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Suction   Listen
noun
Suction  n.  The act or process of sucking; the act of drawing, as fluids, by exhausting the air.
Suction chamber, the chamber of a pump into which the suction pipe delivers.
Suction pipe, Suction valve, the induction pipe, and induction valve, of a pump, respectively.
Suction pump, the common pump, in which the water is raised into the barrel by atmospheric pressure.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Suction" Quotes from Famous Books



... live in water, while others flourished in the most dry and arid sands; he carefully marked the causes which combined to clothe even rocks with verdure, in consequence of the wonderful structure of the plants inhabiting them, enabling them to live as it were by the suction of their numerous mouths, rather than by nourishment transmitted by a root in contact with that which would refuse to yield the ordinary food of plants. And as he thus marked all these peculiar adaptations of plants to their respective situations, his mind was by a constant train of thought directed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various

... enters into the flask by this suction ordinarily remains in the curved part of the tube, so that to mix it with the must it was necessary to incline the flask so as to bring the must into contact with the juice and then replace the flask in its ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... was a tumble of water, which was almost covered with foam. Somewhere in this poor Tom Betts must be floating, churned back and forth by the suction of the current that was striving ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... is uncertain. As she sung the last stanza, they arrived at, or rather in, a broad tranquil sheet of water, caused by a strong wear or damhead, running across the river, which dashed in a broad cataract over the barrier. The mule, whether from choice, or influenced by the suction of the current, made towards the cut intended to supply the convent mills, and entered it half swimming half wading, and pitching the unlucky monk to and fro in the saddle at ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... 13.—In (p. 046) the Obermaier apparatus dye-vat, A, is placed a cage consisting of an inner perforated metal cylinder, C, and an outer perforated metal cylinder, D; between these two is placed the material to be dyed. C is in contact with the suction end of a centrifugal pump, P, the delivery end of which discharges into the dye-vat A. The working of the machine is as follows: the slubbing or sliver is placed in the space between C and D rather tightly, ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech

... act was to clutch hold of the canoe, and throw all his energies into the task of avoiding the deadly suction of the whirlpool, for once he fell into its grip there must be only a question of seconds ere he reached its ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... to the place where the ship had gone down. As a result of the after suction, the small life-boat rocked about in a perilous sea of clashing spars ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... now at an even greater triumph of movement than the Nudes, Pollaiuolo's "Hercules Strangling Antaeus." As you realise the suction of Hercules' grip on the earth, the swelling of his calves with the pressure that falls on them, the violent throwing back of his chest, the stifling force of his embrace; as you realise the supreme effort of Antaeus, ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... vertically. When a strong enough current is passed the bar is drawn up into the coil as if by suction, whence the name. ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... a sound till the mate, after imbibing—by means of suction out of a saucer—his second cup of tea, exclaimed: "Where the devil is the man ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... weeds have quite forgot The power of suction to resist, And claret-bottles harbor not Such dimples ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... crushing their edges,—and, if one part of its substance be softer, at the given temperature, than another, probably squeezing that softer substance out into the veins. Then the veins themselves, when the rock leaves them open by its contraction, act with various power of suction upon its substance;—by capillary attraction when they are fine,—by that of pure vacuity when they are larger, or by changes in the constitution and condensation of the mixed gases with which they ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... before the steamer, drawing fragments of wrecked boats after it. The liner was evidently sinking rapidly. We saw dozens of hopeless, panic-stricken passengers diving off the lee side, trying to swim off far enough to avoid the tremendous suction. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... o' suction, Sammy,' said Mr. Weller the elder, looking into the pot, when his first-born had set it down half empty. 'You'd ha' made an uncommon fine oyster, Sammy, if you'd been born in ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... less deserving or the better off. But in your case it is, perhaps, rather a pity, because upon the whole I doubt if your fibre is tough enough to sustain the part. On the other hand, you haven't half enough—well—suction for a successful parasite; and those between are apt to get ground up rather small. My advice to you— But, Lord, is there any greater folly in all this foolish world than the ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... blue eternity they gave us dabs of rum To close the seams 'n' keep the flume in liquor-tight condition; But, soft 'n' sentimental, when the long, cold evenin's come, I'd dream me nibs was dronking' to the height of his ambition, With rights of suction over all the breweries there are, Where barrels squat, like Brahma gods, in ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... horrible hot whirlpools swung under the Roraima and pulled her down on her beam ends with the suction. She careened way over to port, and then the fire hurricane from the volcano smashed her, and over she went on the opposite side. The fire wave swept off the masts and smokestack as if they were ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... water table with a man-operated auger and then insert the pipe, or to drive the latter down with a heavy sledge hammer. In either case, water is but a few feet below ground and a shallow-well pump, which can raise water twenty-two feet by suction, will be adequate. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... in silence. Only the slight crackling at the prow, the soft dip of the paddle, and an occasional breath of effort from the paddler broke the stillness. The motion forward was slow; for the back suction in the shallow, narrow channel, which they almost immediately entered, stopped the boat at the end of each paddle stroke. Bobby was vaguely aware of high reeds or low banks on either side; but he could not see ten feet ahead, and he wondered how Mr. Kincaid could tell where to go. Shortly ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... "doffer" underneath which is a screen which catches some of the dirt. It is next fed between rolls in front of a rapidly revolving blunt-edged knife which throws out more of the dirt through a screen. There is a suction of air through the screen which helps remove the foreign substances. The cotton passes through several of such machines, being formed into a soft web or "lap" which is wound ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... by suction, &c., bear being high: it is probable that the heat might cause them to taint more, as a free passage for the scalding water could ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss

... capitalist and a millionaire. In your large way you prey upon society. YOU deal in Corners, Options, Concessions, Syndicates. You drain the world dry of its blood and its money. You possess, like the mosquito, a beautiful instrument of suction—Founders' Shares—with which you absorb the surplus wealth of the community. In my smaller way, again, I relieve you in turn of a portion of the plunder. I am a Robin Hood of my age; and, looking upon you as an exceptionally ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... the foot of the lawn, Lad's head and shoulders came into view above the little whirlpool caused by the sinking bodies' suction. And, at the same moment, the convulsed features of Homer Wefers showed through the eddy. The man was thrashing and twisting in a way that turned the lake around him into a ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... forgive me," Adolf yelled as he felt the suction. "I only wanted to organize a counter-revolution against the ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt

... is repairing your pump, how the water is raised in it, and he replies—"By suction." Recalling the ability which he has to suck up water into his mouth through a tube, he is certain that he understands the pump's action. To inquire what he means by suction, seems to him absurd. He says you know as well as he does, what he means; and he cannot ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... particularly to the works of those mechanically minded Greeks: Archimedes, Aristotle, Ctesibius, and Hero of Alexandria. The Greeks employed the lever, the tackle, and the crane, the force-pump, and the suction-pump. They had discovered that steam could be mechanically applied, though they never made any practical use of steam. In common with other ancients they knew the principle of the mariner's compass. The Egyptians had the water-wheel and ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... fruitful than one in which the orgasm was entirely absent? This question I am forced to answer in the affirmative. Because from the various investigations I have made it can hardly be subject to doubt that the uterus during an orgasm exerts a certain amount of suction; and that impregnation is more likely to follow when the spermatozoa are sucked up into the uterus than when left to make their own way by their own power of motion, stands to reason and goes without saying. In the former instance it takes less time for the spermatozoa to reach the ovum, and ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... ageder is not a surfeit nor a suction, it is not dated and careful, it is not dirty. Any little thing is clean, rubbing is black. Why should ancient lambs be goats and young colts and never beef, why should they, they should because there is so much difference ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein

... in the backwash, and as the girl at last dragged herself to her knees Cara rushed waist-deep into the foaming, eddying flood in a plucky effort to reach her. But, before she could get near enough, the suction of the retreating wave had swept Ann out of her reach and the next incoming breaker thundered over her again. Cara herself barely escaped its savage onslaught, and as she staggered into safety she turned a desperate, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... furrowed skin, probably endowed with an acute sense of feeling, which can guide them in that twilight in which their mode of life places them. The peculiar attenuation of the head in front of the antennae at once suggests to the practised eye the existence of a mouth adapted for suction. This mouth differs from that of the Hemiptera (bed-bug, etc.) generally, in the circumstance that the labium is capable of being retracted into the upper part of the head, which therefore presents a little fold, which is extended when the labium is protruded. In order to strengthen this part, ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... that the family Tetrabranchiata contains only one genus, the nautilus. After this catalog, if some recalcitrant listener confuses the argonaut, which is acetabuliferous (in other words, a bearer of suction tubes), with the nautilus, which is tentaculiferous (a bearer of tentacles), it will ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... rising tide had set him off the rock; but, alas! his good brig was leaking badly, and the fierce wind was driving her—whither the captain knew not; and in five minutes more, by the force of the wind and suction of the shore current, she was thrown high up on a rocky projection of our cape. One sailor was washed overboard by the breakers as she passed through them, and was dashed to death, probably in an instant, by the fierce ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... suction of the sinking ship; the waters poured from all round, like a raging torrent, into the swirling hollow where the craft had been; and as Leslie felt himself caught and dragged irresistibly toward the vortex ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... these are the real feet, or claspers, as they are sometimes termed, which develop into the feet of the future butterfly. There are four pairs of false feet or suckers, which adhere to the ground by suction, and which disappear in the butterfly. On the last or tail end is a fifth pair of suckers also, which can attach themselves to a surface with considerable force, as any one can attest who has noticed the wrigglings of one of these caterpillars when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... in mechanics and natural philosophy, which is popularly termed "Suction," may be exhibited in a thousand different ways, and yet all are the result of but one cause. When we witness the various phenomena of the air and common pump,—the barometer and the cupping glass,—the sipping of our tea, and the traversing ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... by vital suction, that is, by tapping the living tree, and allowing the ascending sap to carry up a preserving solution. This was not found to give uniform or satisfactory results, and Dr. Boucherie then invented the process which bears his name. This ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various

... submersible herself was sunk and all on board were lost. The commander of the expedition was Lieutenant George E. Dixon, of Alabama, who with his crew well appreciated their danger. It is supposed that the Hunley was drawn down in the suction of the sinking war-ship; she could not arise from the vortex, and that was the last of her and of her brave crew. The North was tremendously excited over the incident and the South elated, but no other ship was attacked from beneath the water in the ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... day, the adventurers saw a strange island in the Atlantic Ocean, far from the coast of South America. On it was a great whirlpool, into which the Porpoise, their submarine boat, was nearly drawn by the powerful suction. ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... away, however, for when did a man, struggling for life, ever listen to reason? For a few seconds the suction was so great that I could only prevent him from sinking lower, and keep his head above the mud, until at length I recommended him to endeavor to work his legs loose, so that he could rest upon his stomach, as though ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... increased intra-ocular tension by means of various mechanical measures, notably massage, vibration massage, suction ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various

... course, floated clear when the ship sank; and Frobisher and Drake, after being submerged so long by the suction of the sinking craft as to be almost suffocated, were lucky enough to come to the surface close alongside it. Having gained the raft, they at once set to work to haul on board everybody within reach, and then, with the assistance of a few oars which had floated free of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... sunk now clear to the knees in a weaving, shifting mass. It circled his imprisoned limbs like great moving ropes, pulling him downward with a suction ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... pressure used is 110 pounds per square inch; and the engine has a Buckley condenser. The pump valves are annular, of brass, faced with rubber, and close by brass spiral spiral springs. Their external diameter is six inches, and the lift is confined to 1/2 inch. There are 91 suction and 91 delivery valves at each end of the pump. The maximum speed of this pump is twenty-six ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... a door that kept swinging to and fro in the wind, banging shut with a slam and then squealing the hinges as it opened again with the suction. He drew a breath of relief when he came to that door, for he knew that any man who happened to be on guard would have fastened it for the sake of his ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... may be seen in every little whirlpool that goes down the swollen current of the river; and in our hemisphere they revolve in the same direction, namely, from right to left, or in opposition to the hands of a watch. When the water finds an outlet through the bottom of a dam, a suction or whirling vortex is developed that generally goes round in the same direction. A morning-glory or a hop-vine or a pole-bean winds around its support in the same course, and cannot be made to wind in any other. I am aware there are some perverse climbers ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... schooners. These had been thrown on their beam ends, their masts pointing at an angle toward the beach. Each wave, as it reached, stirred them a trifle, then broke in a deluge of water that for a moment covered their hulls completely from sight. With a mighty suction the billow drained away, carrying with it wreckage. The third vessel was a steam barge. She, too, was broadside to the seas, but had caught in some hole in the bar so that she lay far down by the head. The shoreward side of her upper works had, for some freakish ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... pick-cum-shovel-cum-ballot implements, and no more, still, among miners there must be two or three living individuals. The same among the masters. The majority are suction-tubes for Bradburys. But is this Sodom of Industrialism there are surely ten men, all told. My poor little withered grain of mustard seed, I am half afraid to take you across to ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence

... organization, which cannot properly be termed instinct, any more than breathing or muscular motion. Any object of suitable size in the mouth of an infant excites the nerves and muscles so as to produce the act of suction, and when at a little later period, the will comes into play, the pleasurable sensations consequent on the act lead to its continuance. So, walking is evidently dependent on the arrangement of the bones and joints, and the pleasurable ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... myself with my feet braced against the chest, I soon overcame the vis inertia of the spars, and, exerting all my force, when it was once in motion, I succeeded in giving the raft an impetus that carried it completely past the ship. I confess I felt no personal apprehension from the suction, supposing the ship to sink while the raft was in absolute contact with it, but the agitation of the water might weaken its parts, or it might wash most of my stores away. This last consideration induced me, now, to go to work with ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... remind you, under the head of general principles, that there is no such thing as "suction." Of course, you know it when you stop to think, but bear it in mind, and wherever the motive-power seems to be applied on which you rely to lift the column of air, remember that if raised at all it must be raised from the bottom. Maybe you ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... partition, would create an everchanging vortex around the little organism. As for the temporary prolongations or pseudopodia which the amoeba seems to make, they would be not so much given out by it as attracted from it by a kind of inhalation or suction of the surrounding medium.[14] In the same way we may perhaps come to explain the more complex movements which the Infusorian makes with its vibratory cilia, which, moreover, are probably only ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... effeminate. There is among the varieties of the human species a race of men whose breasts at the age of puberty acquire a considerable bulk. Lozano did not belong to that race; and he often repeated to us his conviction, that it was only the irritation of the nipple, in consequence of the suction, which caused the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... the side of the spoon, without noise or suction. In serving vegetables the tablespoon is ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... slipping from the branch. She was blue about the lips and her eyes were almost closed. The current was tugging at her strongly; she was losing consciousness. If she was carried away by the suction of the stream, now dragging so strongly at her limbs, Tom Cameron would be obliged to loose his own hold upon the wire and swim after her. And the young fellow was not at all sure that he could save either her ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson

... one, and tried to land; but so irresistible was the suction of the retiring wave, that, whenever they got foot on the sand, and tried to run, they were wrenched out to sea again, and pounded black and blue and breathless by the curling breaker they met ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... for example an acute mastitis, a bubo in the groin, or a boil on the neck, the affected area may be rendered hyperaemic by an appropriately shaped glass bell applied over it and exhausted by means of a suction-pump, the rarefaction of the air in the bell determining a flow of blood into the tissues enclosed within it (Figs. 7 and 8). The edge of the bell is smeared with vaseline, and the suction applied for from five to ten minutes at a time, with a corresponding interval between the applications. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... instant, I thought the unhappy man, entangled with the poulp, would be torn from its powerful suction. Seven of the eight arms had been cut off. One only wriggled in the air, brandishing the victim like a feather. But just as Captain Nemo and his lieutenant threw themselves on it, the animal ejected a stream of black liquid. We were blinded with it. When the cloud dispersed, the cuttlefish ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... graciously you smiled Upon my childish passion once, yourself a fair-haired child: When I was (no doubt) profiting by Dr. Crabb's instruction, And sent those streaky lollipops home for your fairy suction. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... begins to go," she said, "she'll go with a rush. Jump pretty wide, or you'll get caught in the suction." ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... the hall a high door opened and an old man emerged, swinging to and fro. On his gray little face shook white, sparse whiskers; he wore eyeglasses; the upper lip, which was shaven, sank into his mouth as by suction; his sharp jawbones and his chin were supported by the high collar of his uniform; apparently there was no neck under the collar. He was supported under the arm from behind by a tall young man with a porcelain face, red and round. Following him three more men ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... and Vienna itself open to our insults, does not, by rapid suction, every armed Austrian flow thitherward; Germany all drained of them: in which case, what is to hinder Prince Henri from stepping into Bohmen, by the Metal Mountains; capturing Prag; getting into junction ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... broken up, not by the flying fire-irons, but by the irritating little personal idiosyncrasies which men and women exhibit when they are, so they declare, "quite natural and at their ease." Only a mother's love can survive the accompaniment of suction noises with soup. Vice always makes the innocent suffer, but suffering is often bearable, and sometimes it ennobles us; but chewing raw tobacco—even perpetually chewing chewing gum—is unbearable, and has ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... and Emelene fluttered up after her, drawn along by suction, apparently, like a sheet of paper in the wake of a train. The expressmen came downstairs, still treading softly, and went out. Genevieve was alone again in her front hall. To her came tiptoeing Marie, with wide eyes of ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... when you force the air out of a rubber suction cap, such as is used to fasten reading lamps to the head of a bed, the air pressure outside holds the suction cap tightly to the object against which you first pressed it, making ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... applications: of the latter a very singular one is the appliance personally of the urine from a female—a very general remedy, and considered a sovereign one for most disorders. Bandages are often applied round the ankles, legs, arms, wrists, etc. sufficiently tight to impede circulation; suction is applied to the bites of snakes, and is also made use of by their doctors in drawing out blood from the diseased part, a string being tied to the hair, if it be the head that ails, or to any other part, and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... can lay Virginia worm fences in ink faster than any other editor in New York City. He uses a fountain-pen, a present from some friend. He thinks a great deal of it, but during an experience of three years has failed to learn the simple principle of suction without getting his mouth full of ink, and he generally uses it with an empty receiver. He makes a dash at the ink-bottle every twenty seconds, places the third finger and thumb of his left hand on his paper, and scratches ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... side. On both ends then, a train is gently pushed in by an electric locomotive. A car at a time goes through the gate so that there is a cushion of air between each car. The same thing happens at Liverpool. Now, when the due train comes out of the suction tube, it goes on out the gate, but the air behind it travels right on around and comes in behind ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen

... a wide-mouthed bottle almost to the top with very hot water and place the injured part over the mouth of the bottle and press lightly. Suction will draw the flesh down and steam ...
— Food and Health • Anonymous

... thinking I might climb on top. About that time one of the largest waves broke over me, knocking me on the side of the head as if with a solid object, nearly tearing me from the boat. After that I kept as close to the boat as possible, paddling with my feet to keep them clear of rocks. Then the suction of the boat caught them and dragged them under, and for the rest of the rapid I had all I could do to hang to the boat. As the rapid dwindled I began to look for Emery, but was unable to see him, for it was now growing quite dark, but I ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb

... between the upcast shaft of the mine and the centre or suctional part of the Fan closing the top of the upcast shaft, a Fan so arranged would draw out the foul air from the mine, and allow the fresh air to descend by the downcast shaft, and so traverse the workings. And as a Suction Fan so placed would be on the surface of the ground, and quite out of the way of any risk of injury—being open to view and inspection at all times—we should thus have an effective and ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... over the details of equipment—the scaling ladders, the jumping sheets, the branch pipes, the suction pipes, the flat roses, standcocks, goose necks, the dogtails, dam boards, shovels, saws, poleaxes, hooks, and ropes. From a consideration of them the two branched off to the generalities of fire fighting. Keith learned that the combating of a fire, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... own foot out of the treacherous ground and looked about for safer support. There was a suction as he dragged his foot up which sent his heart to his ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... The suction created by the peculiar disposition of the walls whisks the rude wattle sails around in the most lively manner. Forty of these mills are in operation at Tabbas; and to see them all in full swing, making ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... Before it reaches the limit position, valve E (exhaust) opens, and (4) the piston flies back under the momentum of the fly-wheel, driving out the burnt gases through the still open E. The "cycle" is now complete. There has been suction, compression (including ignition), combustion, and exhaustion. It is evident that a heavy fly-wheel must be attached to the crank shaft, because the energy of one stroke (the explosion) has to serve for the whole cycle; in other words, for two complete revolutions of the crank. A single-cylinder ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... endeavoured to explain the action of a suction pump by postulating a principle that "Nature abhorred a vacuum." When Galileo observed that a common suction pump could not raise water to a greater height than about 32 ft. he considered that the "abhorrence" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... duty of the heart is to deliver the blood to the capillaries. From the veins the blood is, for the most part, returned to the heart by the compressive action of the muscles, the constant change of posture and by the respiration acting both as a force and suction pump. All of these factors are at their maximum during bodily activity and at their minimum during rest. On exciting a sleeper by calling his name, or in any way disturbing him, the limbs, it has been recorded, decrease in volume while the brain expands. This is so because ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... covered with mud and shifty sand, full of inequalities, and subject to the pressure of a considerable body of water. Application was at last made to the recognised genius. If he could not solve it, who could? This was just one of the things that Watt liked to do. He promptly devised an articulated suction pipe with parts formed on the principle of a lobster's tail. This crustacean tube a thousand feet long solved the matter. Watt stated that his services were induced solely by a desire to be of use in procuring good water to the city of Glasgow, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... gin is as follows: The wagon loaded with cotton is driven under a galvanized spout called the sucker, through which there is a suction of air which draws the cotton into the gins. In each of the gins there are seventy circular saws revolving on one shaft. These saws are about one inch apart, and the teeth go through the gin breast, much as if one were to put the teeth ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... find a safe harbor every night in some creek; because it might grow cold enough to freeze such a craft in some night, or at least shut those harbors of refuge to entrance; but with such a big and stanch craft they could tie up to the shore and pay little attention to the in-rolling waves cast by the suction of ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... and 11 feet 6 inches long, and three pairs of pumping engines of patented type, each capable of raising thirty thousand gallons of water per hour from the waste tanks below the engine-room to the top tank of the tower above ground. There are three suction and three delivery mains, and these are connected direct to the lifts by a series of change sluices, admirably, neatly, and handily arranged in the engine-room by Mr. Rich, and in such a way that any engine, any lift, or any supply main can ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... of nursing is sometimes painful to the mother, especially before the habit is fully established. The discomfort is greatly increased if the skin that covers the nipples is tender and delicate. The suction pulls it off, leaving them in a state in which the necessary pressure of the child's lips cause intense agony. This can be prevented in a great measure, says Elizabeth Robinson Scovil, in Ladies' Home Journal, if not entirely, by bathing the nipples twice a day for six weeks before the confinement ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... sand from the Mediterranean into the mouth of the canal, and even now, though the breakwater has been lengthened to prevent it, there is always difficulty. Steamers are only allowed to go through slowly, otherwise the suction or pull of the water they disturb would tear down the banks and soon make the canal useless. You have no idea what a wave a big ship can raise in going through that narrow trough; even at a moderate pace it would be sufficient to tear another ship from her moorings ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... linotype machines in operation—which are not exactly what you would call quiet; he had listened to the outlandish voice of a suction-dredge and the tumultuous clamor of a threshing machine. But this earsplitting clatter was like nothing he had ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... advertising expenses, for Moessard's articles, which were sent to Corsica in bales of thousands of copies, with portraits, biographies, pamphlets—all the printed clamour that it was possible to raise round a name. And always the usual work of the suction-pumps went on, those pumps now fixed to this great reservoir of millions. Here, the Bethlehem Society, a powerful machine working with regular, slow-recurring strokes, full of impetus; the Territorial Bank, a marvellous exhauster, indefatigable, with triple ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet

... device which no man living could do without. But he went so far as to show us the inner workings of his discovery (hereinafter referred to as It), which, not knowing what they were for, rather mystified us. I know there was a small suction valve which involved the use of water, because William demonstrated to us one Sunday afternoon in the drawing-room. He said afterwards that the unexpected deluge that broke over the politely interested faces gathered round him was merely due to ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... business quite in the other direction,—on the north side of the Mayn, namely; on the Kinzig River, where Bathyani (who has taken D'Ahremberg's command below Frankfurt, and means to bestir himself in another than the D'Ahremberg fashion) is to meet him on a set day. Traun having thus, by strategic suction, pulled the Middle-Rhine Army out of his and Bathyani's way, hopes they two will manage a junction on the Kinzig; after junction they will be a little stronger than Conti, though decidedly weaker taken one by one. Traun, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... obviously, follows. This is illustrated in the case of any more or less theoretical problem and its solution. To perceive, for example, the connection between atmospheric pressure and the rise of water in a suction pump involves the introduction of connecting links in the form of the general law of gravitation, of which atmospheric pressure is a ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... power, water power, hydroelectric power; solar power, solar energy, solar panels; tidal power; wind power; attraction; vis inertiae [Lat.], vis mortua [Lat.], vis viva [Lat.]; potential energy, dynamic energy; dynamic friction, dynamic suction; live circuit, live rail, live wire. capability, capacity; quid valeant humeri quid ferre recusent [Lat.]; faculty, quality, attribute, endowment, virtue, gift, property, qualification, susceptibility. V. be powerful &c adj.; gain power &c n.. belong to, pertain to; lie ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... however, the ship listed heavily to port, plunging by the head, and sunk, carrying me down with the suction. I experienced no difficulty, however, in getting clear, and when I came to the surface I swam a few yards to a life raft, to which were clinging three men. We climbed on board this raft and upon looking around observed Doyle, chief boatswain's ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... brain is concerned," I said, "the process of suction isn't likely to yield much except a vacuum, so I will resign in favour of you. You are a full-blown lawyer, whereas I am only ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... out. As a temporary arrangement, a thin rubber tubing is inserted through a hole in the lower deck and allowed to hang outside the water-level. The siphon can then be formed by simply drawing the water up by suction with the lips. A continuous flow will result, emptying the hull within ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates

... "Suction—draught from the fire!" explained Mr. Sharp. "Heated air rises and leaves a vacuum. The cold air rushes in. It's carrying us with it. We'll be right in the fire in a few minutes, if we can't get started with this motor! I don't see what ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton

... sandhills, heavy piles or snubbing-posts had been planted. For these we at first could guess no reason. Soon, however, we had to pass another ship; and then we saw that one of us must tie up to avoid being drawn irresistibly by suction into collision with the other. The craft sidled by, separated by only a few feet, so that we could look across to each other's decks and exchange greetings. As the day grew this interest grew likewise. Dredgers in the canal; rusty tramps flying unfamiliar flags of strange ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... root into the soil at the bottom of the sea or rivers; but the cirrhi, or tendrills abovementioned, which hang from his snout over his mouth, must themselves be very inconvenient for this purpose, and as it has no jaws it evidently lives by suction, and during its residence in the sea a quantity of sea-insects ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... designed with special reference to the exact regulation of the temperature, humidity, and velocity of the air flowing through it. Both dryers connect by flues with an iron stack outside the building. This stack is provided with a suction fan, driven by a ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... the sea, and immediately a great cloud of steam arose, and the hissing as of a thousand serpents. We felt the strong suction under our keel, and staggered under the jerk of the ship's cable as she swung toward the beach. The paint was beginning to crackle along the rail. We could see nothing for the scalding white veil that enveloped us; we could hear nothing for the roar of steam, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... crew soon realized that paddles must be bent against the current of a veritable mill-race; but it was safer going against, than with, such a current, for unknown dangers could be seen from below instead of above, where suction would whirl a canoe on the rocks. Keen air foretold the nearing mountains. In less than a week snow-capped peaks had crowded the canoe in a narrow canon below a tumbling cascade where the river was one wild sheet ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... desire to talk interrupted me," said the Ork. "I am not usually careless in my actions, but that whirlpool was so busy yesterday that I thought I'd see what mischief it was up to. So I flew a little too near it and the suction of the air drew me down into the depths of the ocean. Water and I are natural enemies, and it would have conquered me this time had not a bevy of pretty mermaids come to my assistance and dragged me away from the whirling water and far up into a ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... streams trickling down the long irrigation marks through the grain and root crops might be likened to veins. To supply these it was necessary to tap the arteries every few yards; and the adjustment of these outlets, as ditches always lower during the heat of the day when suction and evaporation are the greatest and rise in the cooler hours of the night, was a matter of some ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... earth but in the expanse of surrounding space. Indeed, the very phenomenon of the Solfatara, if seen in this light, can reveal to us that at least the volcanic movements of the earth's crust are not caused by pressure from within, but by suction from without - that is, by an exceptional action ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... steam, the size of the feed must vary in the same proportion as the density of the steam. In all pumps a good deal of the effect is lost from the imperfect action of the valves; and in engines travelling at a high rate of speed, in particular, a large part of the water is apt to return, through the suction valve of the pump, especially if much lift be permitted to that valve. In steam vessels moreover, where the boiler is fed with salt water, and where a certain quantity of supersalted water has to be blown out of the boiler from time to time, to prevent the water from reaching too ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... doctor, in surprise. "Why, not ten seconds! She was in the very act of foundering, stern first, when you jumped; and it was undoubtedly her suction that did the mischief. You must have been dragged fathoms deep by her; and but for the line round you, you would probably never have come to ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... seaman-like manner with pieces of tarred yarn. He slowly filled this object, and proceeded to inform it in a husky voice that he was "blowed." The pipe was, apparently, in a similar condition, as it refused absolutely to answer to the powerful suction applied ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... his pipe, but replaced it empty between his teeth; it assisted him perhaps to carry on the conversation. Soames noted a hollow in each cheek, made as it were by suction. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the deck, clawing frantically for some kind of cover. At the last instant, Scotty pulled the plane up in a power climb. So near disaster had he come that the suction of the passing pontoons lifted a coiled rope into the air on top of the cabin. Even as he mounted the rail and stood on deck, Rick gave a prayer of thanks for his pal's perfect judgment ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... careened; when she sculled through a narrow passage in the floating algae, her fins bent and rippled as they were pressed bodywards. So she and her fellow brood lived in mid-aquarium, or at most rested lightly against stem or glass, suspended by gentle suction of the complex mouth. Once, when I inserted a long streamer of delicate water-weed, it remained upright, like some strange tree of carboniferous memory. After an hour I found this the perching-place of fourteen Redfin tads, and at the very summit was Guinevere. The ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... were moving side by side, hardly fifty yards apart. To come closer at this rate of speed these small scouting planes maintaining would have caused a mutual air suction that might cause a collision. This is the real cause of many of the accidents that befall inexperienced aviators, when out flying, ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... principal food of all is small insects. I have examined scores of them, and never without finding insects in their crops. Their generally long bills have been spoken of by some naturalists as tubes into which they suck the honey by a piston-like movement of the tongue; but suction in the usual way would be just as effective; and I am satisfied that this is not the primary use of the tongue, nor of the mechanism which enables it to be exserted to a great length beyond the end of the bill. The tongue, for one-half of its length, is semi-horny and cleft in two, the two halves ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... boy. "See that riffle?" He whipped the fly lightly within six inches of a little suction hole; a fish at ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... England in wave upon wave, and, retreating, the waters left smooth, shining rock where cities had been. The stone and steel of their buildings was scattered far over the desolate land or drawn in the suction of retreating waters ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various

... fainting, as expressed in the popular phrase "dead tired"; but a reflex action will nearly always restore the sufferer, like an automatic safety-valve; thus a yawn, that is to say, a deep, spasmodic inspiration, which dilates the pulmonary alveoli, causes the blood to flow to the heart like a suction pump, and sets it in motion again. In anger there is a kind of tetanic contraction of all the capillaries, causing extreme pallor, and the expulsion of an extra quantity of bile from the liver. Pleasure causes dilatation of the blood-vessels; the circulation, and consequently all the functions ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... the first out-stroke (the charging or suction stroke) gas and air are admitted to the cylinder through the respective valves (fig. 6), and continue to be drawn in by what may be termed the sucking action of the piston, until the completion of this stroke (the precise position of the closing and opening ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman

... with jaws when young and by suction, with tubular mouths when mature; e.g. the Lepidoptera: see menognatha ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... ounce of its weight used to the best advantage. At first all appearance showed that the sterns of the two vessels would collide; but from the stern bridge of the Titanic an officer directing operations stopped us dead, the suction ceased, and the New York with her tug trailing behind moved obliquely down the dock, her stern gliding along the side of the Titanic some few yards away. It gave an extraordinary impression of the absolute helplessness of a big liner ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... until his breast was against the sand. The hind legs were buried to the stifles. He wallowed and floundered helplessly. His hoofs touched nothing solid on which to stand. He stretched his head forward, straining-to lift himself away from that horrible, clinging suction. His efforts ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... the rooms and colder air is being brought in from below to take its place. This air comes from the ground below, and in open soil may come from a great depth. A case has been noted where gas escaping from a main in a city street twenty feet from a cellar wall was, by the suction due to heat, drawn into the cellar and thence into the rooms of the house. It is possible that air from cesspools and broken drains in the vicinity of a house may, in this same way, contribute to the atmosphere breathed ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... floor in the middle of the huge, empty room, was puckered upward in the center into a strange soft-looking mound, parted at the top into an ever changing hole, that pulsated to that great, gentle hooning. At times, as I watched, I saw the heaving of the indented mound, gap across with a queer, inward suction, as with the drawing of an enormous breath; then the thing would dilate and pout once more to the incredible melody. And suddenly, as I stared, dumb, it came to me that the thing was living. I was looking at two enormous, blackened lips, blistered ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... ended in what looked like balls, which proved to be flat, and acted like the foot of a fly, retaining by suction its hold upon the tree where it lived. The spine of its neck was so constructed that it could describe a circle with its head. Its long hind legs enabled it to ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... your turn to speak he listens with the whole of his attention strung up to its highest pitch, his eyes wide open staring at you, his mouth pursed up into a little O of suction, his fingers pressing to his ear the receiver of a machine which overcomes his deafness, his whole body leaning half across the table in his eagerness to hear ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... application for licenses where {p.179} there appears no public necessity for granting them. A man, therefore, cannot easily spend much money in liquor, since he must walk three or four miles to the place of suction and back again, which infers a sort of malice prepense of which few are capable; and the habitual opportunity of indulgence not being at hand, the habits of intemperance, and of waste connected with it, are not acquired. If financiers would admit a general limitation ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... description of the mechanical equipment of this era we are largely indebted to Agricola. He classifies hauling machines into four types; the ordinary bucket windlass, the piston (suction) pump, the chain of dippers, and the rag and chain pump. Although the first three had been known in antiquity, and the last perhaps a century before his time,[6] their use in mining would appear to date from the mid-14th century ...
— Mine Pumping in Agricola's Time and Later • Robert P. Multhauf

... over he whistles again. Then he does deep breathing at the door of the dug-out. (Aeroplanes passing overhead have had narrow escapes from being dragged into the dug-out by sheer power of suction, when David deep-breathes.) Then he does muscle exercises. He crooks his finger and from behind you see a muscle like a mushroom get up suddenly in the small of his back, run up his spine and hit him under ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various

... cystic tumors where the development is immense, a small incision only, is made—simply sufficient to bring the walls of the tumor in view and admit, perhaps, two or three fingers. The tumor is then rapidly emptied of its contents by means of a powerful suction apparatus. Adhesions, if any exist, are then carefully removed, and hemorrhage therefrom prevented; after which the large sac of the tumor, which when collapsed is like a thin bag, is readily drawn out through the small opening in the abdomen and removed. The small pedicle or cord-like ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... trapdoor turned over, shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from San Francisco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in the air with his hat, as a boy catches a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as if drawn up by suction. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... aft, like the one on her, which leaves a very narrow space between the wheel and the line of the companionway. Some even say that I might have improved the shape of her stern. I do not know about that. The water leaves her run sharp after bearing her to the last inch, and no suction is formed by ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... What has a knowledge of natural science to do with the construction of stoves, furnaces, and lamps? How are iron, silver, and copper ore mined and reduced? How is sugar obtained from maple trees, cane, and beet root? How does a suction pump work and why? Without a knowledge of such applications of natural science we should be thrown back into barbarism. These things also, since they form such an important part of every child's environment, should be understood, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... hoss power suction, K. VANDERBILT is your man. I ones thought I could never take a locker to this 'ere honest old heart, but as I cast my gaze over this audience, and observe among the Bulls and Bears, a cuple ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various

... cover, which is handy to my traps, and safer than the lake from curious eyes, without providing the means of getting out ag'in," continued this singular being; "and that is easier done by a pull than a push. My anchor is now lying above the suction, in the open lake; and here is a line, you see, to haul us up to it. Without some such help, a single pair of bands would make heavy work in forcing a scow like this up stream. I have a sort of a crab, too, that ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... made a bunt nearly as square as the mizen royal-yard. Beside this difficulty, the yard over which we lay was cased with ice, the gaskets and rope of the foot and leach of the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of suction-hose, and the sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with bare hands. No ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... down—I use the language of the people, observe, to impress it the more strongly on your mind—My FOOT is down!" Another moment yet, and Finch and Finch's Foot disappear over my mental horizon just as my eye has caught them. Damp Mrs. Finch, and the baby whose everlasting programme is suction and sleep, take the vacant place. Mrs. Finch pledges me with watery earnestness to secrecy; and then confides her intention of escaping her husband's supervision if she can, and bringing British surgery and German surgery to bear both together (gratis) ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... sukcesi. Success sukceso. Successful sukcesa. Succession, in vice. Successive intersekva. Successor posteulo. Succinct mallonga. Succour helpi. Succulent bongusta. Succumb subfali. Such a tia. Suck sucxi. Sucking-pig porkido. Suckle mamnutri. Suction sucxado. Sudden subita. Sue procesi. Suet graso. Suffer (endure) suferi. Suffer (tolerate) toleri. Suffering sufero. Suffice suficxi. Sufficiency suficxeco. Sufficient suficxa. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... there is a dividing wall. A tube runs from the left side of this wall to the right wing of the airplane, also from the right side of the wall to the left wing. At the end of each tube there is what we call a 'venturi tube.' This is a kind of suction device operated by the wind. The wind which blows through the left venturi tube sucks the air out of the right-hand side of the mercury tube, and the right venturi tube sucks the air out of the left-hand side of the mercury tube. The stronger ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser



Words linked to "Suction" :   evacuate, surgical operation, suction cup, suction pump, surgical procedure, void, pressure level, suck, ingestion, intake, operation, force per unit area, suction stop, suction lipectomy, consumption, suctorial, empty, pressure, surgery, surgical process, suction curettage



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