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Muscle   /mˈəsəl/   Listen
Muscle

noun
1.
One of the contractile organs of the body.  Synonym: musculus.
2.
Animal tissue consisting predominantly of contractile cells.  Synonym: muscular tissue.
3.
A bully employed as a thug or bodyguard.  Synonym: muscleman.
4.
Authority or power or force (especially when used in a coercive way).
5.
Possessing muscular strength.  Synonyms: brawn, brawniness, heftiness, muscularity, sinew.



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"Muscle" Quotes from Famous Books



... artist or philosopher ever lived who has not at some hours risen to the height of utter self-abnegation for the glory of the invisible. There have been painters who would have been crucified to demonstrate the action of a muscle,—chemists who would gladly have melted themselves and all humanity in their crucible, if so a new discovery might arise out of its fumes. Even persons of mere artistic sensibility are at times raised by music, painting, or poetry to a momentary trance of self-oblivion, in which they would offer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... I guess. Turnin' pine trees inter paper mus' be a job thet takes more muscle than brains. I don't see how it's ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... view, he laid himself flat in the road over which the fisherman must pass and pretended to be dead. The fisherman beheld him with surprise when he drew near, and jumping from his seat poked his sleek sides with his whip. The fox did not move a muscle, and Truvor decided that he had been frozen to death by the cold of ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... young sprout coming down from the mountain top with a bloodstained rag which he threw on the ground, saying, "Here's what's left of your lawyer that fell off!" Miss Torsen heard it, and never moved a muscle. No, she never mourned the death of the lawyer very keenly; on the contrary, she wrote off at once to ask another friend to come. When he came, he turned out to be a swaggering scatterbrain—a "free lance," ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... water and be lost, and that would never do. She turned aside from her course and ran after it. It was easy enough to overtake the apple, but while she was doing so Meilanion gained upon her again. He was almost to the goal. How she strained every muscle now to overtake him! But, after all, she felt that she did not care very much. He was the handsomest young man that she had ever seen, and he had given her three golden apples. It would be a great pity if he should have to die. And so she let him ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin

... that nobler state With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain! Your very victories die in hymns of hate; And your own envies ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes

... such a refreshing sight of health and youth, so tall and fit and English, with his brown smooth head and fearless blue eyes, gay and debonnaire. One could see that he played cricket and polo, and any other game that came along, and that not a muscle of his frame was out of condition. He had "soldier" written upon him—young, gallant, cavalry soldier. Verisschenzko appreciated him; nothing complete, human or inanimate, left him unconscious of its meaning. ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... as if there was no moisture in life. All the while the safety-valves hissed with the escaping steam, and the boat's crew silently toiled with the grooms of the different horses to get the equipages on board. With the carriages it was an affair of mere muscle, but the horses required to be managed with brain. No sooner had one of them placed his fore feet on the gangway plank than he protested by backing up over a mass of patient Canadians, carrying with him half a dozen grooms and deck-hands. Then his hood was drawn over his eyes, and ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... the fire, which was out; at Modestine, standing meekly by the tree to which he was tied; at the raindrops bounding off Aggie's round and prostrate figure—and I rebelled. Every muscle was sore; it hurt ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... enough; springs necessary for comfort & safety Sylph spring frame saves muscle & nerves & is perfection. All users delighted. Investigate. We also make a 30 ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile

... of combustion, there are always to be washed away some broken-down particles from the tissues themselves, which, like all machinery, are being continuously worn out and repaired. By chemical tests in the laboratory, the physiologist finds that a muscle which has recently been in violent exercise contains among other things carbon dioxid, urea, creatin, and sarco-lactic acid, none of which are found in a rested muscle. Since all this debris is acid ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... The soldiers would know that any man swimming the Seine on a February night was a man whom they ought to stop. I did not look back,—the one thing to do was to pass the Tour de Nesle before the guards there should be put on the alert by the cries from the right bank. So on I swam, urging every muscle to its utmost. ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... sailor sighed, and longed that he could write such neat verses, and sing them so sweetly. How he would besiege the ear of Rose Salterne with amorous ditties! But still, he could not be everything; and if he had the bone and muscle of the family, it was but fair that Frank should have the brains and voice; and, after all, he was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and it was just the same as if he himself could do all the fine things which Frank could do; for as long ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... penetration of the imagination into the true nature of the thing represented, and on the scorn of the imagination for all shackles and fetters of mere external fact that stand in the way of its suggestiveness"—a possession which gives the strength of distance to his eyes, and the strength of muscle to his soul. With this he slashes down through the loam—nor would he have us rest there. If we would dig deep enough only to plant a doctrine, from one part of him, he would show us the quick-silver in that furrow. If we would creed his Compensation, there is hardly ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... working of senses, developed to a marvelous degree, sounded a warning note. A danger threatened. He did not know what the danger was nor whence it would come, but the soul of the Onondaga was alive and every nerve and muscle in his body was attuned for any task that might lie before him. He looked at his sleeping comrades. They did not stir, and their long, regular breathing told him that no sinister threat ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... we are and the island ahead is a stretch of roaring water dangerous enough looking. We have learned ere this, however, to sit tight and watch for events. The careless Indians have straightened into keen-eyed, responsible voyageurs, each muscle taut, every sense alert. Our boat goes first, one half-breed with huge pole braces himself as bowsman, the most able man takes the stern sweep, the others stand at the oars. Fifteen minutes of good head-work brings us to the island ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... cold bath in the early morning was followed by play of dumb-bells. He had made a cult of physical soundness; he looked anxiously at his lithe, well-moulded limbs; feebleness, disease, were the menaces of a supreme hope. Ideal love dwells not in the soul alone, but in every vein and nerve and muscle of a frame strung to perfect service. Would he win his heart's desire?—let him be worthy of it in body as in mind. He pursued to excess the point of cleanliness. With no touch of personal conceit, he excelled the perfumed exquisite in care for minute perfections. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained; knowest thou when Fate Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee, "I find thee worthy; do this deed ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... tenderfoot pilgrimage to the Alaskan goldfield in '97-8 and the same crowd six months later will understand what had happened to these men. The puny had put on muscle; the city dweller had blown his lungs; the fat man had lost some adipose; social differences of habit had disappeared. The gentleman used to his bath and linen sheets and the hard-living farmer or labourer—both had had to eat the same kind of food, do the same work, run the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... bestowed, gave them fresh courage, urged them to greater exertions. Every nerve was braced, every muscle strained to its utmost tension, while their foam-flecked sides said, as plainly as words could say it, "We are doing ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens

... a muscle of the old man's face quivered; not a groan escaped from his firmly set lips. To judge from his appearance, it might have been a stick that he was burning. When at length he drew back the crisp burnt finger of his now blistered hand, he held it toward ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... tearing up great clods of turf, biting and striking as opportunity offered. At last, by a quick, desperate rush, the buckskin caught the thoroughbred fairly by the throat. Here the affair would have ended had not the black stallion, rearing suddenly on his muscle-ridged haunches and lifting his opponent's forequarters clear of the ground, showered on his enemy such a rain of blows from his iron-shod feet that the wild buckskin dropped to the ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... rubbish, and nothing but rubbish." Nor did he even throw a glance at Sobakevitch and Manilov. It was as though he were uncertain what he might not encounter in their expression. Yet he need not have been afraid. Never once did Sobakevitch's face move a muscle, and, as for Manilov, he was too much under the spell of Chichikov's eloquence to do aught beyond nod his approval at intervals, and strike the kind of attitude which is assumed by lovers of music when a lady singer has, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... power of Israel and Judah. While the high and mighty princes and merchants lived in the capitals and squandered their wealth, the simple and hard-working farm folk and wage earners made up the bone and muscle of the population, raised the necessities of life and, in times of need, furnished ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... notice: "All service men welcome. Beds. Meals. Writing and reading rooms. Always open." She passed on. One of the soldiers, a non-commissioned officer of mature years, solemnly winked at her, without moving an unnecessary muscle. She ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... which is a lobster without claws, of a sweetish taste; and there are a few rock oysters, very small and very rank. Sometimes the fishermen find under water, pieces of a very hard cement, like plaister of Paris, which contain a kind of muscle, called la datte, from its resemblance to a date. These petrifactions are commonly of a triangular form and may weigh about twelve or fifteen pounds each and one of them may contain a dozen of these muscles which have nothing extraordinary ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... known, proceed by action and re-action. The second shock, I was aware, must be imminent. I had just touched the threshold, and stood under the porch, when that curious spasmodic sensation once more stiffened every muscle in my limbs. Presently I felt myself lifted up from the ground. I was now under the portico, and was hurled against the pillar on my right; the rebound again drove me to the post on the opposite side; and after being thus repeatedly tossed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... take a seat. Pao-yue then inquired where Ling Kuan was. Both girls explained that she was in her room, so Pao-yue hastened in. Here he found Ling Kuan alone, reclining against a pillow. Though perfectly conscious of his arrival, she did not move a muscle. Pao-yue ensconced himself next to her. He had always been in the habit of playing with the rest of the girls, so thinking that Ling Kuan was like the others, he felt impelled to draw near her and to entreat her, with a forced ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... The labor was muscle-racking. In most cases there were stairs to climb. He stood, sagging under his burden, till chests were cleared by the housewives or sluggish maids. He discovered that the iceman was considered a fair and logical butt for ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... striving, Mind and muscle, heart and soul, With the reins of judgment keeping Passions ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... of the products of merely intellectual speculators, we still think that the world needs specially the laborer. We use the term "laborer" in this connection in its widest sense, comprehending he who uses brain as well as he who employs muscle; scientific investigation and discovery should be followed by and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... have been observed in many parts of the human body (25. For instance, M. Richard ('Annales des Sciences Nat.,' 3rd series, Zoolog. 1852, tom. xviii. p. 13) describes and figures rudiments of what he calls the "muscle pedieux de la main," which he says is sometimes "infiniment petit." Another muscle, called "le tibial posterieur," is generally quite absent in the hand, but appears from time to time in a more or less rudimentary condition.); and not a few muscles, which ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... 'fall to a wrestling;' they may be in fun or in earnest—it matters not—they simply divest themselves of their swords, and see, as in our illustration, with what perfect ease and liberty of limb they are able to go to work and bring every muscle of the body into play. Next, by way of contrast, let us picture to ourselves what would happen to a man under the same circumstances, in the costume of the present day. If he commenced a wrestling match with no more preparation than ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... framework of the potato is cellulose, which is an indigestible carbohydrate material. Potatoes have only a small amount of cellulose, however, and they are comparatively easy of digestion. When dry and mealy, they are most digestible. When used for a meal, potatoes should be supplemented by some muscle-building food, such as milk, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... heroes of antiquity. Each is original—new—self-subsisting. The monarch of Thrace is invested with more of uncouth and savage terror. He is bigger, broader. Might for destroying is in his bulk of bone and muscle. Bulls draw him, and he looks taurine. A bear-skin mantles him; and you would think him of ursine consanguinity. The huge lump of gold upon his raven-black head, and the monster hounds, bigger than the dog-kind can be imagined to produce, that gambol about his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... compensation he lets out a hole or two in his belt and starts in to carry more weight there. In other words, he exchanges muscle for fat, and as the fat increases he has less and less muscular strength to carry it. It is as though in a motor-car one added hundreds of pounds of weight to the body and reduced the horse-power of the engine. Pretty soon the man becomes so heavy around the waist ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp

... the slender portion of the hair, and the beautiful changeable coppery [Page 210] hues of the fur is owing to this structure. Another reason for the cleanliness of the fur is the strong, though membranous muscle beneath the skin. While the mole is engaged in travelling, particularly in loose earth, the soil for a time clings to the fur; but at tolerably regular intervals the creature gives the skin a sharp and powerful shake, which throws off at once the whole of the mould ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... take an upright position threw me on my back again. Evidently my muscles were not working as they were when I went to bed. They must be over-excited and over-active. I immediately thought of my heart as the principal and controlling muscle, and in my eagerness to feel its beating my hand dealt me a slap in the chest. These blows, though rapid, did not seem to hurt as much as they ought, after the first stinging sensation. I found my ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... needed than courage, the treasure is already as good as in my pocket." Then the Old Boy told him that he must go to dig up the treasure next Thursday night, when the moon would be full; but added, "Take good care that you are not a bit afraid, for if your heart fails you, or if only a muscle of your body trembles, you will not only lose the expected treasure, but may even lose your life, like many others who have tried their luck before you. If you don't believe me, you may go into any farmhouse, and the people will tell you what they have heard about the walls of the old castle. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... helpless in the grasp of old Boreas, the inhabitants did little except cower in their lodges around their fires and eat and sleep. This sort of existence grew almost intolerable to the brothers. With every muscle and nerve yearning for action, they became impatient and sometimes fretful. When they spoke of themselves as prisoners it ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... meat and water beside him, but he paid no heed. He lay calmly on his breast, and gazed with those steadfast yellow eyes away past me down through the gateway of the canon, over the open plains—his plains—nor moved a muscle when I touched him. When the sun went down he was still gazing fixedly across the prairie. I expected he would call up his band when night came, and prepared for them, but he had called once in his extremity, and none had come; he would ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... smote His ample shield, nor stay'd the pointed brass, But penetrating sheer the disk, his belt Pierced also, and stood planted in his waist. 625 As when some vigorous youth with sharpen'd axe A pastured bullock smites behind the horns And hews the muscle through; he, at the stroke Springs forth and falls, so sprang Aretus forth, Then fell supine, and in his bowels stood 630 The keen-edged lance still quivering till he died. Then Hector, in return, his ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... jovially on Saturday night. A wife was expected to assist at the loom as well as to be cunning in the making of marmalade and the firing of bannocks, and there was consequently some heartburning among the lads for maids of skill and muscle. The Auld Licht, however, who meant marriage seldom loitered in the streets. By and by there came a time when the clock looked down through its cracked glass upon the hemmed in square and saw him not. His companions, gazing at each other's boots, felt ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... at the bolt, but at the hinges. Screws deeply imbedded were pulled out bodily. A second lighter wrench completed the task, and the door was noiselessly set aside, though Jim was trembling in every muscle. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... un," he said to the chief. "Got a little muscle, too, ain't ye? Ain't no religion in that ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden

... the canine tooth is the result of a double movement. The angle or corner of the mouth is drawn a little backwards, and at the same time a muscle which runs parallel to and near the nose draws up the outer part of the upper lip, and exposes the canine on this side of the face. The contraction of this muscle makes a distinct furrow on the cheek, and produces strong wrinkles under ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... being no better than they are we can get that much from the fact—the inner hardening. When, justly or unjustly, others attack or hurt or worry or anger or annoy me, the knowledge that through the very trial I am toughening within, where so often I am without moral muscle, can ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... was planted, and behind that square shoulder was straining all the muscle of his two hundred pound body. The result was all that he desired. When he ceased pushing, a slab of rock gaped wide before him, giving entrance to a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various

... the premises, & walk not less than ten miles every day with the cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole of the exercise, nor the most health giving part of it, I think. Through the multitude of the positions and attitudes it brings into play every muscle in the body ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... digging her toes into the evasive muscle-pads for the quick effort, and leaping upward, one hand twined in the wet mane, the other hand free and up-stretched, darting between the ears and clutching the foretop. The next moment, as the stallion balanced out horizontally in obedience to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... soon be forgotten. There was a particularly ignorant woman, my foreman's wife, in the house; but I had practically no nursing, no medicine of any kind, and the diet was hardly suited for a patient. The pain became so great that I was not able to open my mouth, dared not move a muscle, and was reduced to a mere skeleton. Then it occurred to my "guardians" to send once more for the doctor. Another week went by, and when he came I had just succeeded in passing the critical stage and was on the mend. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... Diana Warwick's there:—worth fifty of me! Dacier, I've had my sword-blade tried by Indian horsemen, and I know what true as steel means. She's there. And I know she shrinks from the sight of blood. My oath on it, she won't quiver a muscle! Next to my wife, you may take my word for it, Dacier, Diana Warwick is the pick of living women. I could prove it. They go together. I could prove it over and over. She 's the loyallest woman anywhere. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... from the dark place by the window where he had hovered. The light poured over him, illuminating every cranny of his skin; but not a muscle of his face moved as he sat looking out ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... countenance relaxed in a grin—a somewhat scornful and unbelieving expression—but he did not speak. He was not a very tall man; he was thin of figure and hardened of muscle; his head was bald in front, giving him the appearance of a high forehead, and the hair at the back and around the ears was beginning to gray. His eyes were light blue; his nose was shapely and his jaws prominent and tightly set in repose. ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... path along the river margin; marks on trees, where hollow portions of bark had been taken off; some ancient, some recent, huts of withered boughs and dry grass; freshwater muscle shells, beside the ashes of small fires; and, in some places, a small heap of pulled grass (PANICUM LOEVINODE), or of the coral plant; such were the slight but constant indications of the existence of man on the Narran. Such was the only home of our fellow-beings in these parts, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... on the ends of the coat. With a "One, two, three!" from the Master, the Legionaries threw all their muscle into the lift. "Now, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... intelligent blind youth especially interested in medicine, should not be trained as an anatomist, a heart and lung specialist, an osteopath or a masseur? He does not need eyes to listen to heart beats, find the third vertebra, or rub the kinks out of a refractory muscle. In Japan the government reserves massage as an occupation for the blind, and in the hospitals of England and France blind masseurs are given the preference, and their work receives the highest commendation. Los Angeles has a blind anatomist at the head of its College of ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... and that was followed by five minutes of relaxation. Next she lay on the floor flat upon her face, her arms across her back, and lifted her head and chest twenty-five times. This exercise was to replace flesh with muscle across the abdomen. Then she rose to her feet, set her small heels together, turned her toes out squarely, and, keeping her body upright bent her knees out in a line with her hips, sinking and rising rapidly fifteen times. This produced pliancy of the body, and induced a healthy ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... whereof is seen no trace nor will trick avail to track.[FN515] When his folk beheld him they were impotent to govern their horses until their lord had vanisht from their view, nor had anyone the muscle or the manhood to keep up pursuit. So waxing perplext and wildered in their wits they sought counsel one of other saying, "Let each and every of us ride by a separate road until such a day when haply we shall meet him." Hereupon the whole party dispersed and all took their ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... period of its existence, how close and intimate in appearance is this union with the body! Sensation extends to every part of it, every fibre is instinct with life, and the direction of the will is absolute and immediate over every muscle and joint, as if the whole fabric and its tenant were one homogeneous system. The will tires not of its supremacy, and is not wearied with the number of volitions required of it to keep every joint in ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... all went well, for the way was down hill, and the wheel squeaked briskly round and round; Bab smiled gratefully upon her bearer, and Ben "went in on his muscle with a will," as he expressed it. But presently the road grew sandy, began to ascend, and the load seemed to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... this bundle," Za explained. "The servants are bringing the properties now. I secured a signaling device and a box used in an extremely primitive system of communication. Also, I brought the quaint muscle-powered vehicle ridden by the young male. The photographs should be ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert

... at bottom the prime cause of the inequalities which obtain; which desolate fertile acres turned over to vast ranches and into bonanza farms of a thousand acres, where not one family finds a habitation, where muscle and brain are supplanted by machinery, and the small farmer is swallowed up and turned into a tenant or slave. While in large cities thousands upon thousands of human beings are crowded into narrow quarters where vice festers, where crime flourishes undeterred, and where death is the ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... said he, 'and a thing I hate to use. Hold out your arm. Well, your sleeplessness hasn't ruined your muscle; and what a thick hide it is! Might as well inject a buffalo subcutaneously. Now in a few minutes the morphia will begin ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... energy we have expended and so restore our vital forces to their equilibrium? The protoplasm of which our cells are made we can obtain from the protoplasm of animal and vegetable substances which we eat, but we cannot use the material unless we are sometimes at rest, and by quiescence of brain and muscle give a chance for worn-out cells to be removed and new material put in their place. It is when we lay our bodies down in the beautiful repose of slumber that this process can go on with most perfect results. Then, when all the forces can be concentrated ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... which have existence in the world, of which threefold dimension is predicated, that is, which are called compounds, consist of degrees of height, that is, discrete degrees; as examples will make clear. It is known from ocular experience, that every muscle in the human body consists of minute fibers, and these put together into little bundles form larger fibers, called motor fibers, and groups of these form the compound called a muscle. It is the same with nerves; in these from minute fibers larger fibers ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg

... rolling up his sleeves. "There's muscle! There's bone! That's something like a man's arm, aren't it? Hold you? Half-a-dozen on ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... Muscle and brain are our slaves; We are liege to iron and steel; But who shall say, tomorrow, today, That we shall not halt on our onward way To bow to ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... "Calls for muscle and plenty of keep-at-it." His voice was soft, but as the Colonel looked at him he realized why a hard fellow like Scoville Austin had made ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... the edge of the bench. Though he knew that every moment brought nearer the chance of discovery, that the lives of them all hung on a thread as slender as a hair, the Captain stood without the twitching of a muscle, without a sign of fear or haste in his ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... all wealth. Japan will no doubt, like other countries, sooner or later have to face a solution of the problems involved in these recurring disputes and this apparently deep-rooted antagonism between the possessors of wealth and the possessors of muscle. Already many associations have been established whose aim and object is to voice the sentiments of labour and assert its rights. Indeed, there is a newspaper, the Labour World, the champion of the rights of the Japanese workmen. So far the law in Japan does not regard with ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... in their little mental workshop—but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself. Natasha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word, no single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret meaning ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... there, but the details of that particular conflagration would be far, far behind them—forgotten; no one could guess, to-morrow, that they were ever hot or thirsty or tired, or worried over a threatening storm, or that they ever swore at one another ill-naturedly from the sheer strain of anxiety and muscle-ache. ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... of the big games in the fall of 1879, Eaton had a large muscle in one of his legs torn and had to quit playing for that season." Vernon was put in Chummy's place. "But I couldn't fill Chummy's shoes," Vernon acknowledges, "for he and Camp had practiced their beautiful side line play ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... said the Swede. "Yankee baked beans and brown bread make better muscle than fish, which is about all the fellows down this way get ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe

... get up was not an easy task. It took stern will, and all the strength of muscle he had left, and when he finally achieved it there was a clammy dew of pain upon his face. With slow guarded movements he began to dress himself. Any sudden or violent action might burst the delicate gassed spots in his lungs or throw out of place one of the lower vertebrae ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... of the caves into which they had retreated, and the wolfish glare in the presence of food was exchanged for a look of calm serenity. His coat, instead of hanging on him like a shirt on a handspike, had begun to show indications of muscle covering the bones, and his vest no longer flapped against him like the topsail of a Dutchman in a dead calm. Altogether, there was a healthy look about the old man which gave the impression that he had been into dock, and had a ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... States—it is that of eternal and uncompromising hostility to the project. They will never consent that the free and virgin soil of the Territories shall be blighted and cursed by the tears of the slave, while they have a will to determine, or a muscle to resist. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... Kolgrim started, in a way, and looked first at the riggers and then back at the Saxon, who moved no muscle of his face, though one might see that his eyes twinkled. And I looked at the riggers also, and saw that the Saxon was right, and that the men had the square-cut sail turned over with the leech forward ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... settled on Baker's face, but he was not frightened; he did not move a muscle, except to glance ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day—who begins in the spring and toils all summer—and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... example, have a high power of regeneration, and in them the reparative process may result in almost perfect restitution to the normal. More complex structures, on the other hand, such as secreting glands, muscle, and the tissues of the central nervous system, are but imperfectly restored, simple cicatricial connective tissue taking the place of what has been lost or destroyed. Any given tissue can be replaced only by tissue ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... aloft on the balcony, The starlings around me crying, And let like maenad my hair stream free To the storm o'er the ramparts flying. Oh headlong wind, on this narrow ledge I would I could try thy muscle And, breast to breast, two steps from the edge, Fight it out in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... experiments (that seem to be forgotten by modern electricians) the galvanometer of the period, a prepared frog, could be made to kick by connecting its nerve and muscle with muscle and nerve of a recently killed ox, with, or without ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... even to Paul, waited with intense eagerness. Her face had become pale and her lips were tremulous. Paul, too, felt as though the issues of light and darkness lay within the next few minutes, while his mother sat rigid in her chair, never moving a muscle, her eyes fixed on the man who had just come ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... "Naught but muscle and bone and fire and flax went to the making of that stunted wight," mused Zelie, setting her knuckles in her hips. "What a pity that she escapes powder and ball, when poor Pierre Doucett is shot down!—a man with wife and child, and useful to my ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... hemorrhagic fever - tick-borne viral disease; infection may also result from exposure to infected animal blood or tissue; geographic distribution includes Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe; sudden onset of fever, headache, and muscle aches followed by hemorrhaging in the bowels, urine, nose, and gums; mortality rate is approximately 30%. Rift Valley fever - viral disease affecting domesticated animals and humans; transmission is by mosquito and other biting insects; infection may also occur through handling of infected ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... strong for immediate action, is fatal to her. If she does not feel beforehand the cruelty of Duncan's murder, this is mainly because she hardly imagines the act, or at most imagines its outward show, 'the motion of a muscle this way or that.' Nor does she in the least foresee those inward consequences which reveal themselves immediately in her husband, and less quickly in herself. It is often said that she understands him well. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... Henderson excited a deeper interest. This was the man who had beaten the Rothschilds—the strongest capitalist in the world. In his financial operations he continued as calm, as grave, and as immovable as ever. He would risk millions without moving a muscle of his countenance. Yet so sagacious was he, so wide- spread were his agencies, so accurate was his secret information, that his plans scarcely ever failed. His capital was so vast that it often gave him control of the market. Coming into the field untrammeled as ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... careful not to reply, if he waited, taking care where he looked, the longshoreman would have his say out and go—pressed by time. So the boy, almost holding his breath, fastened his eyes upon a patch of wall where the smudged plaster was broken and some laths showed. And not a muscle of him moved, except one big toe, which he curled and uncurled across a crack in the rough, worn ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... in dry air the sea-born stranger roves, Each muscle quickens, and each sense improves; Cold gills aquatic form respiring lungs, And sounds aerial flow ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... and they'd have her name, age, place of residence, and—and whether she's white or black." The agent smiled uncertainly over his feeble attempt at a joke. "I got a license for a friend once," he explained hastily, when he saw that Ford's face did not relax a muscle. "There's a train ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... was made sotto voce to Lathrop, as Billy really stood in great awe of the six foot-two of ebony flesh and muscle that was Sikaso. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... day's play saw a remarkable match when W. E. Davis defeated C. V. Todd of Australia after the latter led him by two sets. Davis steadily improved and by rushing the net succeeded in breaking up Todd's driving game. Todd unfortunately pulled a muscle in his side that seriously hampered him ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... recovered from his surprise he returned my assault with interest. I was nothing in his hands. I was game to be sure, for I was a gentleman; but he had the clownish advantages of bone and muscle. I felt as if I could have fought even unto the death; and I was likely to do so; for he was, according to the vulgar phrase, "putting my head into Chancery," when the gentle Columbine flew to my assistance. God bless the women; they are ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... run no personal risk of handing down effete and enervated constitutions to their race. Whether beneficially or unbeneficially, the human male must, generally speaking, employ his intellect, or his muscle, or die. ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... nature of the light, the principal question is whether it is a direct consequence of the vital activity of the organism in which it is seen, of such a nature that no further explanation can be given of it, any more than we can explain why a muscle is contracted under the influence of a nerve-stimulus; or whether it is due to some chemical process more or less analogous to the burning ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... kept, almost without moving a muscle of my body. I dreaded even to change my feet from one stone to another lest the movement might shake the pile and cause it to tumble down, and I knew that if once down, there would be no chance to build it up again. The time was past for that. The water all around the base of the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... Every nerve and muscle in the splendid warm-blooded body of this young giant of the hills called for action. The one mastering passion of his soul was the passion for deeds—to do; to serve; to be used. He had felt himself called to the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... on the faces of the company; upon which St. Germain very coolly turned to his servant, who stood behind his chair, and asked him if he had not spoken truth? "I really cannot say," replied the man, without moving a muscle; "you forget, sir, I have only been five hundred years in your service!" "Ah! true," said his master; "I remember now; it was a little before your time!" Occasionally, when with men whom he could not so easily dupe, he gave utterance to the contempt with ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... allowance, eh, master?' said the bigger man. 'Feel here'; he straightened out his arm and doubled it, raising a proud bridge of muscle. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... commonly regarded as the most vital spot in the body, the very center of life-indeed the poets have made it the seat of love and the emotions in general. If anything, the brain and nervous system should be regarded as the real center of life, but the function of the heart, the marvelous muscle-pump, is so vital and indispensable that the world is accustomed to thinking of it as the organ of first importance. And so it is. Should it cease its efforts for a few moments even, life becomes extinct, and you are no longer an animate being. A strong heart, therefore, is if anything ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... on the whole a kindly race. When they joyously whirled their huge battle-axes against iron helmets, smashing down through bone and brain beneath, their delight was not in the scream of the unlucky wretch within, but in their own vigorous sweep of muscle, in the conscious power of the blow. Fierce they were, but not coldly cruel like the ancients. The condition of the lower classes certainly became no worse for their invasion; it probably improved. Much the new-comers undoubtedly destroyed in pure wantonness. But there was much ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... knows no more. Nostromo did not seem to know the gulf. For a long time even his eyelids did not flutter once upon the glazed emptiness of his stare. Then slowly, without a limb having stirred, without a twitch of muscle or quiver of an eyelash, an expression, a living expression came upon the still features, deep thought crept into the empty stare—as if an outcast soul, a quiet, brooding soul, finding that untenanted body in its way, had come in ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... decrepit fingers looked like ten claws as they clutched loathsomely at the greasy bread and butter; I felt qualmish, and passed by without addressing him. He did not recognize me; his eyes stared at me, dry as horn, and his face did not move a muscle. ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun

... I touch you I am in heaven. When I close my eyes before the jury I see you and I put the bliss of my vision into my voice, and," he clinched his hands, "all the devils of hell couldn't win that jury away from me. You spur me to my best, put springs in every muscle, put ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... Every nerve and muscle was tense with expectation. The music of the hounds grew fainter. "Evidently circling again," I mused. I was getting to be quite a huntsman, and chuckled at how David Crocketty ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... tumbler, as if he would have thrown it or its contents at the speaker. The young Marylander fixed his clear, steady eye upon him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelessly almost, but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not move it. It was of no use. The youth was his master in muscle, and in that deadly Indian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes;—over in five seconds, but breaks one of their two backs, and is good for threescore years and ten;—one trial enough,—settles ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... time began. One may as well tell a drunkard to keep on drinking and eventually he will outgrow the habit. No. Something definite and specific must be done. The antidote for tension is relaxation. A muscle cannot respond while it is rigid, therefore the student must be taught how to ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger

... at the mouth of every sac, A muscle strong, but loose and slack, Will tighten up when it is filled, So that no ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller

... he, 'as a friendly devil in a cabbage-scented hell, would you mind cutting up this piece of steak for me? I don't say that it's got more muscle than I have, but—' And then he shows me the insides of his hands. They was blistered and cut and corned and swelled up till they looked like a couple of flank steaks criss-crossed with a knife—the kind the butchers hide and take home, knowing ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... piece of furniture by these people usually considered superfluous. Here we soon made ourselves snug, commencing by throwing ourselves on the mats, and allowing a dozen vigorous urchins to "rumi rumi" us. In this process of shampooing, every muscle is kneaded or beaten; the refreshing luxury it affords can only be perfectly appreciated by those who have, like us, walked twenty miles on a bad road, in a tropical climate. Here we were to stay the night, and our first object ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... obedience cost him much, poor fellow, for it seemed as if, in the act, he had rent asunder every muscle in his right shoulder. The plank being thus drawn away, an impassable gulf was left between the inner and middle cavern, which, even in the event of its being discovered, presented no particular temptation to induce any one to explore farther. ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... entered the yard. Among them was Mr. Farren. They surrounded my lifting-apparatus, while I, unseen, surveyed them from a back window. I saw Mr. Farren take the handle, straddle the hogshead, throw himself into a lifting posture, and, straining every muscle to its utmost tension, give a tremendous pull. But the weight made no sign; and his friends, thinking he was merely feeling it, said, "Wait a bit,—Pat'll have it up the next pull." Mr. Farren rested ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... It was muscle-breaking work for women's backs, for though he tried instinctively to obey their directions, the man was scarcely conscious; his arms were like lead yokes upon his supporters' shoulders. Just within the gate their strength gave out, and they were forced ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... to see men use their muscle?" I asked her. "Very few of them are reflective to any purpose ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... they all persisted in talking at once, I put an end to the argument by disappearing under the bedclothes. About ten o'clock the next morning I awoke, feeling stiffer than ever before, the slightest contraction of a muscle resembling the jerking of a rusty wire. However, when a soldier, seeing that I was awake, brought my breakfast, I sat up with remarkable agility and devoured every crumb. Never have I enjoyed a meal more. Every ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... in a heavy fur-lined overcoat, with a muffler loose about his neck; a thin, unhealthy-looking man, with sharp eyes, rather bloodshot, which turned timidly this way and that, and a high-bridged nose. As soon as he caught sight of the face Gammon drew himself up, every muscle strung. The man observed him, looked again more furtively, stepped past to ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... every aching muscle cried aloud for oblivion, could not sleep. He tossed and turned, listened to the heavy breathing of the men beside him, listened to lighter sounds from the far end of the cabin where Jacqueline was also tasting true democracy in company with the two ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... programme left them cold. The Trick Cyclist. The Dashing Soubrette and Idol of Belgravia. The Argumentative College Chums. The Swell Comedian. The Man with the Performing Canaries. None of these could rouse them. They were waiting. Waiting. Waiting tensely. Every muscle taut. Husbanding ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... tremendous combination of brain, nerve, muscle, material, machinery and capital depends for its movement and remuneration upon but two sources of income—circulation and advertisements—the unit measurements of which are infinitesimal—for the most ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... hiding under their broad leaves, in the hollow down by the bridge. But Science, in her relentless substitution of fact for fancy, does not allow us this agreeable delusion. Something far more substantial, not to say gross, we are informed, is required to build up the muscle and bone of the atoms in the nest. Meat is what they must have, and meat it was, in the shape of tiny spiders and perhaps other minute creatures, that mamma was seeking when she hovered under the maple boughs, now and then touching a twig or the underside of a leaf. Indeed, one might occasionally ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... hideous thoughts filled my brain as my eyes remained riveted. Now the fingers looked like snakes—strange, flesh-tinted reptiles with eyes emerald green and ruby red, cruel, sinuous. Now great knots of muscle stood out upon her bare arms. Her hands were clutching something—what it was I could not see. The fingers grew twisted and distorted ... they had crimson stains upon them ... the very nails were shot with blood ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... a superb bay from the stables of the Baron de Soubeyran, and combined extreme elegance of build with extraordinary strength of muscle. His fine and shining coat, under which the tracery of veins was distinctly visible on chest and flank, seemed almost to exhale a fiery vapour, so intense was the creature's vitality. A splendid jumper, he had often carried his ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... feeling, she grew drowsier, sank deeper—her body tired in every muscle, in every bone—her mind unable to keep awake; and so she faded into ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... has an upper and a lower opening, each of which is guarded by a muscle, which keeps ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg

... are sometimes the seat of other abnormal characters,—the lemurine apophysis, a bony elevation at the angle of the jaw, which may easily be recognised externally by passing the hand over the skin; and the canine fossa, a depression in the upper jaw for the attachment of the canine muscle. This muscle, which is strongly developed in the dog, serves when contracted to draw back the lip leaving ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... clicked and closed. They turned their heads, and he started violently back. In the shadow of the room stood a great shadowy figure—silent. They saw the face dimly in the half-light, with unexpressive dark patches under the penthouse brows. Every muscle in Raut's body suddenly became tense. When could the door have opened? What had he heard? Had he heard all? What had he seen? A ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... said, without a muscle moving; "well, I shouldn't advise you to stay long there. It's rather a small place, and very stupid; no society whatever. The others will amuse you, as you ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... best every where; and I am happy I have fallen in with a gentleman who suits me so well as you.—That grave, steady attention of yours reminds me of Elfi Bey—you might talk to him in English, or any thing he understood least of—you might have read Aristotle to Elfi, and not a muscle would he stir—give him his pipe, and he would sit on his cushion with a listening air as if he took in every word of what ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... artery cut); and if he remains absolutely statuesque at each stab, he comes through the most trying part of the ordeal with flying colours. A motion of the lips, however, or a mutter—these are altogether fatal. Not even a toe must move in mute agony; nor may even a muscle of the eyelid give an uneasy and involuntary twitch. If the candidate fails in a minor degree, he is promptly put back, to come up again for the next examination; but in the event of his being unable to stand the torture, he is contemptuously told to go and herd with the women—than ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... pile of clothes on the floor and I knew what he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple—a mere matter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clothes again? I stirred the pile with my foot. There was a long linen arrangement which might have been anything. Also a strip of pink flannel which was like nothing on earth. We looked at each other and ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... of fifty, wind-whipped and weather-beaten of countenance. The iron grey of his hair and moustache suggested the iron of the man himself; iron of figure, of muscle, of will. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... fist shot out, with all the force there is in fourteen-year-old muscle. The fist caught Bunny Hepburn on the side of the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock

... language, which in this instance, and, indeed, on almost all occasions, he displayed. It was well observed by Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore, 'The conversation of Johnson is strong and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and bold. Ordinary ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... why don't you take more pains for your master? Your master is ill and depends on you; you should serve him as you would your own father, straining every muscle just as ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... that bally canoe. Only don't hold on around my neck, that's a good kiddie. There, that's better," as Freddy loosened his fingers from Hal's shirt collar, and the boy struck out with one arm around the child and the other working for all the grit and muscle there was in it. His magnificent stroke, helped by the wind and current, soon overhauled the canoe. By a supreme effort he clutched the immersed gunwale. With one arm around Freddy he could never hope to right the boat, but even bottom up she was a salvation. ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... possible. And in this fairy den was a thin, gaunt young man, dressed in some sort of black stuff so nondescript that it amounted to little more than a shadow. I took it for granted that a substance of bone and muscle was covered by that gloomy suit, but it was the face above that alone riveted my gaze and made me return the stare he gave me as we came up with redoubled interest. It was not an unhandsome face, but ashy grey in colour and amongst the insipid countenances of the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold

... father and mother and his own sturdier tread, and rested his head against the casing of the cabin door when he gave the command. The tip of the dog's nose touched the gravel between his paws as he crouched flat on earth, with beautiful eyes steadily watching the master, but he did not move a muscle. ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... looking for all the world like a statue of the patriarch Job as I imagine him, and when I had done, replied without moving a muscle and ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... teaching a child to walk, is to let it teach itself, and this it will do readily enough. It will first crawl about: this exercises every muscle in the body, does not fatigue the child, throws no weight upon the bones, but imparts vigour and strength, and is thus highly useful. After a while, having the power, it will wish to do more: it will endeavour to lift itself upon its feet by the aid of a chair, and though it fail again ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... from behind my back. You see I was feeling funny again. Then I started to slide one foot over the edge of the bunk, always with my eyes on that shadow. Now I swear I didn't make the sound of a pin dropping, but I had no more than moved a muscle when that shadowed thing twisted itself around in a flash—and there on the floor before me was the profile of a man's head, upside down, listening—a man's head with a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... him. Graced with a conch-shell's triple line, His throat displays the auspicious sign.(16) High destiny is clear impressed On massive jaw and ample chest, His mighty shafts he truly aims, And foemen in the battle tames. Deep in the muscle, scarcely shown, Embedded lies his collar-bone. His lordly steps are firm and free, His strong arms reach below his knee;(17) All fairest graces join to deck His head, his brow, his stately neck, And limbs in fair proportion set: The manliest form e'er fashioned yet. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... stood with the letter in her hand, every nerve tingling, every vein throbbing, and every muscle as rigid as if it had been cast in metal, she could scarcely comprehend that it had really come—that she really held it. After all this waiting and hoping and trusting, here was news from Captain Horn—news by his own hand, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton

... of state, and that in their duties to the state they must never forget their responsibility to the Most High. Wuczicz, dressed in the coarse frieze jacket and boots of a Servian peasant, heard, with a reverential inclination of the head, the discourse of the prelate, but nought relaxed one muscle of that adamantine visage: the finer but more luminous features of Petronevich were under the control of a less powerful will. At certain passages his intelligent eye was moistened with tears. Two deacons then prayed successively for the Sultan, the Emperor of Russia, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... himself, "or else he is among his friends, and we are betrayed;" for, instead of being embarrassed, or wearing his habitual sorrowful look, he sat easily in his chair, and gazed carelessly about the room, as though he were a perfect stranger there, and not a muscle quivered, to show the emotion he really felt, as his eye rested on the familiar faces of his relatives. He calmly met their glances, which Frank thought were directed toward him rather suspiciously, but all attempts to draw him into the conversation that followed, about the war, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... of the product of your work, and how the world receives it, matters little. But how you do it is everything. We are what we are on account of the thoughts we have thought and the things we have done. As a muscle grows strong only through use, so does every attribute of the mind, and every quality of the soul take on new strength through exercise. And on the other hand, as a muscle not used atrophies and dies, so will the faculties of the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... differences, depending on the greater or less energy of the charge. Philosophical Transactions 1776 page 212.) It will perhaps be found that, in most animals, every contraction of the muscular fibre is preceded by a discharge from the nerve into the muscle; and that the mere simple contact of heterogeneous substances is a source of movement and of life in all organized beings. Did an ingenious and lively people, the Arabians, guess from remote antiquity, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... indeed, if he meant to take the bank as Chiltern's horse had done,—and then stopping himself so suddenly that he must have shaken every joint in his body, he planted his fore feet on the very brink, and there he stood, with his head down, quivering in every muscle. Phineas Finn, following naturally the momentum which had been given to him, went over the brute's neck head-foremost into the ditch. Madame Max was immediately off her horse. "Oh, Mr. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... their leaving them. If individual right goes with general preference, then the pillars of the universe are uprooted, or we have no pillars worth mentioning. I suppose that women generally prefer in-door to out-of-door employments—labor that draws less upon muscle, and more upon ingenuity and delicate-fingered facility; but that settles nothing as to their right to engage in muscular toils in the open air. The German peasant-woman has labored out-of-doors for many generations. The result ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... only to himself. Then was the vase shapen and reshapen, and touched and retouched by the hands of Pu, until its blandness seemed to live, until it appeared to quiver and to palpitate, as with vitality from within, as with the quiver of rounded muscle undulating beneath the integument. For the hues of life were upon it and infiltrated throughout its innermost substance, imitating the carnation of blood-bright tissue, and the reticulated purple of the veins; and over all was laid the ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn

... their tired feet, every muscle protesting, and before dark Stubbs learned how little the body counts, how little anything counts, before the will of a man who has focused the might of his soul upon a single thing. They moved down ever towards the blue lake which blinked back at the sun ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... again threw himself down. He was weary to death; not a nerve of his body that did not droop and flag. His eyes closed slowly. Then, all at once, his whole body twitched sharply in a sudden spasm, a simultaneous recoil of every muscle. His heart began to beat rapidly, his breath failed him. Broad awake, he sat ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... Not a muscle of Jocelyn's face twitched, but there was a momentary gleam in his eyes of which Crawshay took swift note. He glanced aft to where the two seamen were standing by the side of ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... is the method of the mind as it reaches out and assimilates. Subject-matter is but spiritual food, possible nutritive material. It cannot digest itself; it cannot of its own accord turn into bone and muscle and blood. The source of whatever is dead, mechanical, and formal in schools is found precisely in the subordination of the life and experience of the child to the curriculum. It is because of this that "study" has become ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey

... and Herb and Jimmy went outside and up the path a short distance, where they crouched, listening, with every muscle tense to warn ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... you ever been collared by Prescott? It's a liberal education. Now, there you are, you see. Take Prescott. He's never crocked a man seriously in his life. I don't count being winded. That's absolutely an accident. Well, there you are, then. Prescott weighs thirteen-ten, and he's all muscle, and he goes like a battering-ram. You'll own that. He goes as hard as he jolly well knows how, and yet the worst he has ever done is to lay a man out for a couple of minutes while he gets his wind back. Well, compare ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... sound, almost indistinguishable, echoed up the gulch to him. Miraculously his nervousness vanished. Every nerve was keyed up, every muscle tense, but he was cool as water ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... fork-horn, standing without the moving of a muscle whenever the young buck lifted his head, advancing swiftly when he dropped it again to feed. The wind held steadily from the deer to him and Breed drew up to within fifty feet. The buck lifted his head and looked off in all directions, not from present uneasiness but from his ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... him, though seeking for death himself, still gloating over the handkerchief supposed to be stained with her life-blood. Very well. Now Troilus in Troilus and Cressida, is a man very much resembling Posthumus in temperament—brave, resolute, truthful, unsuspicious, and more liberally endowed with muscle than brains"—— ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... his fists twisted in the scarf and his knuckles dug in the throat of the other man. He was a pure instinct, without reason or feeling. His body, hard and wonderful in itself, cleaved against the struggling body of the other man; not a muscle in him relaxed. He was quite unconscious, only his body had taken upon itself to kill this other man. For himself, he had neither feeling nor reason. He lay pressed hard against his adversary, his body adjusting ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... lasting forms or shape, images passing as easily as they had come into the mists of oblivion. The human touch, the transforming fire of life was wholly wanting. These April creations of my brain—carnival figures, laughing and weeping with equal facility, lacked always and altogether the blood and muscle of human creatures. The mishaps of their lives struck never a tragic note; always the thrill and stir of actual existence were wanting. I would have no more of them. I felt myself capable of other things. I would wait until ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... visit or ramble, he was sure to be on the mark. He performed errands on the same principle, and never had to be called twice in the morning. The fact is, there was not a lazy bone in his whole body; each finger, toe, joint, and muscle, seemed to understand that it was made for action, and that it must hold itself in readiness to obey orders. His will, too, was king of his faculties, and not one of them would have presumed to disobey its ruler. The first little finger that would have ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... dashed toward the dangling rope. Gripping it with one hand he flung the light figure over his left shoulder, and with a cheerily whispered "Hang tight," he threw himself into the ascent. It was arm-wrenching, muscle-racking work, with that dead weight upon him, but the touch of those soft arms clinging childishly about his neck seemed to double and treble his strength, and with incredible quickness he lifted her to the top of the wall, and then, catching her by the wrists, he lowered her into the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... possible that a gentleman who lives in those parts where the town-lands (as they call them) of his estate produce such odious sounds from the mouth, the throat, and the nose, can be able to repeat the words without dislocating every muscle that is used in speaking, and without applying the same tone to all other words, in every language he understands; as it is plainly to be observed not only in those people of the better sort who live in Galway and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... he is at a loss to know what women are made for, anyway. He says they are all right to sit around and do crochet work, but when strategy, brain, and muscle are required, then they can't get along without a man. He tries to unscrew the cover, and his thumb slips off and knocks the skin off the knuckle. He breathes a silent prayer and calls for the kerosene can, and pours a little oil into the crevice, and lets it soak, ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... and formal succession of mere costumed figures seized by a corpse and shrinking away from its touch, Holbein's groups are instinct with life, character, and emotion. In particular is this true of the figure of Death, although it is a mere skeleton,—the face without a muscle, and for the eye but a rayless cavern. Death is not one whom "a limner would love to paint or a lady to look upon"; but Holbein has given a strange and fascinating interest to the figure, which in all other hands is merely repulsive. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... of foot, as that of an ancient mariner, but a man in the prime of strength, and largely endowed with that blessing—the mate of truth. Carne perceived that he had met his equal, and perhaps his better, in a bout of muscle, and he tried to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... Uncle Israel's spade that first touched the box, and, with a cry of delight, he stooped for it, as did everybody else. By sheer force of muscle, Mrs. Dodd got ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed



Words linked to "Muscle" :   contractor, sphincter, rhomboid minor muscle, rowdy, potency, pterygoid muscle, authorisation, muscle tone, pronator, tone, muscular structure, yob, animal tissue, strength, levator, anatomical sphincter, authority, tough, contractile organ, rectus, go through, authorization, muscular, musculature, say-so, ruffian, supinator, pass, dominance, hooligan, tensor, yobo, tonicity, bully, roughneck, tonus, yobbo, go across



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