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noun
Vane  n.  
1.
A contrivance attached to some elevated object for the purpose of showing which way the wind blows; a weathercock. It is usually a plate or strip of metal, or slip of wood, often cut into some fanciful form, and placed upon a perpendicular axis around which it moves freely. "Aye undiscreet, and changing as a vane."
2.
Any flat, extended surface attached to an axis and moved by the wind; as, the vane of a windmill; hence, a similar fixture of any form moved in or by water, air, or other fluid; as, the vane of a screw propeller, a fan blower, an anemometer, etc.
3.
(Zool.) The rhachis and web of a feather taken together.
4.
One of the sights of a compass, quadrant, etc.
Vane of a leveling staff. (Surv.) Same as Target, 3.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vane" Quotes from Famous Books



... Sir Henry Vane, a youth of twenty-four, noble both by birth and by nature, was elected Governor of the Colony. He sided with Mrs. Hutchinson, and sought to bring commonsense to bear and stem the tide of fanaticism. They turned on him, and his downfall was identical with hers, although he was to return to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... the General, who is rather given to the vernacular, "is the limit. A North-South-East-West report is preposterous. Something must be done. Haven't we got a weather-vane of our own? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various

... the lesser; the longest primaries are twenty inches in length, and upwards of one inch in circumference where they enter the skin; the broadest secondaries are three inches in breadth across the vane; the scapulars are very large and broad, spreading from the back to the wing, to prevent the air from passing through; another range of broad flat feathers, from three to ten inches in length, also extend from the lower part of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... everywhere it was formidably active. Virginia should, perhaps, be particularised for the zeal which its leading men displayed in the American cause; but it was among the descendants of the stern Puritans that the spirit of Cromwell and Vane breathed in all its fervour; it was from the New Englanders that the first armed opposition to the British crown had been offered; and it was by them that the most stubborn determination to fight to the last, rather than waive a single right or privilege, had been displayed. In ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... him erect in the stern-sheets and astare at a vision parting the fog—the vision of a tall fore-and-aft sail, golden-grey against the sunlight, and above the sail a foot or two of a stout pole-mast, and above the mast a gilded truck and weather-vane with a tail of scarlet bunting. So closely the fog hung about her that for a second I took her to be a cutter; and then a second sail crept through the curtain, and I recognized her for the Gauntlet ketch, Port of Falmouth, Captain Jo Pomery, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... that which the State had a right to prefer. He accepted the office of "Secretary for Foreign Tongues" to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, a delegation from the Council of State of forty-one members, by which the country was at that time governed. Vane, Whitelocke, and Marten were among the members of the committee. The specified duties of the post were the preparation and translation of despatches from and to foreign governments. These were always in Latin,—the Council, says ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... sacrament, he could peremptorily exclude therefrom all those of whom he disapproved, for "none are propounded to the congregation, except they be first allowed by the elders." [Footnote: Winthrop's reply to Vane, Hutch. Coll., Prince Soc. ed. i. 101.] In such a community the influence of the priesthood must have been overwhelming. Not only in an age without newspapers or tolerable roads were their sermons, preached several times each week to every voter, the most effective ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... little boys. They had to climb up over high rocks, and in among huckleberry-bushes and blackberry-vines. But the little boys had their india-rubber boots. At last they discovered the little old woman. They knew her by her hat. It was steeple-crowned, without any vane. They saw her digging with her trowel round a sassafras bush. They told her their story,—how their mother had put salt in her coffee, and how the chemist had made it worse instead of better, and how their mother couldn't drink it, and wouldn't she come ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... Author of 'John Vane Tempest: a Romance,' 'Herbert and Henrietta: or the Nemesis of Sentiment,' 'The Life and Adventures of Colonel Bludyer Fortescue,' 'Happy Homes and Hairy Faces,' 'A Pound of Feathers and a Pound of Lead,' part author of 'Minn's Complete Capricious Correspondent: a Manual of Natty, Natural, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... fire by the Geneva flag; it was a small cottage which realized the dream of every shopkeeper after he has made his fortune. Nothing was lacking, not even the earthen lions at the steps, or the little garden with its glittering weather-vane, or the rock-work basin for goldfish. On warm days the past summer passers-by might have seen very often, under the green arbor, bourgeoisie in their shirt-sleeves and women in light dresses eating melons together. The poet's imagination fancied at once this picture of a Parisian's Sunday, when suddenly ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... candle-flame that I'll keep my fingers out of," said Davy hastily. "Judge Vane told me once a person who advises or mixes in on the marriage relations of others is liable in damages. And anyhow, sane people don't run matrimonial agencies. In that debacle, you're on your own. I'm promoting talent, not running a marriage bureau. And I don't want the side ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... and dearly, Florence Vane; My life's bright dream, and early, Hath come again; I renew, in my fond vision, My heart's dear pain, My hope, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter

... see such painted sticks In Vane's and Winthrop's places, To see your spirit of Seventy-Six Drag humbly in the traces, With slavery's lash upon her back, And herds, of office-holders To shout applause, as, with a crack, 119 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... Illustrations of Parliamentary Oratory. A Poem. Comprising. Pym. Vane. Strafford. Halifax. Shaftesbury. St John. Sir R. Walpole. Chesterfield. Carteret. Chatham. Pitt. Fox. Burke. Sheridan. Wilberforce. Wyndham. Conway. Castlereagh. William Lamb (Lord Melbourne). Tierney. Lord Grey. O'Connell. Plunkett. Shiel. Follett. Macaulay. Peel. Second Edition. ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... hooked barbules which, in the flight-feathers, hook into one another with just sufficient firmness to resist the pressure of the air at each wing-beat, the lightness and firmness of the whole apparatus, the elasticity of the vane, and so on. And yet all this belongs to an organ which is only passively functional, and therefore can have nothing to do with the Lamarckian principle. Nor can the feather have arisen through some magical effect of temperature, moisture, electricity, or specific nutrition, and thus selection ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... Julia; these fine speeches do not deceive me. I am afraid that the love of woman is a very light thing. It yields readily to the wind. It does not keep in one direction long, any more than the vane ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... mansion house were born statesmen, judges, and captains of war. The "Dorothy Q." of Holmes's poem first saw the light in it, and the Dorothy who became the bride of the dashing John Hancock blossomed into womanhood in it. Here were entertained times without number Sir Harry Vane, quaint Judge Sewall, Benjamin Franklin, and that couple who gleam through the annals of New England history in a never-fading flame of romance, Sir Harry Frankland and beautiful Agnes Surriage. The Quincy mansion, which was built about 1635 by William ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery

... The Wooing of Winifred. It was written by an author whose name I forget; produced by the well-known and (as his press-agent has often told us) popular actor-manager, Mr. Levinski; and played by (among others) that very charming young man, Prosper Vane—known locally as Alfred Briggs until he took to the stage. Prosper played the young hero, Dick Seaton, who was actually wooing Winifred. Mr. Levinski himself took the part of a middle-aged man of the world with a slight embonpoint; ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... wings the vulture held his flight; The dove scarce heard its sighing mate's complaint; And, like a star slow drowning in the light, The village church-vane seemed to pale ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... found to have slightly injured the astronomical instruments. The morning before we anchored at Porto Praya, I collected a little packet of this brown-coloured fine dust, which appeared to have been filtered from the wind by the gauze of the vane at the mast-head. Mr. Lyell has also given me four packets of dust which fell on a vessel a few hundred miles northward of these islands. Professor Ehrenberg [3] finds that this dust consists in great part of infusoria ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... her as she stooped again, but always own her for their haughty mistress still! On, on we flew, with changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed region of fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by day, and a bright moon by night; the vane pointing directly homeward, alike the truthful index to the favouring wind and to our cheerful hearts; until at sunrise, one fair Monday morning - the twenty-seventh of June, I shall not easily forget the day - there ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... thinkers both Vane and Harrington are more profound. Harrington is the author of what Americans have called the greatest discovery since the printing-press. For he has given the reason why the great Rebellion failed, and was followed by the reaction under Charles ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... descried Swann, evidently just arrived. With him was Gail Williams, a slip of a child not over fifteen—looking up at him as if excited and pleased. Next Lane espied his sister Lorna with a tall, well-built man. Although his back was toward Lane, he could not mistake the soldierly bearing of Captain Vane Thesel! Lorna looked perturbed and sulky, and once, turning her face toward Swann, she seemed resentful. Captain Thesel had his hand at her elbow and ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... watching the direction of the smoke from the chimneys? What does a vane on a steeple tell us? What is a north wind? A south wind? An ...
— Home Geography For Primary Grades • C. C. Long

... that I see? [2] No, not the County Member's with the vane: Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... holdfasts for the depot flag. Depot flags had been exercising our ingenuity for months before the start, ordinary forms being destroyed by the wind in a few hours. Webb had finally built the perfect flag of the wind-vane type: a V of pieces of blackened Venesta board with light struts at the back and a piece of aeroplane tubing at the apex which slipped over the bamboo pole. The pole, of two bamboos, stood sixteen feet from the ground and was provided with two sets of flexible ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... be walknit out of his fleip, be thair dyn, and to preife ouer his bed ftok, the faid Robert cam than rynnand to him, and maift crewallie, with thair faldit neiffis gaif him ane deidlie and crewall straik on the vane-organe, quhairwith he dang the faid vmqle Johnne to the grund, out-ouer his bed; and thaireftir, crewallie ftrak him on bellie with his feit; quhairvpoun he gaif ane grit cry: And the faid Robert, feiring the cry fould haif ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... and was 0.3 of an inch in diameter. The horizontal stem or lever supporting it was of shell-lac, according to Coulomb's direction, the arm carrying the ball being 2.4 inches long, and the other only 1.2 inches: to this was attached the vane, also described by Coulomb, which I found to answer admirably its purpose of quickly destroying vibrations. That the inductive action within the electrometer might be uniform in all positions of the repelled ball and in all states of the apparatus, ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... the owner of large estates in Cumberland, and a great game preserver. His tenantry were bound to protect all the hares, partridges, and pheasants that fed on their young corn; and, in return, Sir Vane entertained them once a-year with a dinner of roast mutton and potatoes, when good luck enabled them to bring their rents on Old Michaelmas-day. A great personage was Sir Vane Peacock. He was the possessor of two thousand acres of the richest arable land in the county, besides his ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... my sill, But all the winds of Heaven are still; And so, it falls with that dull sound Which thrills us in the churchyard ground, When the first spadeful drops like lead Upon the coffin of the dead. Beyond my streaming window-pane, I cannot see the neighboring vane, Yet from its old familiar tower The bell comes, muffled, through the shower. What strange and unsuspected link Of feeling touched has made me think— While with a vacant soul and eye I watch that ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... for the reason that I was acquainted with Sir Howard Hepwell, one of whose gamekeepers was the stepfather of the missing Molly Clayton. Moreover, it was hinted that she had gone away in the company of Captain Ronald Vane, at that time a guest of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... against the sky. An odd figure, clad in a skimpy green petticoat, with a scarlet shawl held about her shoulders, wisps of frowsy red hair standing out round her head, she balanced herself on the slippery earth, spinning her arm like the vane of a windmill, and crying at the top of her ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... is a dam lie Swane and you know it and then Swane went away and father came in and said that someone had ridden horseback over the concreek sidewalk and they tride to lay it on me. Then it was bedtime and Mister Robinson he prayed some more and he prayed for those who took the name of the lord in vane, and ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute

... her, some of whom had wholly failed to stand the fierce test of the London footlights. Then to "damn her with faint praise," would not only be a safe course at the outset, but the steps to a becoming locus peniteniae would be easy and gradual if the vane should, in spite of the critics, veer round to the point of popular favor. One of the most distinguished of English journalists lately observed in the House of Commons that certain writers in back parlors were ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... austere crisis of England's history. The first scene puts the great quarrel forward as the ground on which the drama is to be wrought. An attempt is made to represent the various elements of the popular storm in the characters of Pym, Hampden, the younger Vane and others, and especially in the relations between Pym and Strafford, who are set over, one against the other, with some literary power. But the lines on which the action is wrought are not simple. No audience could follow the elaborate network of intrigue which, in Browning's effort to represent ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... objects—producing, in short, a crude microscope. Some years later, Johannes Lippershey, of whom not much is known except that he died in 1619, experimented with a somewhat similar combination of lenses, and made the startling observation that the weather-vane on a distant church-steeple seemed to be brought much nearer when viewed through the lens. The combination of lenses he employed is that still used in the construction of opera-glasses; the Germans still call such ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... Boston. The morning was very fair. In the night the mist had flown, and now the sun shone out warm and cheerful, giving the necessary brightness to the scene. It lay tenderly on the quaint fen village, and the little gilt vane on the church steeple glittered proudly, almost as if it ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... time ordered to sea a force for suppressing them. As they had made the island of Providence their common place of residence, Captain Woodes Rogers sailed against this island, with a few ships of war, and took possession of it for the Crown. Except one Vane, who with about ninety more made their escape in a sloop, all the pirates took the benefit of the King's proclamation, and surrendered. Captain Rogers having made himself master of the island, formed a council in it, and appointed officers ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... unsuccessful attempt to effect a lodgment in a rookery at a little distance from the Exchange, were compelled to abandon the attempt, and to take refuge on the spire of a building; and although constantly molested by other rooks, they built their nest on the top of the vane, and there reared a brood of young ones, undisturbed by the noise of the populace below them. The nest and its inmates were of course turned about by every change of the wind. For ten years they continued ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... without no hesitation whatsomever. They was likewise spirit rappers and high presher reformers on gineral principles. If I can improve these 'ere misgided peple by showin them my onparalleld show at the usual low price of admitants, methunk, I shell not hav lived in vane. But bitterly did I cuss the day I ever sot foot in the retchid place. I sot up my tent in a field near the Love Cure, as they called it, and bimeby the free lovers begun for to congregate around the door. A onreer set I have never sawn. The ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... prostrated by an epidemic of diarrhoea which spared no one. They now thought they saw their end, but the contrary appeared to be the case. The diarrhoea seemed to relieve the scurvy, and the swollen limbs of the sufferers began to be less painful. They named the camp Vane de los Soldados de los Cursos, and Crespi applied the name of Santo Domingo to it. Unable to travel on the 25th and 26th, but resuming the march October 27th, they pressed forward. The next stop was Purisima creek, two short leagues distant, but the way was rough, and the ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera

... VANE TEMPEST, most admirable of buffoons, must have longed to be allowed to make us laugh, but solemnity was his order of the day and he carried it out like a hero. As for Mr. WENMAN, who played the partner that introduced Lord Glandeville to the rest of the "Lotus Publishing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... winking eyes; When the long tale, renew'd when last they met, Is spliced anew, and is unfinish'd yet; When but a few are left the house to tire, And they half sleeping by the sleepy fire; E'en the poor ventilating vane that flew Of late so fast, is now grown drowsy too; When sweet, cold, clammy punch its aid bestows, Then thus the midnight conversation flows: - "Then, as I said, and—mind me—as I say, At our last meeting—you remember"—"Ay?" "Well, very well—then freely as I drink I spoke my ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe

... where to run except into the huts, an' those our round-shot plowed through like so much grass—which was what they was, mostly. Then old Johnny Buck piped the longboat overside and on shore we went, firin' all the time. Cap'n Vane himself, with a dirk in his teeth and sword an' pistol out, goes swearin' up the roadway an' we behind him, our feet stickin' in blood. A few come out shootin' their little arrers at us, but we herded 'em an' drove 'em, yellin' all the time. At close quarters their knives was no ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... a brief and bald account of the most famous of these pirates. But they are only a few of a long list of notables, such as Captain Martel, Capt. Charles Vane (who led the gallant Colonel Rhett, of South Carolina, such a wild-goose chase in and out among the sluggish creeks and inlets along the coast), Capt. John Rackam, and Captain Anstis, Captain Worley, and Evans, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... him in distress" he called the place Providence. Roger Williams, with his grand idea of religious tolerance, stood far ahead of his time. His aim, like his character, was pure and noble. He was educated at London, and was a friend of Vane, Cromwell and Milton. While at Plymouth and Salem he spent much time in ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... and if he does not happen to see any thing to shoot at, he will shoot at random into the air. But if there is any object which will serve as a mark in sight, it seems to have the effect of drawing his aim towards it. He shoots at the vane on the barn, at an apple on a tree, a knot in a fence—any thing which will serve the purpose of a mark. This is not because he has any end to accomplish in hitting the vane, the apple, or the knot, but only because ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... was erected a pole of larch fir, which the miller had bought with others at a sale of small timber in Damer's Wood one Christmas week. It rose from the upper boughs of the tree to about the height of a fisherman's mast, and on the top was a vane in the form of a sailor with his arm stretched out. When the sun shone upon this figure it could be seen that the greater part of his countenance was gone, and the paint washed from his body so far as to reveal that ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... much. Humph! You were all, Parliament and Presbytery, Puritan and Independent, Hampden and Vane and Oliver, in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity, very far from the pure light in which walk the followers of the blessed Ludovick. At the last the two witnesses will speak against you also. But in the mean time it were easier for the children ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... which is so agreeable to the mind after the sensation of strong happiness; Dumiger, with his head resting on his hand, was gazing on the lofty tower of the Dom, and the light fleecy clouds, which appeared to be almost attracted by the glittering vane. At that moment a rude hand ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various

... ought to be closed), with the handle consumed, and valued at 10/-, was sold for 3 pounds 3/-; the two carved griffins, holding shields of the City arms, facing the quadrangle, 35 pounds; the two busts of Queen Elizabeth, on the east and west sides, 10 pounds 15/-; the copper grasshopper vane, {27} with the iron upright, was reserved by the Committee; the alto relievo, in artificial stone, representing Queen Elizabeth proclaiming the Royal Exchange, 21 pounds; the corresponding alto relievo, representing Britannia seated amidst the emblems of Commerce, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin—when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St. Sepulchre's, so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jeweled—when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... minutes, they heard another siren. It sounded a different note, a quaintly harsh blend of discords. Whatsoever ship this might be, it was not the Sao Geronimo. And in that thrilling instant there was a coldness on one side of their faces that was not on the other. Moist skin is a weather-vane in its way. A breeze was springing up. Soon the fog would be rolled from off the sea and the sun would ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... once a large and beautiful garden. Though now sadly curtailed and overlooked, enough is left to show what it must have been like in former days. Beside the main path is a tall and well-cut sundial of stone, with a weather-vane at the top pierced with the initials of Robert Cookes, and the date 1720. At the end of the garden is a break in the wall, formerly railed across, and flanked on either side by tapering columns. This ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New

... less and less of a farmer and more and more of a literary man. He bought a typewriter. He would hang over the pigpen noting down adjectives for the sunset instead of mending the weather vane on the barn which took a slew so that the north wind came from the southwest. He hardly ever looked at the Sears Roebuck catalogues any more, and after Mr. Decameron came to visit us and suggested that Andrew write a book of country poems, the man ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... as Medio Pollito came to a stream, to a large chestnut tree, to the wind, to the soldiers outside the city gates, to the King's Palace at Madrid, and to the King's cook, until in the end he reached the high point of immortalization as the weather-vane of a church steeple. ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... to the ridgepole—clear to the cupoly, and then I'll shin the weather vane with the star spangled banner ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... to say, "what would be the use of tantalizing the poor chaps? Hear 'em disputing right now whether that shining thing they see far away in the distance is the brass hand on the top of the church steeple in Stanhope, or the wind vane on the court house cupola? Anyhow, it stands for Stanhope; and if they were where they could stare out yonder by the hour some of 'em would skip ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... "It represents the modern ideal of a proper system of government. The mill stands for the machinery of administration, the wind that drives it symbolizes the public will, and the rudder that always keeps the vane of the mill before the wind, however suddenly or completely the wind may change, stands for the method by which the administration is kept at all times responsive and obedient to every mandate of the people, though it be ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... the sense Of her superior innocence? Somehow, all loves, however fond, Prove lieges of the nuptial bond; And she who dares at this to scoff, Finds all the rest in time drop off; While marriage, like a mushroom-ring, Spreads its sure circle every Spring. She twice refused George Vane, you know; Yet, when be died three years ago In the Indian war, she put on gray, And wears no colours to this day. And she it is who charges me, ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... actress, intriguante, but kind of heart. Sir Charles Vane is one of her lovers, but after the appearance of his simple-hearted wife upon the scene, the actress dismisses her admirer, and induces him to return to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... short time La Touche came back, and reported, as I knew he would, that the frigate didn't appear to be preparing to sail. Scarcely had he come on board than the wind began to drop, till it became a stark calm. I saw the officers exchange looks with each other as they observed the dog vane hanging right up and down. It was very certain that we could not move, for we had not boats sufficient to tow the brig out of the harbour. There was every prospect of the calm continuing for many hours. The Frenchmen, by the way they paced the deck, showed their vexation, every now and then giving ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... into the hands or wings rather of a gilded weather-cock. The mother would watch the pigeons flying into their hiding-places in the steeple, seeking a refuge from the wild storm, and then her eyes would be lifted higher to the weather-vane, as if seeking for news about the sea-wind. Still higher went her ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... Joliffe, breaking silence almost for the first time that evening—"these, if I interpret them aright, are the Puritan governors, the rulers of the old original democracy of Massachusetts—Endicott with the banner from which he had torn the symbol of subjection, and Winthrop and Sir Henry Vane and Dudley, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... emigrants across the sea, for the persecution in England was at its height, the Puritan aristocracy was suffering in its estates, and Puritan divines were everywhere silenced or dismissed. Even Warwick was shorn of a part of his power. Young Henry Vane, son of a baronet, had already gone to America, and such men as Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke, and Sir Arthur Haslerigg were thinking of migrating and had prepared a refuge at Saybrook where they might find peace. But the turn of the tide ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... half-way up the weather main rigging, while the watch was sheeting home and hoisting away the topgallant-sails and royals. When Keene reappeared on deck, after calling the skipper, I was comfortably astride the royal-yard, with my left arm round the spindle of the vane—the yard hoisting close up under the truck. With my right hand I manipulated the slide of the telescope and adjusted the focus of the instrument to suit ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... think thet folks are nigh, An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, My innard vane pints east for weeks together, My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, The crook'dest ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... doubtful and inferior matter. No one can justly blame him, though any one may most justly refrain from praising, from the general point of view, as regards the "insets" of Miss Williams's story in Roderick and of that of Lady Vane here. From that point of view they range with the "Man of the Hill" in Tom Jones, and in the first case at least, though most certainly not in the second, have more justification of connection with the central story. He may so far underlie the charge of error of judgment, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... Eclipse mill is accomplished by the use of a small adjustable side vane, flexible or hinged rudder vane, and weighted lever, as shown in Plate 1 (on the larger sizes of mills iron balls attached to a chain are used in place of the weighted lever). The side vane and weight on lever being adjustable, can be set to run the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various

... thither went Quakers and Ranters; thither went Ann Hutchinson, that extraordinary woman, who divided the whole politics of the country by her Antinomian doctrines, denouncing the formalisms around her, and converting the strongest men, like Cotton and Vane, to her opinions. Thither went also Samuel Gorton, a man of no ordinary power, who proclaimed a mystical union with God in love, thought that heaven and hell were in the mind alone, but esteemed little the clergy and the ordinances. The colony was protected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Bunny agreed. "The wind's coming from the south," he added as he looked at the weather vane on the barn and saw that it was pointed to the south. "I guess they don't ever have snow down south; do ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope

... mown sole drafts fore bass beat seem steel dun bear there creak bore ball wave chews staid caste maize heel bawl course quire chord chased tide sword mail nun plain pour fate wean hoard berth isle throne vane seize sore slight freeze knave fane reek Rome rye style flea faint peak throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam wry flee feint pique mite seer idle pistol flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... a Working Power. If a delicate vane is held at an opening from which steam issues, the pressure of the steam will cause rotation of the vane (Fig. 126), and if the vane is connected with a machine, work can be obtained ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... punishment enough to be certain that of all those people going to church, there cannot be one more miserable than we who stood at the old window ridiculing them. They at least do not feel that everything they hope for in human life is dependent upon one human will—the will of a mortal weather-vane! It is the case, and it must be conciliated. There is no half-measure—no choice. Feel that nothing you have ever dreamed of can be a disgrace if it is undergone to forestall what positively impends, and act immediately. I shall expect to see you in three days. She is to have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... boat-green door, with window-frames of the same colour, and had the little finger of a drowned man on his parlour mantelshelf, with other maritime and natural curiosities. He displayed also a brass knocker, a brass plate, and a brass bell-handle, all very bright and shining; and had a mast, with a vane on the top of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... outer extremity of the wing and are known as the primaries. What are called the secondaries are attached to the ulna of the forearm, while the tertiaries occupy the humerus and are next to the body. All these feathers are so placed relatively that the stiff outer vane of each quill overlaps the more flexible inner vane of its successor, like the leaves of certain kinds of fans, thus presenting an unbroken surface to the air. As to the structure of these plumes, they combine firmness, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... jagged lightning flash whose quivering light, for one brief instant, showed him a glimpse of the wide valley below, of the winding road, of field and hedgerow and motionless tree and, beyond, the square tower of a church, very small with distance yet, above whose battlements a tiny weather-vane flashed and glittered vividly ere all things vanished, swallowed ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, whose descendants continued to hold them until they passed to the crown by the marriage of Anne Nevill with Richard III., then duke of Gloucester. In 1630 Barnard Castle was sold to Sir Henry Vane, and in the same year the castle is said to have been unroofed and dismantled for the sake of the materials of which it was built. Tanning leather was formerly one of the chief industries of the town. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... rate, will be proof against bad luck," she said, as she undid the case, and drew out a prismatic compass. She adjusted the eye-piece, in which was a slit and a glass prism and lifted the sight-vane, down the centre of which a horsehair stretched perpendicularly to the card of the compass. Putting the instrument to her eye, Rose took the bearing of one of the twin forest-clad heights, and said, ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... an arm of this patron saint of Winchester was one of the most treasured possessions of Peterborough. What remained of these much-disturbed relics were re-translated by Bishop Walkelin from the old to the new cathedral, but in 1241 the shrine was broken by the vane of the tower falling through ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath

... Ammeter, Magnetic Vane. A fixed plate of soft iron is placed within a coil. Facing it is a second disc free to move or swing on an axis. When the field is excited the two repel each other because like polarity is induced in each, and the motion of the movable disc indicates the strength of the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... still and wait, poised on her nether horn. Below her the morning sky waited, clean and virginal, letting her veil of mist slip lower and lower until it rested in folds upon Shotover. While it dropped a shaft of light tore through it and smote flashing on the vane high above Taffy's head, turning the dark side of the turrets to purple and casting lilac shadows on the surplices of the choir. For a moment the whole dewy shadow of the tower trembled on the western sky, and melted and was gone ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Vane Lee, is also a bit of a naturalist, as is the author of this book. But some of his inventions have a way of going wrong, as for example when he decides to make the defective church clock work. He takes it all to pieces, cleans all the parts up, and puts it all together ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... brought them to the flank of the hill; they climbed it, and from the top could see the Wan valley and what should be the town. It was a heap of stones, scorched and shapeless. The church tower still stood for a mockery, its conical cap of shingles had fallen in, its vane stuck out at an angle. Prosper, whose eyes were good, made out a flag-staff pointing the perpendicular. It had a flag, Party per pale argent and sable. A dun smoke hung ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... a statue, to which the Academician compared her, she lacked statuesque repose. She bent her body like a reed, or spun around like a weather-vane, or danced like a top. Her features possessed even greater mobility, and in consequence were even less statuesque. They were lighted up beautifully by five dimples: two on one cheek, one on the other, another very small one near ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... May-pole often mentioned as in a state of decay in various publications, which stood almost on the site of the present church, was removed in 1713, and a new one erected July 4, opposite Somerset House, which had two gilt balls and a vane on the summit, decorated on rejoicing days with flags and garlands.—When the second May-pole was taken down, in May, 1718, Sir Isaac Newton procured it from the inhabitants, and afterwards sent it to the Rev. Mr. Pound, rector of Wanstead, Essex, who obtained permission from ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various

... useless from the yards and stays; a faint rustle aloft now and again, with an accompanying rippling patter of reef-points, betraying rather some subtle heave of the glassy sea than any sign that the breeze still lingered. Yet there must have been a light draught of air aloft, for the vane at our main-royal-masthead occasionally fluttered languidly out along the course we were steering, and our royals exhibited an occasional tendency to fill, albeit they as often collapsed again softly rustling to the masts. Moreover, the barque still retained her steerage-way. I remarked ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... windmill, which requires no swivel mechanism and no vane to keep it up to the wind, is the cheapest and may be made the most substantial of all the forms of wind-motor. In its rudimentary shape this very elementary windmill resembles a four-bladed screw steam-ship propeller. The wheel may be constructed by simply erecting a high windlass ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... others of the children had taken it up and she was more frequently Puss than Tabitha; for all of which she was deeply grateful. Still, she could not help wishing that Tom's name could have been Jerome. That did sound so splendid! But Tom in her eyes was just as nice as Jerome Vane, even if he was solemn and shy while Jerome ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... the walls were of wood. The roofs were high in proportion to the side walls, and hence steep; they were surmounted usually in Holland fashion with weather-vanes in the shape of horses, lions, geese, sloops, or fish; a rooster was a favorite Dutch weather-vane. There were metal gutters sticking out from every roof almost to the middle of the street; this was most annoying to passers-by in rainy weather, who were deluged with water from the roofs. The cellar windows had small loop-holes with shutters. ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... ancient ferry, now disused, to which it had formerly served as a tavern. It rested on stout oaken piles driven deep into the river-mud; a notable building, with a roof like the inverted hull of a galleon, pierced with dormer windows and topped by a rusty vane. Its tenants were a childless couple—a Mr. and Mrs. Strongtharm: he a taciturn man of fifty, a born naturalist and great shooter of wildfowl; she a douce woman, with eyes like beads of jet, and an incurable propensity for mothering ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... came out of the church, Reuben spied the weather-vane, in the form of a fish, which crowned the little wooden tower, in which was the bell, still used, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... so unexpected that the governor, like a vane which suddenly receives an impulsion opposed to that of the wind, was quite dumbfounded at it. "Diversions!" said he; "but I take ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... lawns and flower-beds there were always beautiful to see; and the great house with its many bay windows and broad verandas always seemed like a palace to Master Sunshine. But best of all he loved the great stable where a prancing silver horse was always riding on the weather vane. ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser

... religious views on which she lectured to the women of Boston, and made so many converts that she split the church. Governor Vane favored her, but John Winthrop opposed her teachings, and when he became governor again she and her followers were ordered to quit ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... both sides begins to assume a more genial aspect. Patches of verdure, with white cottages, are seen on the shores and scattered along the sides of the mountains; while here and there a village church rears its simple spire, distinguished above the surroundings buildings by its glittering vane and bright roof of tin. The southern shores are more populous but less picturesque than those of the north, but there is enough on either side to ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... also admitted to their yet it was visible, that (15) unreserved confidence two others, Nathaniel Fiennes, the second son (45) whom I will now of the Lord Say, and Sir Harry describe,—Nathaniel Fiennes, Vane, eldest son to the Secretary, second son of Lord Say, and Sir and Treasurer of the House, were Harry Vane, eldest son of the received by them with full Secretary, and Treasurer of the ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott

... go home for the Easter holidays, for everything at the Castle was so sad and unsettled that Bridgie felt it advisable that she should stay away a little longer, and an invitation from Mr and Mrs Vane ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... time her sudden appearance was like a sort of miracle, as if the thoughts in his brain had taken shape, had materialized. For a moment he could not regain presence of mind sufficient to return her greeting. Then, noticing the broken vane on the ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... authority more urgently upon the discredited Parliament. He demanded that Fleetwood (whose weakness made him an easy tool) should be General, and that he himself should be Major-General. The Parliament, under the leading of Hazlerigg and Vane, still resisted his claims, and attempted to defy him. Their resistance was easily overcome. Lambert met Lenthall, the Speaker, on his way to the House, compelled him to return home, and by main force closed the Parliament. In its place was established a Committee of Safety of twenty-three members, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... name? Everybody knows that the unsparing manner in which he disfranchised small boroughs was emulously applauded, by royalists, who hated him for having pulled down one dynasty, and by republicans, who hated him for having founded another. Take Sir Harry Vane and Lord Clarendon, both wise men, both, I believe, in the main, honest men, but as much opposed to each other in politics as wise and honest men could be. Both detested Oliver; yet both approved of Oliver's plan of parliamentary reform. They grieved only ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... whose belfry crowned The hill of Science with its vane of brass, Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round, Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, And all absorbed in reveries profound Of fair Almira in the upper class, Who was, as in a sonnet he had said, As pure as water, and as good ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... The vane on Hughley steeple Veers bright, a far-known sign, And there lie Hughley people, And there lie friends of mine. Tall in their midst the tower Divides the shade and sun, And the clock strikes the hour And tells the time ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman

... the Northwest Thurston of Orchard Valley Winston of the Prairie The Gold Trail Sydney Carteret, Rancher A Prairie Courtship Vane of the Timberlands The Long Portage Ranching for Sylvia Prescott of Saskatchewan The Dust of Conflict The Greater Power Masters of the Wheatlands Delilah of the Snows By Right of Purchase The Cattle ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss

... Parkstone explained. "She is Miss Adela Vane; at present she is playing at the Comedy Opera House. It is just possible that ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... sub-director went to work to prepare one as quickly as possible, and so nimble were his hands that when the depot party returned there was the finest instrument-screen standing ready on the hill, painted white so that it shone a long way off: The wind-vane was a work of art, constructed by our able engineer, Sundbeck. No factory could have supplied a more handsome or tasteful one. In the instrument-screen we had a thermograph, hygrometer, and thermometers. Observations were made at 8 a.m., 2 p.m., and 8 p.m. When I was at home I took them, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... been among us; hands that penn'd And tongues that utter'd wisdom, better none: The later Sydney, Marvel, Harrington, Young Vane, and others who call'd Milton Friend. These Moralists could act and comprehend: They knew how genuine glory was put on; Taught us how rightfully a nation shone In splendor: what strength was, that would not bend But in magnanimous meekness. France, 'tis strange, Hath ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth

... when the successes of a prelatic monarch, against a presbyterian parliament, were paving the way for rebuilding the system of hierarchy, they could no longer remain inactive. Bribed by the delusive promise of Sir Henry Vane, and Marshall, the parliamentary commissioners, that the church of England should be reformed, according to the word of God, which, they fondly believed, amounted to an adoption of presbytery, they agreed to send succours to their brethren of England. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... maiden, with her clinging robes, her amulets and girdles, with something quaint and angular in her step, her carriage something mediaeval and Gothic, in the details of her person and dress, this lovely Evelyn Vane (isn't it a beautiful name?) is deeply, delightfully picturesque. She is much a woman—elle est bien femme, as they say here; simpler, softer, rounder, richer than the young girls I spoke of just now. Not much talk—a great, sweet ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James

... her race, Begs, for each birth, the fortune of a face: Yet VANE could tell, what ills from beauty spring; And SEDLEY curs'd the charms which pleas'd ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... the others were ready, so she stepped aside among the gravestones, and looked up to where the white, slender spire of the old church towered against the blue. She was trying to make out the Episcopal mitre surmounted by the gilded weather-vane, when Mrs. Gray saw and ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... rival attentions of other suitors, and among them, the most favoured was said to be Lord Hervey, notwithstanding that he had then been for some years the husband of one of the loveliest ornaments of the court, the sensible and virtuous Mary Lepel. Miss Vane became eventually the avowed favourite of the prince, and after giving birth to a son, who was christened Fitz-Frederick Vane, and who died in 1736, his unhappy mother died a few months afterwards. It is melancholy to read a letter from Lady Hervey to Mrs. Howard, portraying the frolic and levity ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton



Words linked to "Vane" :   rudder blade, aerogenerator, fin, turbine, web, feather, weather vane, weathercock, weathervane, propellor, barb, whirlybird, arrow, plume, eggbeater, wind tee, blade, helicopter, windmill, wind vane, wind generator, oar, impeller, chopper, plumage



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