.
Like lead in color, etc.; as, a leaden sky.
3.
Heavy; dull; sluggish. "Leaden slumber."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Leaden" Quotes from Famous Books



... looking out blankly into the leaden wetness. It was just after five, and the rain poured. A curious depression settled quickly upon her, which was hardly fully accounted for as "missing Hugo already."... Why? Who upon earth had less cause for depression than she? ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... of this phrase falling on her thought like a leaden bullet on a silver plate, Emma, shuddering, raised her head in order to find out what he meant to say; and they looked at the other in silence, almost amazed to see each other, so far sundered were they by their inner thoughts. ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... "gout struck in" on Sunday, 8th November, 1674, and was buried, near his father, in the chancel of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. The funeral was attended, Toland says, "by all his learned and great friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the vulgar." The disgusting profanation of the leaden coffin, and dispersion of the poet's bones by the parochial authorities, during the repair of the church in August, 1790, has been denied, but it is to be feared the ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... and, in fact, with his pamphlet against Chateaubriand he well-nigh annihilated that Don Quixote of Legitimacy, who sat so pathetically on his winged Rosinante, whose sword was more shining than sharp, and who shot only with costly pearls instead of good, piercing, leaden bullets. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... he, laughing, "we shall go on playing together the same as ever, sha'n't we? I shall bring my leaden soldiers, and you'll bring your dolls ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... rank and honors of King of England. He caused a formal diploma to be made out to this effect. The diploma was elegantly executed, signed with the cross, according to the pontifical custom, and sealed with a round leaden seal.[J] ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... good-natured. There lingers still the habit of 'leading' or plombe-ing a clumsy, troublesome relic of old times. Such small articles as hat-cases, hand-bags, etc., are subjected to it; an officer devoted to the duty comes with a huge pair of 'pincers' with some neat little leaden discs, which he squeezes on the strings which have tied ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... cap. 2. confesseth as much of Quiriacus and Iulitta, declaring plainely that their acts are written either by fooles or heretikes, and in his annotations vpon the Romane Martyrologie 23. Aprill, he taketh vp Iacobus de Voragine for his leaden Legend of our English S. George, concluding in fine, that the picture of Saint George fighting with a Dragon is symbolicall, and not historicall. If the Scripture be true [ag]whatsoeuer is not of faith is sinne: then assuredly ...
— An Exposition of the Last Psalme • John Boys

... think of him as I think: he has an affectionate heart, a mind "sui generis"; his taste acts so as to appear like the unmechanic simplicity of an instinct; in brief, he is worth an hundred men of mere talents. Conversation with the latter tribe is like the use of leaden bells—one wearies by exercise. Lamb every now and then "irradiates", and the beam, though single and fine as a hair, yet is rich with colours, and I both see and feel it. In Bristol I was much with Davy, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... de Bienville, with 300 men, to traverse the vast wilderness lying from Detroit southeast to the Apalachian Mountains. Assuming this range as the limit of the British colonies, he directed that leaden plates, engraved with the arms of France, should be buried at particular places in the western country, to mark the territories of France, and that the chief of the expedition should endeavor to secure a promise from the Indians to exclude for the future all English traders. At the same time, ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... him just before he arrives at tent; very painful task indeed. Caught the two up just before tent door, and told him to stop a minute. Now God help me and him!—Thank God, it is over! Rude, cruel awakening! O the sorrow, the sorrow of it! Prayed with family, and left with heavy, leaden heart. ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... the obligation of the country to Sir PETER LAURIE—an obligation which we are happy to state will be duly acknowledged by the Common Council, that grateful body having already petitioned the Government for the waste leaden pipes preserved from the fire at the Tower, that a statue of Sir Peter may be cast from the metal, and placed in some convenient nook of the Mansion-House, where the Lord Mayor for the time being may, it is hoped, behold ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various

... a lodge within a park; The chamber walls depicted all around With portraiture of huntsman, hawk and hound, And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark, Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound; He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, Then writeth in a book like any clerk. He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song; and as I read I hear ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted in to wait for the sale to begin—something for which the weather was largely to blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling from a low and leaden sky—and with a solitary exception these few were ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... particular room in Neville's Court, which was occupied by Byron during his residence at college. The adventurer after getting out of this window has to climb a perpendicular wall, sustaining himself by a frail leaden spout. He has then to traverse the sloping roof of a long range of buildings, by moving carefully on his hands and knees, at the imminent risk of being precipitated fifty feet into the court beneath. When the library is gained, a stone parapet has to be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Leaden her limbs, for she could not stir them to go forward or to retire; miserably she stood there, swayed by fear and courage alternately, now rigid in bitter self-contempt, now shivering lest he fling open the door and find her there, and she see the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... perchance To slip—unknowing—from the realm of light? 'Tis well, if so it be,—if this delay Within the tomb be nothing but a flight Upon the wings of lightning into Hades,— If I be nearing even now the Styx! There roll the leaden billows on the shore; There silently old Charon plies his boat. Soon am I there! Then shall I seat myself Beside the ferry,—question every spirit, Each fleeting shadow from the land of life, As light of foot he nears the river ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... elder woman's profile is exactly that of Dante,—so much so that Maes speaks of her as the "Dantessa di S. Pietro." Her younger companion is, or rather was, of marvellous beauty, before Bernini draped her form with a leaden tunic. During my lifetime, this has been removed once, for the benefit of a Frenchman who was collecting materials for the life of della Porta; but I have not been able to obtain a copy of the photograph taken at the time. Formerly the statue was miscalled Truth, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... consideration to the two other considerations of elaborate vapidness and unfathomable extravagance, and you have three tolerably good arguments why a man with large discourse of reason, looking before and after, should be slow to fasten upon himself bonds which threaten to prove so leaden. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... promise doth redden The rim of our Stygian night; Our bondage is breaking—O blessed awaking To melody merry and bright! My heart, long o'erloaded and leaden, Now bounds to the blue like a bird; The shadow has shifted; with paean uplifted I hail ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... out the hull. Care must be taken in doing this not to cut away too much wood from one part, or to leave too much at another; a little more than half an inch of thickness may be left everywhere. Next, fix in the thwarts, or seats, as in the foregoing cut, attach a leaden keel, and ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... small country-houses, garden-walls, and high bamboo palisades shut off the view. The green hill crushed us with its towering height; the heavy, dark clouds lowering over our heads seemed like a leaden canopy confining us in this unknown spot; it really seemed as if the complete absence of perspective inclined one all the better to notice the details of this tiny corner, muddy and wet, of homely Japan, now lying before our eyes. The earth was very red. The grasses and wild flowers ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... world seen through rum-crazy eyes; then at last he awoke to find himself hatless, coatless, filthy, unshaved, blear-eyed, palsied. Not a cent of money was left, and so that day and night, in spite of the deadly nausea that beset him and the trembling weakness that hung like a leaden weight upon every limb, he walked all the thirty-eight miles home again to East Haven. He reached there about five o'clock, and in the still gray of the early dawning. Only a few people were stirring ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various

... Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... should seek its match; and that is, love Or nothing! Station—fortune—find their match In things resembling them. They are not love! Comes love (that subtle essence, without which Life were but leaden dulness!—weariness! A plodding trudger on a heavy road!) Comes it of title-deeds which fools may boast? Or coffers vilest hands may hold the keys of? Or that ethereal lamp that lights the eyes To shed the sparkling lustre o'er the face, Gives to the velvet skin its blushing glow, And burns ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... long time Deane and Terry stood voiceless, each leaden with a dull misery. The shock of his announcement had paled her and she stared hopelessly at him out of wide blue eyes, her full red lips aquiver at the hurt she read in the gray eyes ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... their necks money bags stamped with armorial designs. Thieves, to remind them of their sneaking trade, are repeatedly transformed from men into snakes, hissing and creeping. Hypocrites march in slow procession with faces painted and with leaden cloaks all glittering with gold on the outside. With such realism does Dante declare the nature of sin and ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... more dumb, leaden-footed minutes while Flora was putting on her hat and jacket, the Fynes without moving, without saying anything, saw these two leave ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... Infiltration of water had been observed in the roof of Sansovino's Loggetta where that roof joined the shaft of the Campanile. At this point a thin ledge of stone, let into the wall of the Campanile, projected over the junction between the leaden roof of the Loggetta and the shaft of the tower. In order to remedy the mischief of infiltration it was resolved to remove and replace this projecting ledge. To do this a chase was made in the wall of the Campanile, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... the mare stop, prick her ears under the hammering of unspurred heels, spin round, bucking as she spun, and toss her rider like a bull. There in the moonlight he lay like lead, with leaden face upturned to the shuddering youngster in ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... that instead of pills of starch he employs microscopic sugarplums, with the five' million billion trillionth part of a suspicion of aconite or pulsatilla, and then publishes his successful cases, through the leaden lips of the press, or the living ones of his female acquaintances,—does that make the impression a less erroneous one? But so it is that in Homoeopathic works and journals and gossip one can never, or next to never, find anything but successful cases, which might do very well as a proof of superior ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Nearer now to the dark brown earth the band of his brothers turned, And on snowy aprons and collars of blue the merry sunbeams burned, I, like a suddenly petrified stone, stood mid the crowd that day, And with ears which seemed to be leaden, I ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... to reply, she stood leaning on her trailing-pole and looking over his shoulder as he repitched his sketching easel, squeezed the colours from the leaden tubes, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... it was at a great distance, we fired, and sent them leaden bullets for wooden arrows, following our shot full gallop, to fall in among them sword in hand—for so our bold Scot that led us directed. He was, indeed, but a merchant, but he behaved with such vigour and bravery on this occasion, and yet with such cool courage too, that I never saw any ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... two brothers and their murdered man—" Joan's heart fell like a leaden weight and the color dropped from her face. In an instant she was back in Pierre's room and the white night circled her in great silence and she was going over the story of her love and Pierre's—their love, their beautiful, grave, simple love that had ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... breathe. His medical attendants could not conceive what occasioned this accident and retarded his cure. He died almost in the arms of the Dauphin, who went every day to see him. The singularity of his disease determined the surgeons to open the body, and they found, in his chest, part of the leaden syringe with which decoctions had, as was usual, been injected into the part in a state of suppuration. The surgeon, who committed this act of negligence, took care not to boast of his feat, and his patient was the victim. This incident was much talked of by the King, who related ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... Only the sliding of the wave Beneath the plank, and feel so near A cold and lonely grave, A restless grave, where thou shalt lie Even in death unquietly? Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark, 60 Lean over the side and see The leaden eye of the sidelong shark Upturned patiently, Ever waiting there for thee: Look down and see those shapeless forms, Which ever keep their dreamless sleep Far down within the gloomy deep, And only stir themselves in storms, Rising ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... at his watch. It was thirty minutes past nine. "It's church service," he said. "I can see them carrying out the chaplain's reading-desk on the Indiana." The press-boat pushed her way nearer into the circle of battleships until their leaden-hued hulls towered high above her. On the deck of each, the ship's company stood, ranged in motionless ranks. The calm of a Sabbath morning hung about them, the sun fell upon them like a benediction, and so still was the air that those on the press-boat could ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... in the doorway, supporting himself with his free hand, his eyes fixed on space, and a leaden color spreading over ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... If small leaden bullets, or large goose shot, be mixed with peas, and the whole well shaken in a bushel, the shot will separate from the peas, and will take its place at the bottom of the bushel; forcing by its greater weight the peas which ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... darken, tone down. Adj. dim, dull, lackluster, dingy, darkish, shorn of its beams, dark 421. faint, shadowed forth; glassy; cloudy; misty &c (opaque) 426; blear; muggy^, fuliginous^; nebulous, nebular; obnubilated^, overcast, crepuscular, muddy, lurid, leaden, dun, dirty; looming &c v.. pale &c (colorless) 429; confused ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and darken all your life. You can never be a girl again. The remembrance of all you have suffered, and of the life you have wrecked, will haunt your dreams, and make you old before your time. You feel it now, but you'll feel it more and more, like a leaden weight pressing upon you, crushing out ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... heavy rain fell, deluging the earth and drenching such grass as the winter had left, covering with its faded tussocks the sweep of the park lands. The sky was heavy with leaden clouds from which the water fell in sweeping dashes. Having walked for some time, the two stopped before the wide bay window at the east end of the Long Gallery and watched the deluge for a space, marking how the drops splashed upon the terrace, ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... my handkerchief, and pulled out several little articles, such as fine worked baskets, shells, etcetera, and, among the rest, a pound of tea in a leaden canister. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... in the secret stronghold of Chinese political thought, a Bastille has been overthrown and the ground left clear for the development of individualism and personal responsibility in a way which was impossible under the leaden formulae of the greatest of the Chinese sages. In defining the relationship which must exist between the Central Government and the provinces even more formidable difficulties have been encountered, the apostles of decentralization and the advocates ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... who kill for hire? Will ye to your homes retire? Look behind you!—they're afire! And, before you, see Who have done it! From the vale On they come!—and will ye quail? Leaden rain and iron hail Let ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... first gleam of day appeared from beneath a dark canopy of clouds, and shone across the leaden water, its light fell on the royals and topgallant sails of a large ship, with studden sails alow and aloft, running before the wind directly for the American coast. Smoothly as she glided on, and rapidly as she ran through the water, in all the pride of symmetrical beauty, she was in a very critical ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... workshop which bristles with black objects. In the middle of the dark bodies of implements hanging from walls and ceiling is the metallic Brisbille, with leaden hands, his dark apron rainbowed with file-dust,—dirty on principle, because of his ideas, this being Sunday. He is sober, and his face still unkindled, but he is waiting impatiently for the church-going bell to begin, so that he may go and drink, ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... hailstorm. The Chilian ensign in the stern of Douglas's launch was literally ripped from its staff, proving that, had the Bolivians but depressed their rifle muzzles a trifle more, every man in the steamer's well would have been hit by the leaden shower. Lieutenant Alcerrerez, who was sitting next to Douglas, emitted a curious little cough, turned half round, and fell forward over the lad's knees, while several men in the launch sprang convulsively to their feet, only to drop down again ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... since the preceding day, and the sirocco-wind which blows over from the coast of Africa, filled the streets with clouds of dust, which made walking very unpleasant. The clear blue sky had vanished, and a leaden cloud hung low on the Mediterranean, hiding the shores of Corsica and the rooky ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... moment the legions were stripped for the march, many of them were without proper ammunition. Various arms were in use, and the same cartridge did not lit them all. Eager groups could be seen all through the brigades filing down the leaden end of the cartridge to make their weapons effective, until a proper supply could be obtained. This was promised at Fairfax Station, or Centreville, where the army's supplies were to be sent. So, in spite of the high hopes and feverish ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... we went there to camp, more than three months after the battle, presented a repulsive sight. The enactment of that terrible conflict, when leaden rain fell thick and fast around us, when the dying were gasping in the last agonies of death, when wounded and dead men covered the gory field, and the terrible thought of immediate danger crowded our minds,—produced not half the emotions of human misery that were ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... King Arthur rode to the place where Lucius lay dead, and round him the kings of Egypt and Ethiopia, and seventeen other kings, with sixty Roman senators, all noble men. All these he ordered to be carefully embalmed with aromatic gums, and laid in leaden coffins, covered with their shields and arms and banners. Then calling for three senators who were taken prisoners, he said to them, "As the ransom of your lives, I will that ye take these dead bodies and carry them to Rome, and there present them for me, with these letters saying I will myself ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... vast deal of activity out to interest, and receives a large measure of nervous derangement in return. Either he absents himself entirely from all fellowship, and lives a recluse in a garret, with carpet slippers and a leaden inkpot; or he comes among people swiftly and bitterly, in a contraction of his whole nervous system, to discharge some temper before he returns to work. I do not care how much or how well he works, this fellow is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... house and move into a hired lodging. That was a strange contrast for me. School had broadened: I gazed out of clear windows with wide frames of fir wood, instead of trying my curious eyes on green glass bottle panes with dirty leaden rims; and the daylight, which at Susanna's always commenced later and stopped earlier than it should, now came into its full rights. I sat at a comfortable table with a desk and an ink bottle; the odor of fresh wood and paint, which still has some charm for me, threw me into a sort ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... Burgundy. In 1435 he died himself on the 14th of September, "die exaltacionis Sancte Crucis" as the chapterhouse entries record, in the same Chateau of Rouen where Jeanne d'Arc had suffered her last imprisonment. His body was embalmed and buried in a leaden coffin in the choir of Rouen Cathedral by the side of the dukes of Normandy and the English kings his ancestors, beneath ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... children might look across an unknown sea, seeing in fancy its stately galleons, its tall treasure ships, its white-winged pleasure craft, its wondrous, palm-fringed islands, where summer abode always; but they had no eyes for leaden skies and sullen shouldering swells spouting on hidden reefs, the great, gray bergs fog-hidden in the ship track, the drifting derelicts whose hopes were once as fair as their own. For God has mercifully arranged that these things ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... brown face hardened to a leaden mask. A bitter brine crusted the fisher's cheek — "Almighty God, one thing alone I ask, Show me a task, a task!" The hard cup of the sky ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet

... Quarrier, and crack! the match was off! Girl mad as a hornet, but staggered, has no explanation to offer; man frozen stiff with rage, mute as an iceberg. Then, zip! Enter Beverly Plank—the girl's rescuer at a pinch—her preserver, the saviour of her "face," the big, highly coloured, leaden-eyed deus ex machina. Would she take fifty cents on the dollar? Would she? to buy herself a new "face"? And put it all over Quarrier? And live happy ever after? Would she? Oh, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... The first is in the Academy Notes, which I send you. The second is at least as fine. [Sketch.] The landscape effect is the opal-like sky and bright light full of moisture after rain—heavy clouds hang above—the mountains are a leaden blue—and the sky of all exquisite pale shades of bright colour. Down the wet moor road comes the group. Two very tall, dark-eyed Connaught "boys"—one with a set face and his hands in his pockets looking straight out of the picture—the other with ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden

... of my discourse has been; but the preachers seemed to have learned that craft to which you advise me, for they observing that the world would not willingly suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given, have fitted His doctrine as if it had been a leaden rule, to their lives, that so some way or other they might agree with one another. But I see no other effect of this compliance except it be that men become more secure in their wickedness by it. And this is all the success that I can have in a Court, for I must ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... of a winter evening was settling over a white land and a leaden sea. A mist of sliding snow increased the gloom and blotted out the vessels ahead and astern as the line of patrol boats left the comparative warmth and security of one of the largest northern harbours for twelve hours in the bitter frost on ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife

... not been prohibited by statute at that time in Wyoming, though its most profitable side diversions—such as dropping paralyzing poisons in a man's drink, snatching his money and clearing out with it, cracking him on the head with a leaden billet, or standing him up at the point of a pistol and rifling him—were, as now, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... appearance in public life was at a big cantonment in Upper India, and he was then telling fortunes with the help of three leaden dice, a very dirty old cloth, and a little tin box of opium pills. He told better fortunes when he was allowed half a bottle of whisky; but the things which he invented on the opium were quite worth the money. He was in reduced circumstances. Among other ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... months ago, utterly friendless and forsaken!" My Conscience could no longer bear up under the weight of my sufferings, but tumbled headlong from his high perch and struck the floor with a dull, leaden thump. He lay there writhing with pain and quaking with apprehension, but straining every muscle in frantic efforts to get up. In a fever of expectancy I sprang to the door, locked it, placed my back against it, and bent a watchful gaze upon my struggling master. Already my fingers ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... first, to make the nation stare, Folly her painted mask display'd, Schiller sublimely mad was there, And Kotz'bue lent his leaden aid. Gigantic pair! their lofty soul Disdaining reason's weak control, On changeful Britain sped the blow, Who, thoughtless of her own, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... at the taunt, replied threateningly, "Thine arrows may strike all things else, Apollo, but mine shall strike thee." So saying he drew from his quiver two arrows, one of gold, to excite love, and one of lead, to repel it. With the golden one he shot Apollo through the heart, with the leaden he shot the nymph Daphne. So Apollo became nearly mad with love for Daphne, but the maid fled from him with horror. He pursued her, and when he was close upon her, she ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... had thought to leave forever, that day when Toby had not come for her. She went out twenty times every morning, and oftener as it wore on towards evening, to look at his closed stand, always with a choking hope in her heart, always to drag leaden feet back into the restaurant. Several times, her breath failing for shame, she approached Italians in the street, or where there was one to be found at a stand of any sort she stopped and made a purchase, and asked for some word ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... have been, the word in mediaeval Latin seems always to mean some kind of crossbow. The heavier crossbows were wound up by various aids, such as winches, ratchets, etc. They discharged stone shot, leaden bullets, and short, square-shafted arrows called quarrels, and these with such force we are told as to pierce a six-inch post (?). But they were worked so slowly in the field that they were no match for the long-bow, which ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... says he, to the founder, and with the money arising from the product, buy a measure of corn. He examined the vessel on all sides, and shook it, to see if what was within made any noise, and heard nothing. This circumstance, with the impression of the seal upon the leaden cover, made him to think there was something precious in it. To try this, he took a knife, and opened it with very little labour; he presently turned the mouth downward; but nothing came out, which surprised him extremely. He set it before him, and, while he looked upon it attentively, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... angry and giving vent to what was in my heart. If I had not employed this infallible remedy, the annoyance which this note caused me would have disturbed my nerves all night, and when I do not sleep my complexion is more leaden than usual and I have ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... water placed in different parts of a ship, where a constant supply may be required. Also furnished with a leaden pipe, which goes through the ship's side, whereby it is occasionally filled with sea-water, and which is thence pumped up to wash ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... web fell into her lap, and deep dissatisfaction spread its sombre leaden banners over ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... frequently, thunder subdued itself. For a time the rain fell thick and leaden, but after an hour it thinned and grew silver. Presently it ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... passed through his brain, when a leaden messenger, intended to pass through it, carried his cap off his head, and the fire that had discharged it almost blinded him. Bigfoot, the chief of the savages, had wriggled himself, snake-fashion, up to the stockade unseen, and while Roaring Bull was meditating what was best to be done, he had ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... long lowered above the height on which Wolf's Crag is situated, and which now, as it advanced, spread itself in darker and denser folds both over land and sea, hiding the distant objects and obscuring those which were nearer, turning the sea to a leaden complexion and the heath to a darker brown, began now, by one or two distant peals, to announce the thunders with which it was fraught; while two flashes of lightning, following each other very closely, showed in the distance the grey turrets of Wolf's Crag, and, more ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... beneath him spread the dull, leaden summit of the dome, its raised ridges stretching, like huge serpents over the curve, beyond which was a glimpse of the green roof of the nave and the two west towers, with their grey columns and urn-topped buttresses and gilded pineapples, which ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... disappearing beneath the horizon, gorgeous with clouds of purple and of gold; or marked the varied changes of the sky on the calm expanse of summer water, stretching far away before us. And when the light had disappeared, leaving but a dull leaden surface, we closed our eyes and listened to the wild, mysterious murmur of the waters as they touched the sounding shore. Oh, brief and fleeting dream of earthly joy! Oh, light, warmth, and sunshine! Happiness too spiritual; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the power of the state militia placed there to guard the prison; and these men were shot to death, even while under the governor's plighted pledge of protection. Hyrum fell first; and Joseph, appearing at one of the windows in the second story, received the leaden missiles of the besieging mob, which was led by a recreant though professed minister of the gospel. But the brutish passion of the mob was not yet sated; propping the body against a well-curb in the jail-yard, the murderers poured a volley of bullets into the corpse, and fled. ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage

... among the soft robes of the sleigh while the silver bells rang merrily through the frosty air. It was all so new and strange. A leaden weight seemed to be settling down upon her heart and she felt as if she were choking, but she threw it off. She dared not let herself think. ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... heavily carved mahogany or oak furniture. For the poorer houses, only panes of oiled paper admitted the light, and this want of sunshine was one cause of the terrible loss of life in fevers and various epidemics from which the first settlers suffered. Leaden sashes held the small panes of glass used by the better class, but for both the huge chimneys with their roaring fires did the chief work of ventilation and purification, while the family life centered about them in a fashion often ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... all interests weighed, All Europe saved, yet Britain not betrayed. He thanks you not, his pride is in piquet, Newmarket-fame, and judgment at a bet. What made (say Montagne, or more sage Charron) Otho a warrior, Cromwell a buffoon? A perjured prince a leaden saint revere, A godless regent tremble at a star? The throne a bigot keep, a genius quit, Faithless through piety, and duped through wit? Europe a woman, child, or dotard rule, And just her wisest monarch made a fool? Know, God and Nature only ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... 3rd-4th. Glass mosaic 1st cent.; coarser wall mosaic 2nd cent. Glaze coarse blue, on thick clumsy bowls and jugs. Red brick buildings as well as mud brick, coins: billon tetradrachms in 1st cent., almost copper in 2nd, small copper dumps in 3rd, leaden tokens from A.D. 180 to 260. Some large copper in 1st and 2nd, thinner than the Ptolemaic. Potsherds used for writing receipts and letters. Abundance of moulded terra- ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... calling upon his uttermost atom of strength, quickened the strides of his leaden ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... a dull cold day with a leaden sky, and snow was shifting restlessly over the ice. The wind was in the south-east, and as they entered the ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... about them and were a good deal startled. It was growing dark and the leaden air seemed to be filled with snow. They had paid little attention to the wind, but now realized that it was ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill

... His face was blackened and bruised, and his shirt and the bed-clothes stained with blood. His breath was short and heavy, and at times, gasping; his mouth half open, and his dull eye fixed with a heavy leaden stare at the ceiling. His race was nearly run. He seemed utterly unconscious of the presence of any one, until the door opened, and Harson, who ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... vessel was sheltered from all winds, the land being high and the entrance intricate. The water was smooth as a mill-pond, though the leaden masses of cloud flying overhead and the muffled roar of the gale told eloquently of the unpleasant state affairs prevailing outside. Two whale-ships lay here—the TAMERLANE, of New Bedford, and the CHANCE, of Bluff Harbour. I am bound ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... John Malala (tom. ii. p. 232) mentions the want of bread, and Zonaras (l. xiv. p. 63) the leaden pipes, which Justinian, or his servants, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... preparing for a submarine walk. He was already dressed in an india-rubber suit, with leaden weights attached to his chest, back, and boots. Two others were standing by, ready to place the helmet over his head, when Leutnant Rix had finished ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... cold, bitterly cold, and I saw mother's eyes look apprehensively up to the leaden sky. I knew she was fearing a heavy fall of snow which might interrupt ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... astonishment. You ought to hear from us with horror. You are chargeable before God and man, with our blood. The soldiers were but passive instruments, mere machines; neither moral nor voluntary agents in our destruction, more than the leaden pellets with which we were wounded. You was a free agent. You acted, coolly, deliberately, with all that premeditated malice, not against us in particular, but against the people in general, which, in the sight of the law, is an ingredient in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... the acids; and his success was such as to induce him to erect a large laboratory for their manufacture, which was conducted with complete success by his friend Mr. Garbett. Among his inventions of this character, was the modern process of manufacturing vitriolic acid in leaden vessels in large quantities, instead of in glass vessels in small quantities as formerly practised. His success led him to consider the project of establishing a manufactory for the purpose of producing oil of vitriol on a large scale; and, having given up his practice as a physician, he resolved, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... yet commenced. After a blustering morning, a sudden stillness had fallen upon the earth. The wild north wind had ceased its moaning in the pine trees, and no longer came booming across the level moorland. The dull gray clouds which all day long had been driven across the leaden sky in flying haste, hung low down upon the sad earth, and from over the water a sea fog rose to meet them. Nature had nothing more cheerful to offer than silence, a dim light, and ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... bottom, it might have been better for him; for to the top of the door was fastened a plug, which filled up the hole of a small barrel of shot. He ventured to open the door another inch, and then another, till, the plug being pulled out of the barrel, the leaden shot began to pour out at a strange rate. At the bottom of the closet was placed a tin pan, and the shot falling upon this pan made such a clatter that George was frightened half out of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... break-up of winter, when the Teuton skies were leaden, and it was neither cold enough nor hot enough to stay comfortably in his room, owing to the Bucher economy of heat in this mid-season, it was pleasanter to be stirring about en ville, and, when weary of this, seeking the agreeable cosiness ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... of the three divisions that striped the plain with columns of marching men, the 106th left Boult-aux-Bois in the rear of the cavalry and artillery, the sky was again overspread with a pall of dull leaden clouds that further lowered the spirits of the soldiers. Its route was along the Buzancy highway, planted on either side with rows of magnificent poplars. When they reached Germond, a village where there was a steaming manure-heap before every one of the doors that lined the two ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... sprang to land, while from the decks of the vessels a storm of missiles flew towards the walls. Vast numbers of catapults, which they had manufactured since their last attack, hurled masses of stone, heavy javelins, and leaden bullets, while thousands of arrows ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... the greyest sort of day, a real January day, with leaden clouds that hung low to the earth. Snow clouds, they would have called them at the Farm. When Arethusa looked out of the window, she was glad that the sun was not shining: for what a mockery of Absolute Unhappiness a sunshiny ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox

... answered, "but I will take nought but that leaden ring, for I know what is written within ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde

... sea breached across the atoll, wetting him to the knees ere it subsided into the lagoon. The sun had disappeared, and a lead-colored twilight settled down. A few drops of rain, driving horizontally, struck him. The impact was like that of leaden pellets. A splash of salt spray struck his face. It was like the slap of a man's hand. His cheeks stung, and involuntary tears of pain were in his smarting eyes. Several hundred natives had taken to the ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... sea was undulating slightly, and not a breath of wind stirring. I sat up and looked around. Nothing visible but misty atmosphere and leaden-colored water; the phosphorescent sparkle had quite gone out of it. I listened, and with the low dull roar of the surf on Rye Beach on one side came the break of the waves on the Shoals, but so faint that it was doubtful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... cheering ray of sunshine had visited them, and the air, which was extremely warm, seemed loaded with vapour. The spirits of the prisoner were depressed in proportion, and since the first hour of his imprisonment he had never, perhaps, felt so much as at that moment, all the leaden weight of dull captivity, the anguish of uncertainty, and the delay of hope, which, ever from the time of the prophet king down to the present day, has made the heart sick and the soul weary. It was in vain that his daughter, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... into two water-worn branches, ending in round orifices through which the water once flowed. The only inhabitants it seems ever to have had were baboons. I left at the end of the upper branch one of Father Mathew's leaden teetotal tickets. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... dispelled the illusion, and showed the Englishmen that they were dealing with an enemy who knew how to strike and who struck hard. * * * 'Grapeshot and canister were pouring through our port holes like leaden hail; the large shot came against the ship's side, shaking her to the very keel, and passing through her timbers and scattering terrific splinters, which did more appalling work than the shot itself. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... spite of falling snow and the dirty ice in the river. There was not even a flushing of the willow twigs to tell it by, nor a clearing of the leaden sky,—only the almanac. Yet all men were looking forward to it The trappers put in the feeble days of convalescence, making long rafts on which to pile the skins dried over winter,—a fine variety, worth all but their weight in gold. Money was easily got in those days; but there ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie

... was sharply deafening in the confined space of the corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over my head against ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... re-entered the parlour they found the table spread, Aunt Debby seated as usual before the urn, and Miss Latimer standing by the window gazing up at the murky sky, where the leaden clouds predicted a gathering snowstorm. Winnie ran up to her. "Aunt Judith," she said humbly, "I am very much ashamed of myself; ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... profusion of pictures, occidental as well as oriental, while in the midst, upon a round table, and displayed as drawing-room ornaments, was an incongruous collection of articles, amongst which I remarked three leaden spoons, an old cruet-stand, a Bohemian glass scent-bottle, an old hair-brush and tooth- brush on some hot-water plates, a pair of brass candlesticks, and other wares usually found in kitchens, pantries, and bedrooms. Some English prints and ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant

... the dust out of them, I believe that most of their knapsacks were knocked in the dust; for the greater part of those who were not floored along with their knapsacks, shook them off, by way of enabling the owner to make a smarter scramble across that portion of the road on which our leaden shower was pouring; and, foes as they were, it was impossible not to feel a degree of pity for their situation: pressed by an enemy in the rear, an inaccessible mountain on their right, and a river on their left, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... Voisenon's turn. Witty to his last hour, when they brought home the leaden coffin, the exact form and dimensions of which he had himself arranged and ordered beforehand, he said ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... elastic cushion of sand compactly rammed into an iron plate caisson. The conical embrasure traverses this cushion by means of a cast-steel piece firmly bolted to the caisson, and applied to the armor through the intermedium of a leaden ring. Externally, the cheeks of the embrasure and the merlons consist of blocks of concrete held in caissons of strong iron plate. The surrounding earthwork is of sand. For closing the embrasure, Commandant Mougin provides the armor ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... rock of Parnassus, and drew from his quiver two arrows of different workmanship, one to excite love, the other to repel it. The former was of gold and sharp- pointed, the latter blunt and tipped with lead. With the leaden shaft he struck the nymph Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus, and with the golden one Apollo, through the heart. Forthwith the god was seized with love for the maiden, and she abhorred the thought of loving. Her ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... "it looks a good deal like a balloon; it's redness obscured by that leaden-colored cloud. It is very near its setting; we shall not get in ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... the natives there sometimes designate the sea. The wearing power of the primeval waters is here easily traced in two branches—the upper or more ancient ending in the characteristic oval orifice, in which I deposited a Father Mathew's leaden temperance token: the lower branch is much the largest, as that by which the greatest amount of water flowed for a much longer period than the other. The cave Lepelole was believed to be haunted, and no one dared to enter till I explored it as a relief from more serious labour. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... found in a leaden coffin enclosed in one of stone. The body of the little Chrysogone had been enveloped in a rich brocade of ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... without which few great attainments are made. The rumor of the invention excited in his mind the intensest interest. He sought for the explanation of the fact in the doctrine of refraction. He meditated day and night. At last he himself constructed an instrument,—a leaden organ pipe with two spectacle glasses, both plain on one side, while one of them had its opposite side convex, and the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... in blue had just fallen asleep nearby. The body was still warm, the blue eyes wide open, staring into the leaden sky. On his breast lay an open Bible with a bloody finger ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon

... next evening the floors were covered therewith six inches deep, and forthwith my orchids began to flourish—not only to live. Long since, of course, I had provided a supply of water from the main to each house for "damping down." All round them now a leaden pipe was fixed, with pin-holes twelve inches apart, and a length of indiarubber hose at the end to fix upon the "stand-pipe." Attaching this, I turn the cock, and from each tiny hole spurts forth a jet, which ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... leaden sieves, It powders all the wood, It fills with alabaster wool The wrinkles of ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... be said to see his favourite doctrine of Utility glittering everywhere through his system, like a vein of rich, shining ore (that is not the nature of the material)—but it might be plausibly objected that he had struck the whole mass of fancy, prejudice, passion, sense, whim, with his petrific, leaden mace, that he had "bound volatile Hermes," and reduced the theory and practice of human life to a caput mortuum of reason, and dull, plodding, technical calculation. The gentleman is himself a capital logician; and he has been led by this circumstance ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... a man. She half expected he might pursue her, and make her come back to the hated work in the stifling store with his wicked face moving everywhere above the crowds. But she turned not to look back. On over the slushy pavements, under the leaden sky, with a few ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... heavy evening in midsummer. Great volumes of leaden gray clouds were piling one over the other in the sulky sky, the air was laden with an unshed moisture, and a threatening breeze rustled through the dry, dusty leaves of the crowded elms. There was an unnatural stillness in Nature—everything looked drowsy and tired, the boughs swayed ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... was a mistake. And now (1896), after years of most careful experiments and tests by the most skilled boards of officers, English, German, French, Austrian, Swedish, United States, etc., it has been ascertained that a steel- jacket, leaden ball fired from a rifle of .30 calibre has the highest velocity ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... she really looked a grand object on the waters. The sun shone full upon her majestic hull, her bright copper now and then showing as she slowly rose and sank on the long swell. Above all were her towers of white canvas, standing out in relief against the leaden-coloured sky. Altogether, I don't think I have ever seen a more magnificent sight. As we parted from the ship, the hundred or more people on board gave ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... to her that her breath was gone utterly, that her feet were leaden weights and her muscles limply effortless. But after him she plunged, panting and scrambling up the rocks, and then, very suddenly, they found themselves to be on only a plateau and the real mountain head ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... it was as if after a long slumber. She was immensely weary, with leaden limbs. Horror was spent; but a dull oppression urged her up and on. There was something that she must never see again; something that would open before her again the black abyss of nothingness; something like the ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... prize that was to redeem the fortunes of the country? There was the golden one whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain man; the silver of compromise, which might have decided the choice of a merely acute one; and the leaden,—dull and homely looking, as prudence always is,—yet with something about it sure to attract the eye of practical wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied with his decision perhaps longer than seemed needful to those on whom its awful responsibility was not to ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... morning Carew would come home, unshaven and leaden-eyed, with his bandy-legged varlet trotting like a watch-dog at his heels; and then, if the gaming had gone well, he was a lord, an earl, a duke, at least, so merry and so sprightly would he be withal; but if the dice had fallen wrong, he would by turns be raving mad ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... the sealing-rifles spoke. The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free (Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!), The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue, But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew. An arm's-length out and overside the banked fog held them bound, But, as they heard or groan or word, they ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... the long brilliant afternoon burning bunches of condemned peach shoots. The smoke rolled up in a thick ceaseless cloud; he bore countless loads and fed them to the flames. The hungry crawling increased, then changed to a leaden nausea; but, accepting it as inevitable, he toiled dully on until the end of day, when he was given a dollar and promise of ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... wavy line of trees in the wide hollow, quickened their pace. The soil was firmer, the scrub through which the wheels crushed was short, and the trail led smoothly down a slight descent. This was comforting, for half the sky was barred with leaden cloud and the parched grass gleamed beneath it lividly white, while the light that struck a ridge-top here and there had a sinister luridness. It was getting cold and the wind was dropping; and that was not a ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... leap high in the air, but the performers in the aboriginal ballet scurried for shelter. The soldiers sighted their rifles for nine hundred yards, and the little hill blazed and sputtered half a minute with a rapid discharge that sent leaden messengers whistling through the burning wagon-covers and humming about the ears ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... Sometimes, when he sent leaden pellets, one after the other, into his targets, the thought would occur to him that really he ought not to hit the major, since he had sinned against him and betrayed his trust. It was something like the last flickerings of a feeling of duty which had dwindled for years in the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg



Words linked to "Leaden" :   plodding, cloudy, weighted



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com