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verb
Scan  v. t.  (past & past part. scanned; pres. part. scanning)  
1.
To mount by steps; to go through with step by step. (Obs.) "Nor stayed till she the highest stage had scand."
2.
Specifically (Pros.), to go through with, as a verse, marking and distinguishing the feet of which it is composed; to show, in reading, the metrical structure of; to recite metrically.
3.
To go over and examine point by point; to examine with care; to look closely at or into; to scrutinize. "The actions of men in high stations are all conspicuous, and liable to be scanned and sifted."
4.
To examine quickly, from point to point, in search of something specific; as, to scan an article for mention of a particular person.
5.
(Electronics) To form an image or an electronic representation of, by passing a beam of light or electrons over, and detecting and recording the reflected or transmitted signal.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scan" Quotes from Famous Books



... or poor, for you he'll pay, And guide to where you safe may be; If you're his guest, while e'er you stay, His cottage holds a jubilee. His inmost soul he will unlock, And if he may your secrets scan, Your confidence he scorns to mock, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... and see! Sheer down, From where the Alps tremendous frown, Strides War, which Julius leads: Eager to follow, to pursue— Sleepless, to one high purpose true, The prosperous soldier speeds. He comes, all eye to scan, all hand To do, the instinct of command; With firm-set tread, and pointed will, And harden'd courage, practised skill, And anger-whetted sword: A man to seize, and firmly hold— To his own use a world to mould— Rome's not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... the old seats, she wends her way With mincing graces and affected airs, Such as more oft a petted parrot wears. Her long gown with the train is blue; the fan She spreads between her jewelled fingers slim Is merry with a love-scene, of so dim Suggestion, her eyes smile the while they scan. Blonde; dainty nose; plump, cherry lips, divine With pride unconscious.—Subtler, certainly, Than is the mouche there set to underline The rather ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine

... every age bestowed The reverence of man; whose is the power To scan the future, and draw back the veil, That people of the present may behold The scenes and fates which lie secluded there; To tell strange stories of the time to come, The kind of life which is awaiting some; Whereat ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... these, have I Through night's long hours thought of man's misery, And how this life is wrecked! And, to mine eyes, Not in man's knowledge, not in wisdom, lies The lack that makes for sorrow. Nay, we scan And know the right—for wit hath many a man— But will not to the last end strive and serve. For some grow too soon weary, and some swerve To other paths, setting before the Right The diverse far-off image of Delight: And many are delights beneath ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... looking about and there are some rooms in the Boordman Building that I think would be about right. You might call the position I'm suggesting a private secretaryship, as I should want you to take charge of correspondence, make appointments, scan the papers, and keep me advised of the trend of things. I'm going to move my law library down here to give the rooms a substantial look, and if you feel like joining me you'll have a good deal of leisure for study. Then when you're ready for practice I may be in a position to ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... Than I can speak." As one, who unresolves What he hath late resolv'd, and with new thoughts Changes his purpose, from his first intent Remov'd; e'en such was I on that dun coast, Wasting in thought my enterprise, at first So eagerly embrac'd. "If right thy words I scan," replied that shade magnanimous, "Thy soul is by vile fear assail'd, which oft So overcasts a man, that he recoils From noblest resolution, like a beast At some false semblance in the twilight gloom. That from this terror thou mayst free thyself, I will instruct thee why I came, and what I heard ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary

... houses are seldom set so near to cottages and the road. But Limpsfield, with all its attractive antiquities of timber and gables, somehow strikes a modern note. Detilens is the name—a name one vaguely tries to scan for a Latin verse—of a little, hidden house of great age, in the village street. But it is the common, not Detilens or neighbouring roofs, which marks Limpsfield, and on the common are golf links and the huge red-brick buildings ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... mentioned whether these sons and daughters of Thespis, who have since gained a great deal of money, have offered any private remuneration to their benefactor, rather to their guardian-angel.] [TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The scan of this footnote was imperfect. Some of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... I live at that grey stone house up there on the cliff. 'Plas Bendigaid,' they call it," explains Lynette, a little nervously, as her reluctant eyes scan the face and figure of the woman who owns the legal right to bear Beauvayse's name. The encounter is distasteful to her. She is painfully conscious of an acute sensation of antagonism and dislike. "The house belongs to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... another. The man seemed to be coming over in this direction, though Starr could not be sure. He watched for a reappearance of the rider on high ground, but he saw no more of the fellow. So after a little he took down the glasses to scan ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... and broken light of the court, Jacopo paused, evidently to scan the persons of those it contained. It is to be presumed he saw no reason to delay, for with a secret sign to his companion to follow, he crossed the area, and mounted the well known steps, down which the head ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... she was aroused by a piercing cry that made her spring forward, and scan the crowd of human faces collected close to the rails, at a small town where the cars ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... sullen scowl. I drew a long breath of relief, and began to scan the landscape for signs of ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... eye, I see the lords of human kind pass by, Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand; Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 331 True to imagin'd right, above control, While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to venerate himself ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... is Flore," he said: yet he continued to scan it with a puzzled eye. "It is the dog, I suppose. But it used to die at the word of command, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side; But in his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all; And, as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... received this courtesy with the graceful ease and pleasant acknowledgment which belongs to the man of the world. Then he turned to scan me with his keen glance. After some slight conversation, entered into on his part, I am certain, with an intention of discovering on what terms of confidence I stood with my uncle, he ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... it, Gentlemen. I have purposely, skimming a wide subject, discarded much ballast; but you may read and scan and read again, and always you must come back to this, that the first poets sang their words to the harp or to some such instrument: and just there lies the secret why poetry differs from prose. The moment you introduce music you let in emotion with all its sway upon speech. From that moment ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... wanderers on life's sad deep, And paused a moment in God's mystic plan A little vigil on time's shores to keep, Then passed forever from the tribes of man. They heard a voice and a strange face did scan, And what of conquest or of kingly sway Had filled their dreams, they gave the white man's clan, And with the dawning of a wondrous day, They spread their sails again ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... away to the south were racing back. "Thank God!" was the murmured answer no man heard. "Now, lads, be ready!" was the ringing word that roused the little troop, like bugle call "To Arms." And even as eager faces lifted over the low parapets to scan the distant foe, fresh signals came flashing down from the northward ridge, fresh bands of warriors came darting to join the martial throng about the still wrangling chieftains, and then, all on a sudden, with ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... and Fame,— A scourge—a bubble—and a name— So often and so vainly sought— Has little time for peaceful thought; And so they turn not back to gaze, Where faithful memory displays Her record of departed days; But oh! how loves the eye of age, To move along its pictured page, To scan and number, o'er and o'er, The joys that may return no more; The hopes that, blighted in their bloom, By disappointment's chilly gloom, Were given sadly to the tomb; The loves so wildly once enjoyed, By time's unsparing hand destroyed; The bright imaginative dreams, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands

... or the colours in mother-o'-pearl, so, it is written, shall be the moods of men—interwoven as the threads of an embroidery, less certain than an April day, yet with a rhythm of their own that never fails, and no one can quite scan. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Hal sat in the office, silent, while Jacob Farnum turned to his desk to scan one of the papers lying there, the door opened. A boy burst in, waving a ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham

... Judas near his person stay, To swallow the last sop, and then betray. Make London independent of the crown; A realm apart; the kingdom of the town. Let ignoramus juries find no traitors[3], And ignoramus poets scribble satires. And, that your meaning none may fail to scan, Do what in coffee-houses you began,— Pull down the master, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... Bedouin feeds his flock and lives in idleness amidst broken down terraces and thorn-covered fertile soil. Desolate! Yes, dark is the picture. But, what of the night? Take your place again on the 'watch-tower of Gilead' and scan well the horizon. Yes, it is well; ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal

... ran into her cheeks, and she looked a suffering so acute that Raven got up and walked through the room to the window. It seemed an indecency to scan the anguished page of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... labors. Much of this spirit infests literature; and merges the kindly exposition of error into the bitterness of personal attack. The fallibility of human nature should teach us charity, and our own faults lead us to "more gently scan our brother man,"—a thing too often unthought of by those who are nothing if not critical, and as frequently nothing when they are. The painter was descended from a Westmoreland family. Sprung from an industrious ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... clue. In the early morning a thin layer of smoke above a wood may mean a bivouac. If it be but a few miles behind the lines, it can evidence heavy artillery. A narrow stream of smoke near a railway will make an observer scan the line closely for a stationary train, as the Boche engine-drivers usually try to avoid detection by shutting off steam. The Hun has many other dodges to avoid publicity. When Allied aircraft appear, motor and horse transport ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... reasonably remunerative in the course of half a dozen separate speculations. In round figures he added another $2,500 to that which Williams had made for him. The process kept him on pins and needles, and led him to scan the list of stock quotations before reading anything else in the newspaper. Selma was delighted at his success, and though he chose not to tell her the details of his dealings, she watched him ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... few minutes silent, glancing round the pretty room so simply and tastefully furnished; then with a little cry of delight they sprang towards the bookcase and began to scan the ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... seemed to scan the prospect before him now far more eagerly than before; but the wreck, which was, as O'Shea said, deserted, seemed to be the only external object in all that gleaming waste. They passed on, drawing up for a minute near her at the boy's instigation, and scanning her decks narrowly ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... Harry, then dismounted, bending over to scan the new notice. It was a duplicate of the former one, except that the new signature was that of one, ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock

... turned eastward into a gloomy and squalid neighborhood. He lost his bearings twice, and then found himself at one end of Peckwater street. He took the first turn to the left, and began to count the houses and scan their numbers. ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon

... the soul of man, Alone proves what that soul without earth's dross Could be, and this, through time's far-searching fire, Hath proved thine white beneath the deepest scan. ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... met with many adventures, fighting once against an Amazon, who by trickery managed to escape from him. However, Sorab kept hoping the time would come when he and his father would meet face to face, and, whenever a fray was about to take place, he always bade his companions scan the ranks of the foe to make sure that Rustem was ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... and silver teems, To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems Than golden sands, that charm each shepherd's gaze. How without guile thy bosom, all transparent As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count! How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current! O sweet simplicity of days gone by! Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... righteously I have slain, who slew my father. It is I, The wronged Orestes! Hold, and smite me not, Old housefolk of my father!" When they caught That name, their lances fell. And one old man, An ancient in the house, drew nigh to scan His face, and knew him. Then with one accord They crowned thy brother's temples, and outpoured joy and loud songs. And hither now he fares To show the head, no Gorgon, that he bears, But that Aegisthus whom thou ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides

... archaic when it is spoken as one might suppose in reading it; the metre is regular in heat, but very irregular in the number of syllables, and the people who spoke it so admirably under Mr. Poel's careful training had not been trained to scan it as well as they articulated it. "Everyman" is a kind of "Pilgrim's Progress," conceived with a daring and reverent imagination, so that God himself comes quite naturally upon the stage, and speaks ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons

... Nay, do but follow me and scan Thine own charge close. Think'st thou that any man Would rather rule and be afraid than rule And sleep untroubled? Nay, where ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... lecture and at study That ankle white I span, Its sandal slim, its lacings trim,— A fay I seem to scan. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... fine securer. Thou mak'st me swear, that am a known nonjuror. Were Job alive, and banter'd by such shufflers, He'd outrail Oates, and curse both thee and Boufflers For thee I've lost, if I can rightly scan 'em, Two livings, worth full eightscore pounds per annum, Bonae et legalis Angliae Monetae. But now I'm clearly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... rule, looked as expressionless as a plaster cast, and a few words that passed between the two, surprised the other lodgers. Vautrin, who saw Eugene for the first time since their interview, seemed as if he would fain read the student's very soul. During the night Eugene had had some time in which to scan the vast field which lay before him; and now, as he remembered yesterday's proposal, the thought of Mlle. Taillefer's dowry came, of course, to his mind, and he could not help thinking of Victorine as the most exemplary youth may think of an heiress. It chanced ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... sweet she asked Miss Mohun to send it to Friendly Leaves, but she wouldn't—Miss Mohun I mean; she said she didn't think they would accept it, and that the lines didn't scan. Now I'm sure its only Latin and Greek that scan! English rhymes, and ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rose, and the whole party went on deck to scan their position, the lads finding the schooner gliding along southward before a pleasant breeze, while miles away on the starboard-bow a dim line marked the coast, which seemed rugged and broken up into mountain and vale; but there was no sign ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... have simply this to say: The evidence is as you have seen it. I have briefly sketched it; I will not dwell upon much that ought to be said; I can not. The testimony is voluminous, filling 2,000 or 2,500 pages. I have had but a few days to scan through it; I have given you only the leading points, and you must judge. I would not say one word that would take from this family their father; but if this man was guilty of this crime, or has aided and abetted this conspiracy, you ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... wall, the Old Round Tower. To-day this tower is a vine-clad relic—a vestige remaining from the days of the past. But to the soldier of Old Fort Snelling it was a more practical structure—a place of lookout from which he was often to scan the swells of the prairie for approaching Indians or returning comrades. At the second and third points were blockhouses—buildings of stone, each giving a view of the river below it. At the first point there was also a tower—a wooden lookout platform at the very edge of the precipice from which ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... and priests their victor scorn, Each fault reveal, each imperfection scan, And by their fell anatomy of hate His life dissect with satire's keenest edge; Yet still may Luther, with his mighty heart, Defy their malice. Far beyond them soars the soul They slander. From his tomb there still comes forth ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... of all nations on equal terms to its bosom, and Commerce is the swift-winged messenger ever travelling from shore to shore. Look at it, and if our eyes could scan it all at once, we should see the smoke darkening the air as it rises from hundreds of chimneys, telling of fires that make the steam for propelling the mighty engines that bring the great leviathans ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman

... Plautus lov'd to praise, Admir'd his humour, and approv'd his lays." Yes; they saw both with a too partial eye, Fond e'en to folly sure, if you and I Know ribaldry from humour, chaste and terse, Or can but scan, and have an ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace

... had we known personally Caiaphas, Annas and Pilate, and even Herod and Judas Iscariot, we should have found them very like men we meet every day, very like ourselves, with a great deal in them to interest, admire and attract. And behind them we scan a crowd of inconspicuous and unnamed persons whose collective feelings and opinions and consciences were quite as responsible for this occurrence, as were the men whose names are linked with it; and they impress us as surprisingly like the public of our own day. It was by no means ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... one Myself had idly scratched away one dawn, One mad May-dawn, three hundred years ago, When out of the woods we came with hawthorn boughs And found the doors locked, as they seemed to-night. Three hundred years ago—nay, Time was dead! No need to scan the sign-board any more Where that white-breasted siren of the sea Curled her moon-silvered tail among such rocks As never in the merriest seaman's tale Broke the blue-bliss of fabulous lagoons ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... "Dar dat scan'lous widder bird a-hollerin'!" exclaimed the old man, listening. "'Pears lak we's gwine have moh wah, moh daid men, moh widders. Dar de ha'nt! Dar de sign an' de warnin'. G'way, widder bird." He crossed his withered fingers and began rocking ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... marked thee on the Calais quay, Unloading ships of plum-and-apple jam, Or beef, or, three times weekly, M. and V., And sometimes bacon (very rarely ham); Or, where St. Quentin towers above the plain, Have seen thee scan the awful scene and sigh, Pick up a spade, then put it down again And wipe a furtive tear-drop ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... face. By the touch of my hand an eye was slightly opened; it seemed to scan me with that pale stare, with that cold, that terrible look which corpses have, a look which seems to come from the beyond. I plaited up, as well as I could, her disheveled hair, and I adjusted on her forehead a novel and singularly formed lock. Then I took ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... him," said Slone, thinking hard and narrowing his gaze to scan the circle of wall and slope. "Why not? ... No wind at night. That grass would burn slow till mornin'—till the wind came up—an' it's been ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... her unfinished bridal array had all been laid aside that she might garb her graceful form in gloom. As I looked into her sad eyes, swollen with weeping, I fancied that I could see into her very soul, and scan the secret pictures she had painted there. The happy wedding, with all its nonsense and solemnity, its laughter and its tears; the pretty little home, with his chair of honour, like a throne, facing hers; his homecoming evening by evening, and the welcome she would give ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... where the river's bed begins somewhat to narrow, a hill rising from the continuous expanse of marshes from its mouth, easily defended on the east and west by those fortified posts which, in subsequent times, became the Tower of London and Barnard's Castle, and if we scan a map of France, we shall see that the group of islands on and around which Paris now stands, lies in the fruitful basin of the Seine, known as the Isle de France, near the convergence of three rivers; for on the east the Marne, on the west the Oise, and on the south the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... you give up your theory to please me?' He had turned his eyes on his papers now, and was feigning to scan them. ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... just a slight contraction of his brow expressive of annoyance, did as he was bid. He scanned, or appeared to scan, the small scrap of paper which he now took into his ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... year thereafter still showed a surplus, it now seems likely that a substantial equality of revenue and expenditure will be attained. Such being the case it is of great moment both to exercise care and economy in appropriations, and to scan sharply any change in our fiscal revenue system which may reduce our income. The need of strict economy in our expenditures is emphasized by the fact that we can not afford to be parsimonious in providing for what is essential to our national well-being. Careful economy wherever ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... considered a vital necessity in true education, the judicious combining of physical training with high intellectual culture, and which he incorporated into his scheme for giving "a fair chance for the girls," was, in itself, almost a challenge to all the world to ask these questions, and to scan critically the replies to them which the institution should make, as years should go on, and give adequate opportunity for the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... following afternoon, it might be settled. The weather at this time was anything but fair, which made him the readier to enter into the witches' bargain. Here I must first inform my reader that these women are exceedingly cunning, and can not only scan the mind of the person they deal with, but can also, from keen observation, calculate on the wind and weather for the next twenty-four hours, and, as what they prognosticate generally proves true, they frequently meet with ready customers. Next morning the captain came on board, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... very serious, and no joke, I assure you, if you were actually obliged to listen to my whistling," was the curt reply, and he turned once more to scan the sky and the ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks

... again of the Volkslied "there is no mechanical counting of syllables; the variation in the number of accented and unaccented syllables is the secret of the verse." And he quotes from Herder on the Volkslieder: "songs of the people ... songs which often do not scan and are ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... and shrills, And every moonbeam, gleaming white, All know the Glugs quite well by sight. And they say, "It is safe, it is the test we bring; For a Glug is an awful Gluglike thing. And they climb the trees when there's a sign of fog, To scan the land for a feasible dog. They love to jog Thro' dells in quest ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... electrotype; imitation &c 19; model, representation, adumbration, study; portrait &c (representation) 554; resemblance. duplicate, reproduction; cast, tracing; reflex, reflexion [Brit.], reflection; shadow, echo. transcript [copy into a non-visual form], transcription; recording, scan. chip off the old block; reprint, new printing; rechauffe [Fr.]; apograph^, fair copy. parody, caricature, burlesque, travesty, travestie^, paraphrase. [copy with some differences] derivative, derivation, modification, expansion, extension, revision; second edition &c (repetition) 104. servile ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... observations of its surroundings. Except at night a patrol should not move on roads. Villages and inhabited places should not as a rule be entered. During the daytime it seeks high ground from which it can scan the country and at night it seeks a position from which the sky line ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... eyes searching the shadows, as though half frightened at finding herself in such dismal surroundings. The girl's face appeared white and drawn in that twilight. Sam advanced cautiously from off the log to the shore, and began to anxiously scan the ground, beating back and forth through the underbrush. After watching him a moment my gaze settled on the strange boat, and I crept along the log curious to examine it more closely. It had the appearance of being newly built, the paint unscratched, and exhibiting few marks of ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... at my hotel I signed "Mr. French of Nowhere." Reporters who scan the hotel list did not think "Mr. French of Nowhere" a subject worthy of dissection, so for a few days I thought I should enjoy perfect peace with profit. A "stocky little Englishman" taking notes en passant with an amateurish fervency was probably what most people would think ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... of the Andromeda was pacing the bridge with the slow alertness of responsibility. He would walk from port to starboard, glance forrard and aft, peer at the wide crescent of the starlit sea, stroll back to port, and again scan ship and horizon. Sometimes he halted in front of the binnacle lamp to make certain that the man at the wheel was keeping the course, South 15 West, set by Captain Coke shortly before midnight. His ears listened mechanically to the steady pulse-beats of the propeller; his ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed; and her abrupt entrance with the damp evening paper in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active realization of the present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan the advertisements in the faint hope of finding some avenue of employment—she knew not what—open to her needs; and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... this was the hour when he should scan the green slopes and the open places between the clumps of timber for bears, ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood

... attracted by the strains of music from a church, went into it, and found a religious meeting in progress. His eye was at once arrested by the face and head of a young woman playing on a melodeon, who was leading the singing. He sat in such a position that he could carefully scan her face and movements. As he continued this study the conviction grew upon him that here was the object of his search. That such should have occurred before there was any opportunity to inspect the doughpan may lead the reader to conclusions of his own. He inquired her name—Emily Prince. He cultivated ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... The wonder is that our frail craft has taken its five days' bumping over stumps and stones so well. It would be very annoying if it were to sink with us now that we are so near the end of our voyage. But is the end so near? We scan the distance in front of us in search of twinkling lights, but the only twinkle comes from a brightening star. We see the long wan line of water, marked with awful shadows near the banks, from which, too, half-submerged trees, long since dead, lift strange arms ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... less, but certainly not more, than Tennysonian. Homer, in the Laureate's few fragments of experiment, is still a poet, but he is not Homer. Mr. Morris, and Avia, make him Icelandic, and archaistic, and hard to scan, though vigorous in his fetters for all that. Bohn makes him a crib; and of other translators in prose it has been said, with a humour which one of them appreciates, that they render Homer into a likeness of ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... the farce to the end, I took down the largest book I could find in my library, turned over the leaves, stopped at a page which I pretended to scan with profound attention, and then addressing the lady, who ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... which, according to custom, was placed in the guernsey breast of a fisherman, who sailed with it straightway to M. Oudin. The latter gentleman having adjusted his glasses, after instructing his man to give the messenger spirituous refreshment (which is so very cheap in these islands), proceeded to scan the contents of the letter. It was from a lawyer in Paris, informing him of the decease of his brother, a leather merchant, who, dying wifeless and childless, had bequeathed him both his business and fortune. This intelligence of both joy and sorrow so bewildered and unstrung the nerves ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... for Nature in the storm, and Providence in the battle; loses self in the woe; probes his heart in the crime; and owns no philosophy that sets him free from the fetters of man. Not in vain do we scan all the contrasts in the large framework of civilized earth if we note "when the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together." Range, O Art, through all space, clasp together in extremes, shake idle wealth ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... folk about the haven knew The scarlet prow of Paris, swift they ran And the good ship within the haven drew, And merrily their welcoming began. But none the face of Helen dared to scan; Their bold eyes fell before they had their fill, For all men deem'd her that Idalian Who loved Anchises ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... you and I have changed Since that old wedding day;— I viewed you then with partial eyes— "Fond, girlish eyes" you'd say;— But were my eyes as keen as then, And I allowed to scan The handsomest of handsome men, You still would be ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... formidable, and the fort was crowned with a wreath of smoke. They appeared to be firing in the direction of Levallois, rather than on the Porte Maillot. The Federals did not seem to attempt to reply. Turning myself towards the right I could scan nearly the whole length of the Avenue de Neuilly. The bare piece of ground which constitutes the military zone was completely deserted; several shells fell there that had been aimed doubtless at the Porte Maillot or the bastion. The position I had taken up at the window was rather a perilous ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... whereon ye live, and move, and have your being! Yea, and the thousandth part of the natural wonders by which ye are surrounded has not been so much as dreamed of, by any of you, yet!... O learn to be the humbler, the more ye know; and when ye gaze along the mighty vista of departed ages, and scan the traces of what I was doing before I created Man,—multiply that problem by the stars which are scattered in number numberless over all the vault of Heaven; and learn to confess that it behoves the creature of an hour to bow his head ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... one of the Bay of Naples," observed Blair, pausing to scan the rocky coastline against which, far beneath them, the foaming breakers threw themselves. He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked far out to sea. "What a wonderful place for a watch tower ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr

... these lines you read, And scan the Scriptures with all speed; And if my name you don't find there, I'll think it strange, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... seemed to quicken the thought of General Saterges. He drew himself up still more erect in his chair. His eyes were on Elizabeth with the will to scan her heart of hearts. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... while earth is wrapped in dreams, I ponder o'er my present life—how desolate it seems. Through wakeful hours I scan each page penned in despair and grief, Then turn to my loved childhood's ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton

... shades of night. From every direction they converged. Fathers and mothers with their sons and daughters were there. The young and the old were equally full of zeal, and the women were courageous as the men. On the way they would cannily scan the country from the hilltop, to see if the dreaded dragoons were ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... the State House. I think Mr. Larz Anderson (brother of Major Robert Anderson) and Mr. L'Hommedieu of Cincinnati were with him. The intimation had been given me that he would probably be made major-general and commandant of our Ohio contingent, and this, naturally, made me scan him closely. He was rather under the medium height, but muscularly formed, with broad shoulders and a well-poised head, active and graceful in motion. His whole appearance was quiet and modest, but when ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... dreamed of the brave to-morrows, His eager eyes should scan, When battling with wants and sorrows, He ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... wouldn' git it fo' me, an' so, jes' fo' a joke, das all—jes' a joke, I hit 'er awn de haid. But would you believe it, she couldn't take a joke. She tu'n aroun', an' sir, she sail inter me sum'in' scan'lous! I didn' do nothin', 'cause I feelin' kind o'weak jes' then—an' so I made up ma min' I wasn' goin' to stay with her. Dis mawnin' she gone out washin', an' I jes' move right out. Hit's no use tryin' to live with a 'ooman who ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... negro boy who had brought Shashai to the doorstep, and who had been staring popeyed during the conversation, dashed away toward the paddock, to rush upon Shelby with a wild tale of "dat lady f'om de norf was a-sassin' Missie Peggy jist scan'lous and orderin' Shelby fer to come quick ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... gay hours are past, Howe'er we range, in thee we fix at last: Tost thro' tempestuous seas, the voyage o'er, Pale we look back, and bless the friendly shore. Our own strict judges, our past life we scan, And ask if glory have enlarg'd the span. If bright the prospect, we the grave defy, Trust future ages, and ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... being placed far back in his head his eyes become like two watch-towers, from which he can scan the country behind as well as in front, and be on the alert for enemies. Woodcocks are very cautious birds, keeping well hidden by day and feeding only during the twilight hours or ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... different; and were I to scan your motives and career with the scrutinizing eyes of friendship, it might only serve to separate us yet more. I am sick of the great juggle of ambition, and I have no sympathy left for those who creep into the pint-bottle, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... triumphing over the 'tower,' and unexceptionable in every respect. Also I do hold that nobody with an ordinary understanding has the slightest pretence for attaching a charge of obscurity to this new number—there are lights enough for the critics to scan one another's dull blank of visage by. One verse indeed in that expressive lyric of the 'Lost Mistress,' does still seem questionable to me, though you have changed a word since I saw it; and still I fancy that I rather leap at the meaning than ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... sacred than grief, or is it so strange to the human heart that, when present, we dare not scan its fleeting form, nor recall its image when it is past. One short dream of bliss was mine; it stands alone in a life, which, though not long in years, has been long in sorrow. Once the cup has been raised to my lips; ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton

... strongly urged Gwen to see what a headmistress's private study was like, and thinking themselves perfectly safe, the two girls entered, and began eagerly to scan the pictures, the ornaments, the photographs, and the various objects which were spread about on desk and tables. It was a pretty, tasteful room, with choice prints from the old masters in carved oak ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... virgin is terrified. Something of that joy ascends to God. Where true marriage is, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. If it were given to the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold the forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of the invisible, bend down, a throng of sombre heads, around the luminous ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... to his side, to miss his footing at the last and plunge waist-deep into the current. A precious moment was lost in rescuing him. When, both safe on the rocky ledge, they turned to scan the depths of the fall, it was to see a dark object suddenly pop up full fifty feet downstream. It ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart

... have fiercely aroused, all united, inspire me,—shall I say it,—with fear and distrust. I cannot think him altogether the calm and pure being he appears. Madeline, I have asked myself again and again, is this suspicion the effect of jealousy? do I scan his bearing with the jaundiced eye of disappointed rivalship? And I have satisfied my conscience that my judgment is not thus biassed. Stay! listen yet a little while! You have a high—a thoughtful mind. Exert it now. Consider your whole happiness rests on one step! Pause, examine, compare! ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... now there are three or four specks silhouetted against the sky—not three or four, but five—no! six—no! seven! Seven black specks which detach themselves one by one, one from another and from the vagueness beyond—experienced eyes scan the horizon with enthusiasm and excitement which threaten to blur the clearness of their vision. Anyone with an eye for sea-going craft can distinguish that topsail-schooner there, well ahead of the rest of the tiny fleet, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... devil and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan; He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil; A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate, He talks quite glibly ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... an honourable man, That I must say, who knew him very well; Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan, Indeed there were not many more to tell: And if his passions now and then outran Discretion, and were not so peaceable As Numa's (who was also named Pompilius), He had been ill brought up, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... today on American soil will be readily seen. The forms may be repeated, but the vitalizing spirit is not there. We have no leisure class that finds its occupation in this pleasant daily converse. Our feverish civilization has not time for it. We sit in our libraries and scan the news of the world, instead of gathering it in the drawing rooms of our friends. Perhaps we read and think more, but we talk less, and conversation is a relaxation rather than an art. The ability to think aloud, easily and gracefully, is not eminently an Anglo-Saxon gift, though there ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... in space, the job of searching the surface had not appeared difficult. From the rock itself, things looked very different. There was no way, from the surface, to scan large areas, and the surface was so rough that they had to take constant care not to damage their boots or rip holes in their suits. There were hundreds of crevices and caves, half concealed by the loose rock that crumbled under their feet ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse

... parse, let him scan, and he who can scan, let him construe. It is alike incredible and certain that the writer of such exquisite and blameless verse as that in which the finer scenes of "Old Fortunatus" and "The Honest Whore" are so smoothly and simply and naturally written should ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... me tell you a secret that will explain! Scan close and you will find that there is no man who says these things of me who is not either a friend of the English, and traitor to you, or else has been rejected by my associates as unworthy to represent our patriotic ambitions. I must speak even of the agreeable young man of intellect ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... his window, saw the carriage rattle past, and saw his friend leaning back in it, with alert eyes, to scan every woman passing by. He stood on the balcony for a moment till the noise of the wheels on the stone pavement died away. When he returned to his writing-table the mood for work was gone. He sat ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... unconscious happiness of wandering about unknown and unblamed, and of thinking of no observer, even in the greatest crowds. Now hypochondriacal fancies began to torment me, as if I attracted the attention of the people, as if their eyes were turned on my demeanor, to fix it on their memories, to scan and to find fault. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... rims about her eyes, and when she removed her hat her hair was glued to her brow in its outline. But just the same, the pollen that gave to her skin its velvetiness was there. She leaned to the mirror, baring her teeth to scan their whiteness; turned her profile as if to appraise its strong, sure cast; swelled her chest after the manner of inhaling for an octave, letting her hand ride on it. Then she undressed slowly, luxuriating in a deep hot bath that rested her as she lay back in ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... of epigram flowed over Bordeaux. Madame Evangelista was about to leave the city, and could safely scan her friends and enemies, caricature them and lash them as she pleased, with nothing to fear in return. Accordingly, she now gave vent to her secret observations and her latent dislikes as she sought for the reason why this or that ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... bright, Too thin, too bright, for those to hear Who listen with an eager ear, Or course about and seek to spy, Within an hour, eternity. First must the spirit cast aside This world's and next his own poor pride And learn the universe to scan More as a flower, less as a man. Then shall he hear the lonely dead Sing and the stars sing overhead, And every spray upon the heath, And larks above and ants beneath; The stream shall take him in her arms; Blue skies shall rest him in their calms; The wind ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various

... of the sun setting off its bright shades—yellow, green, and red. This member of the Iguana family, which bears no resemblance to the fabulous basilisk of the Greeks, got up at our approach, puffed out its throat, and shook the membranous crest on the top of its head. Its bright eye seemed to scan the horizon; no doubt it caught sight of us, for its flaccid body stiffened out, and with a rapid bound it sprang into the stream. The reptile raised its chest in swimming, beating the water with its fore paws as if with oars. We soon ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... which happened, however, to have nothing to do with rupees. Madeline Anderson had been saying something the day before about the intimacy and accuracy with which people's walls expressed them, and though the commonplace was not new to him, this was the first time it had ever led him to scan his wife's. What he saw may be imagined, but his only distinct reflection was that he had no idea that she had been photographed so variously or had so many friends who wore resplendent Staff uniforms. The relation of cheapness in ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... still claim the loftiest heights: from there They scan with solemn eyes the scenes below— The river and the hills which shall endure While man's frail generations come ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... credulous, or easily deceiv'd, But hopeful of our nature, though deprav'd, And for the incarcerate, careful to restrain All petty tyranny. Courteous was he To visitants, for many such there were. Philanthropists, whose happy faith believ'd Prisons reforming schools, came here to scan Arrangements and appliances as guides To other institutions: strangers too, Who 'mid their explorations of the State, Scenery and structures, would not overlook Its model-prison. Now and then, was seen Some ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... linger'd o'er each form divine, Beneath the vault of Rome's unsullied sky, Or where Bologna's cloister'd walls enshrine Her martyr Saint—her mystic Rosary— Of Arragon the hapless daughter view! Scan, for ye may, that fine enamel near! Such Catherine was, thus Leonardo drew— Discern ye not the "Jove of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various

... steamer. Soon her gigantic hull appeared passing along between the banks, and eleven o'clock struck as she anchored in the road. She brought an unusual number of passengers, some of whom remained on deck to scan the picturesque panorama of the town, while the greater part disembarked in the boats, ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... July, Hamilton wrote to Washington, saying: "I was surprised that your nomination had been without any previous consultation of you. Convinced of the goodness of the motives, it would be useless to scan the propriety of the step. It is taken, and the question is, 'What, under the circumstances, ought to be done?' I use the liberty which my attachment to you and to the public authorizes, to offer my opinion that you should not decline the appointment. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... sword: this proved their love, To give no second blow. Half living now They dragged their mangled bodies to the side, Whence flowed into the sea a crimson stream Of slaughter. 'Twas their pleasure yet to see The light they scorned; with haughty looks to scan The faces of their victors, and to feel The death approaching. But the raft was now Piled up with dead; which, when the foemen saw, Wondering at such a chief and such a deed, They gave them burial. Never through the world Of any brave achievement ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan



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