Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Overcast   /ˈoʊvərkˌæst/   Listen
Overcast

noun
1.
The state of the sky when it is covered by clouds.  Synonyms: cloud cover, cloudiness.
2.
Gloomy semidarkness caused by cloud cover.  Synonym: cloudiness.
3.
A long whipstitch or overhand stitch overlying an edge to prevent raveling.  Synonym: overcasting.
4.
A cast that falls beyond the intended spot.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Overcast" Quotes from Famous Books



... full of breathless excitement that we dared only converse in whispers. The atmosphere was hot and oppressive, the sky had grown dark and overcast, threatening ominously, while ever and anon could be heard the faint clank of arms; men, tall, dark and mysterious, passed and repassed along the dark colonnades, or stood in knots leaning on their rifles ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... be used by beginners in many ways. Squares of duck, fringed out on the edges, and overcast or hem-stitched, can have simple borders or stripes of any desired width worked in this stitch (see Fig. 3). You can draw the lines yourself with a pencil and ruler; those lines which slant in one direction may be worked in one ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... showed him a picture of the past. The marble temples of pagan gods disappeared, the hill became bleak and precipitous and dark; great stillness reigned around, save where from afar there came at times the distant roll of thunder. The sky was overcast, great banks of cloud, the colour of lead, with blood-red lights within their massive bosoms, swept storm-tossed ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... swell; the winds are high; Clouds overcast my wintry sky: Out of the depths to thee I call; My fears are great, my ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... overcast Thy young morning, may not last. Soon shall arrive the rescuing hour, That yields thee up to Nature's power. Nature, that so late doth greet thee, Shall in o'er-flowing measure meet thee. She shall recompense with cost For every lesson thou hast lost. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... soul took lesson from her past, And found a vale wherein to dwell, With no Arcadian visions overcast Or history ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... be overcast? The dark appearance will not last; Expect a brighter sky. The god that strings a silver bow Awakes sometimes the Muses too, And lays his ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... view," he said, but his face was overcast. "I don't see why we should lose the little we have. It has been hard enough to scrape it together, God knows. Promptitude and joint action with Reynolds will probably save it. But I must be prompt." He still spoke abstractedly, ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... luminousness, a sort of gleam among all the ruddy glow, his body is evanescent, like a shadow. And his being seemed to cast its influence over all the others, except perhaps the woman, who was hard and resistant. The other men seemed all overcast, mitigated, in part transfigured by the will of the little leader. But they were very soft ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence

... sky overcast. The spires fall, the flowers wither. Ye turn to look at the man. He is a giant. See the face of him now. It makes ye tremble. He is the White Guard an' he brings ye back. Ah, then, mayhap ye rise in the dark, as I have heard ye, an' shake ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... the north beyond the ice cliffs all had been bright and dazzling; now the sky was overcast, the sun had disappeared, and though a little blue sky was visible to the south it was a dingy kind of blue, ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... wayside as a warning to others. The country was covered with scraggy forest, but so undulating that one could often see all around from the crest of the waves. Great mountain masses appear in the south and south-west. It feels cold, and the sky is often overcast. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... this time anxiously to consult sea and sky. The squall had cleared away, but the sky remained overcast. The two schooners, under all sail and joined by a third, could be seen making back. A veer in the wind induced them to slack off sheets, and five minutes afterward a sudden veer from the opposite ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... The overcast sky looked burdened with snow, and the leaves rustled complainingly as they were ground beneath the feet of those hurrying to witness the honor about to fall upon the house of Hormisdas Frechette. Sweet to the old man was the moaning of the wind as it jostled the barren trees, ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... quality rather than the quantity of his output. To our eternal loss he suffered from a temperament. He worked only by fits and starts. He never overcame a superstition that "Monday was a bad day for good work." And he was too conscientious an artist to attempt anything on days when the sky was overcast and the light bad. Often too, when he had actually made a start, he would stand, smoking furiously, in front of his work ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various

... on this morning, stood Count De Lorme, evidently awaiting the conscripts. He addressed a few words to the sergeant, who brought his men to a halt, and called forward one Jean Moreau, a tall, sturdy young man, with a frank, honest face, now sadly overcast. ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood

... brig, even without the forts; for we could see, by her ports, that she only carries sixteen guns. However, I think myself that she will very likely have a try at them. It will be a very dark night, for the sky is overcast ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty

... weather, from being very calm and clear, became overcast, and at 2 o'clock a tornado came on, which continued with frequent, and most violent gusts of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, till between five and six in the morning; our situation was not at all enviable, as we had both the deck, and hold, crowded with ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... become overcast with dense black clouds, and the gloom to the valley was quite impenetrable. From their concealment the two Filmores could hear Redburn, Alice and the "General" singing up at the cabin, and it told them to be on their guard, as Dick might now ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... passed without alarm. In the morning the cold was more intense than ever, and the sky was still overcast with sullen-looking clouds. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... watched it intently, and before it was quite plain, we knew intuitively that hope was not there, that we were watching something past its doom. It drew abeam, and we saw what it was, a derelict sailing ship, mastless and awash. The alien wilderness was around us now, and we saw a sky that was overcast and driven, and seas that were uplifted, which had grown incredibly huge, swift, and perilous, and they had ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... then about three o'clock, calm, but rather overcast. The Marylebone Road had at last become hushed in silence. Wagons and cabs had both ceased, and save for a solitary policeman here and there the long thoroughfare, so full of traffic by day, was utterly deserted. I retraced ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... on which we visited Herculaneum was in melancholy contrast to the day we spent in Pompeii. The lingering summer had at last saddened into something like autumnal gloom, and that blue, blue sky of Naples was overcast. So, this second draught of the spirit of the past had not only something of the insipidity of custom, but brought rather a depression than a lightness to our hearts. There was so little of Herculaneum: only a few hundred yards square are exhumed, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... surprised at the silence that reigned in the Princess's apartment. Concluding her, as he had been advertised, in her oratory, he passed on. The door was ajar; the evening gloomy and overcast. Pushing open the door gently, he saw a person kneeling before the altar. As he approached nearer, it seemed not a woman, but one in a long woollen weed, whose back was towards him. The person seemed absorbed in ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... found the air overcast, and grow cloudy, as if it would rain; and soon after the wind rose by little, and little, so that in less than half an hour it blew a most dreadful hurricane: the sea was, all on a sudden, covered with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... says, "I proceeded slowly,—sickness was in the land and the face of nature was overcast,—heavy rain-clouds swam in the heavens,—the blast howled amid the pines which nearly surround my lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were fearfully agitated. 'Bring lights ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... waiting, whether the sky were blue or overcast, a man of middle age, rather stout and very neatly dressed, was constantly to be seen on a neighbouring bench, playing with his snuff-box and the charms on his watch-guard or unfolding a newspaper, which he never read. He was dressed like a bourgeois ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... blackness settled around our little world, relieved only by general leering stars in the zenith, and where the Laconia's lights had shone there remained only the dim outlines of a blacker hulk standing out above the water like a jagged headland, silhouetted against the overcast sky. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot

... poop at noon to take the sun, in order to ascertain his longitude—an operation which would have been much more difficult in the hazy weather that had prevailed some few hours previous, with the zenith every now and then overcast by the fleecy storm wrack and flying scud that came drifting across the sky as the wind veered; but the ship was making good running, and everything bade fair for her soon crossing the boisterous Bay of Biscay, on whose troubled waters she ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... following morning it was still overcast; and when, about ten o'clock, the clouds became thicker, we set out on our return. It was my intention to have passed the night in a rancho, in order next day to visit a solfatara which was said to be ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... starboard watch relieved us, having ordered it to be furled and another reef to be taken in the topsails, as it was then blowing great guns and the ship staggering along through a storm-tossed sea, with the sky overcast all round—a sign that we had not seen the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... until the very day on which Hugo also arrived on his way to Netherglen. They had seen each other at the station, where Brian incautiously appeared without the blue spectacles which he relied upon as part of his disguise. From the white, startled horror which overcast Hugo's face, this young man saw that he had been almost, if not quite, recognised; and he expected to be sought out and questioned as to his identity. But Hugo made no effort to question him: in fact, he did not see the tutor again until the day when he came to restore ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... followed the place became like a hell. They crept into the cave and lay there gasping, while from without came loud cracking sounds, caused, as they thought, by the trees of the forest splitting in the heat. About midday the sky suddenly became densely overcast, although no breath stirred; the air was thicker than ever, to breathe it was like breathing hot cream. In their restless despair they wandered out of the cave, and to their surprise saw a dwarf standing upon the top ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... had become very sultry by the time I went out to visit my patients. The sky was overcast with dark thunderous clouds, and, as there seemed every chance of a heavy shower, I returned to my lodgings for ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne

... and stretching across toward the English coast, on the lookout for our merchantmen, very often picking up a valuable prize and getting back into port the next morning. The weather, too, happened just then to be highly favourable for the operations of these gentry, the sky being overcast with frequent showers, and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... made three-and-twenty miles, and were already too far ahead to be overtaken. On the 10th and the 11th the Confederates made forced marches, but the enemy set fire to the forests on the mountain-side, and this desperate measure proved eminently successful. "The sky was overcast with volumes of smoke, which wrapped every distant object in a veil, impenetrable alike to the eyes and telescopes of the officers. Through this sultry canopy the pursuing army felt its way cautiously, cannonaded by the enemy ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... extending in their ashy and oily splendours for about a quarter of a mile out of the town; and then, just as the train gets into speed, under a large chimney tower, which he cannot see to nearly the top of, but will feel overcast by the shadow of its smoke, he may see, if he will trust his intelligent head out of the window, and look back, fifty or fifty-one (I am not sure of my count to a unit) similar chimneys, all similarly smoking, all with similar ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin

... heading toward Cape Finisterre. We had experienced fresh breezes, but fine, clear weather, from the moment when we had left the Isle of Wight astern; but on this particular day, shortly after noon, the sky became overcast and gloomy, with a thick, murky appearance to windward that portended a change for the worse. This, however, did not greatly trouble us, for with Ushant out of sight astern, the ship heading South-West by compass, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... sometimes incorrectly used in the sense of form or base; as, "He predicated his statement on the information he had just received." Neither should it be used in the sense of predict; as, "The sky is overcast, and ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... some big new plants which required immediately several millions additional capital. Westinghouse prepared to apply to his stockholders for the required funds, and the announcement was to be made at the annual election soon due. Suddenly the financial sky became overcast. The stock-market grew panicky and money as scare in Wall Street as rain in Arizona in May. It was just such a situation as the "System" might have brought about to accomplish its fell designs had it possessed ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... scissors is an unlucky omen; wives will be jealous and distrustful of their husbands, and sweethearts will quarrel and nag each other into crimination and recrimination. Dulness will overcast business horizons. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... progress was slow. Boisterous gales drove in great seas from the outer Gulf. At times the wind, blowing hard from the north, checked their advance and they had, as best they could, to ride out the storm. The sky was lowering and overcast, and thick mist and fog frequently enwrapped the ships. The 16th saw them driven by stress of weather into Gaspe Bay, where they lay until the 25th, with so dark a sky and so violent a storm raging over the Gulf that not even the daring seamen ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock

... last drive of his just before his death, there was forced to my lips the thought: "You are the most majestic being ever created.'' Colossal in stature; with a face such as one finds on a Greek coin, but overcast with a shadow of Muscovite melancholy; with a bearing dignified, but with a manner not unkind, he bore himself like a god. And yet no man could be more simple or affable, whether in his palace or in the street. ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... on the fortunate condition of Italy; but our fancy must not hastily conceive that the golden age of the poets, a race of men without vice or misery, was realized under the Gothic conquest. The fair prospect was sometimes overcast with clouds; the wisdom of Theodoric might be deceived, his power might be resisted and the declining age of the monarch was sullied with popular hatred and patrician blood. In the first insolence of victory, he had been tempted to deprive ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... with rage and anguish, he watched the hesitating approach of the woman. She stopped at the corner and looked up and down the Drive, peering intently into the dark shadows by the lake. The sky was overcast; no stars peeped through its blackness. With uncertain, halting steps she crossed the boulevard, still glancing about as if in search of someone. He moved forward unconsciously, almost blindly, and she caught a ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... irresolute and in thought. His eyes glanced towards his own countrymen, who, true to their rigid discipline, neither spake nor moved, but whose countenances were sullen and overcast, and at that moment his pride was shaken, and his heart misgave him. Gongylus watched his countenance, and once more laying his hand on his ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... divided into plain and ornamental. The plain stitches are the (1) basting, (2) running, (3) the running and back stitch, (4) half back stitch, (5) back stitch, (6) overhand or whipping stitch, (7) overcast, (8) hemming, and ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson

... in a voice of thunder. "I had a vision last night and will relate it to you. During my brief slumbers, I thought I was standing on this very spot, and gazing as now upon yon mighty structure. On a sudden the day became overcast, and ere long it grew pitchy dark. Then was heard a noise of rushing wings in the air, and I could just discern many strange figures hovering above the tower, uttering doleful cries and lamentations. All at once these figures disappeared, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... go, loosen, utter; —— una carcajada burst out laughing. sollozante adj. sobbing. sombra f. shadow, shade, darkness, trace, vestige, wraith, spirit. sombrero m. hat. sombro, -a somber, dark, overcast, cloudy, gloomy, melancholy, sullen. sn m. sound, noise, manner. sonar sound, resound. soneto m. sonnet. sonido m. sound, peal. sonoro, -a sonorous, resounding, loud, harmonious. sonrer ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... asked to carry the mail-bag, which was heavy with newspapers. Edwards, with his wife and family, were still believed to be here. A heavy snow-storm was expected, and all the sky—that vast dome which spans the Plains—was overcast; but over the mountains it was a deep, still, sad blue, into which snowy peaks rose sunlighted. It was a lonely, mournful-looking morning, but when I reached the beautiful canyon of the St. Vrain, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... the road, now up at the sky. His hat had gone flying at the first unexpected plunge; he ought to return and look for it. But he shrank from the additional fatigue, the delay in reaching home this would mean. The sky was still overcast: he decided to risk it. Knotting his handkerchief he spread it cap-wise over his head and got ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us—in less than two the sky was entirely overcast—and what with this and the driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... to have much to say to him. She was too engrossed with the dogs and with his mother to spare him a word. The eager light which had come to his eyes when he had first caught sight of her faded. His candid face was overcast. She had been keeping him at arms-length ever since ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... letters and papers of twenty years. They sent up a smoke like the genie when he got out of the casket on the seashore; and as it was an exquisite day when I began, and rained very heavily when I finished, I suspect my correspondence of having overcast the face of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... was evidently disagreeable to him, in spite of the company of his friends, Barrilli and Barbato. His friendship with the latter was for a moment overcast by an act of indiscretion on the part of Barbato, who, by dint of importunity, obtained from Petrarch thirty-four lines of his poem of Africa, under a promise that he would show them to nobody. On ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... ghaseb, ghafouly, dra, and such grains, which are reaped in the summer season. Barley and wheat are sown in autumn or winter, and reaped in spring. As I walked I noticed that the sky was darkly overcast, as if threatening rain; and presently, sure enough, a few precious drops fell ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... he had a true friend not a born fool. "A friend loveth at all times," says the Bible. Says Herr Gotthold: "with a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you will have friends in plenty, but let fortune frown and the firmament be overcast, and ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... the month of July, the night was overcast and dark when the little band who undertook this perilous service left the town of Pampeluna, and, passing through the outer fortifications, struck into the open country. It consisted of four horsemen and two to three hundred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... if we have a chance," said Brigadier General Robert K. Evans. "The Germans will attack at daybreak and—by the way, what's the matter with our wireless reports?" He peered out into the night which was heavily overcast—not a star in sight. He was looking toward the radio station a mile back on the crest of a hill where the lone pine tree stood that supported the ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... object of competition to sovereigns; three great dukedoms, an independent principality with its own mint and with its own tribunals, and an income greatly exceeding the whole revenue of the kingdom of Scotland. But this splendid prospect had been overcast. The match had been broken off. The aspiring suitor had been, during many years, shut up in an Alpine castle. At length Lewis relented. Lauzun was forbidden to appear in the royal presence, but was allowed to enjoy liberty at a distance from the court. He visited ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... North Atlantic Current; mild winters, cool summers; consistently humid; overcast ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... carried on every stitch of canvas, making short tacks in-shore. The Aurora was again put about with her head towards them, and they were not two points on her weather-bow. The sky, which had been clear in the morning, was now overcast, the sun was obscured with opaque white clouds, and the sea was rising fast. Another ten minutes, and then they were under double-reefed topsails and the squalls were accompanied with heavy rain. The frigate now dashed through ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... written by Frohman were filled with a curious tenderness and affection. In the light of what happened after he sailed they seem to be overcast with a strange foreboding of his doom. The most striking example of this is furnished in a letter he wrote to Henry Miller on April 29th, a few days before he went aboard the Lusitania. He had not written to Miller for a year, yet ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... is shot, and wrath o'erblown: Such to unhallow'd sight the Muse divine Might seem, when first she raised her eyes to mine. What mortal change does in thy face appear, Lost youth, she cried, since first I met thee here! With how undecent clouds are overcast Thy looks, when every cause of grief is past! Unworthy the glad tidings which I bring, Listen while the Muse thus teaches thee to sing: As parent earth, burst by imprison'd winds, Scatters strange agues o'er men's sickly minds, And shakes the ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... the gentleness and patience of Nature; we puddle the ground in our hurry, we seal it up and exclude the air, and the plants are worse off than before. When the sky is overcast and it is getting ready to rain, the moisture rises in the ground, the earth opens her pores and seconds ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... child was about two months old the sky became overcast and there came up a mighty storm, with lightning and an earthquake. Kaopele awoke in his dark, watery couch, unbound the cords that held his feet, and by three powerful strokes raised himself to the surface of the water. He looked toward Kauai ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various

... man were so excellent that he combated, by reason and religion, the fits of gloom which at times overcast his mind, and it was not till he attained the commencement of his twenty-first year that they assumed a character which made his father tremble for the consequences. It seemed as if the gloomiest and most hideous of mental maladies was taking the form of religious despair. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... up from the south the warm humid air of the equator. The wind, therefore, which reaches Ceylon comes laden with moisture, taken up in its passage across the great Indian Ocean. As the monsoon draws near, the days become more overcast and hot, banks of clouds rise over the ocean to the west, and in the peculiar twilight the eye is attracted by the unusual whiteness of the sea-birds that sweep along the strand to seize the objects flung on shore ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... gold frizzled with a silver-raised work; of red satin, covered with gold purl; of tabby, or taffety, white, blue, black, tawny, &c., of silk serge, silk camlet, velvet, cloth of silver, silver tissue, cloth of gold, gold wire, figured velvet, or figured satin tinselled and overcast with golden threads, in divers ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... so many storms have tried, To see thee quit the helm at last, at last, And slow descend that vessel's stately side, Whilst yet waves surge and skies are overcast, Wakes wondering memories of that mighty past, Shaped by a guiding hand, Strong to direct as strenuous to command. When yet did a great ship on the great sea Drop ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various

... the present or the past? The night of anguish or the joyous morn? The long, long years with horrors overcast, Or the sweet ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... for the rest of us, using the life overcast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... we repented of our temerity: for in a short time the sky became overcast, the wind increased till it blew with violence, and meeting with the tide, caused the waves to rise prodigiously, which broke over our wretched canoe, and filled it with water. We lightened it as much as we could, by throwing overboard the little baggage ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... estate; when he would throw his fortune into her lap, his titles at her feet, and bid her wear them with him; when, with ennobled hand and unchanged heart, he would fulfil the troth plighted in his outcast days; in lieu of tender, grateful acquiescence, the features of Sybil became overcast, the soft smile faded away, and, as spring sunshine is succeeded by the sudden shower, the light that dwelt in her sunny ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... to their owne, & the Indeans admiration, that lived amongest them. For all y^e morning, and greatest part of the day, it was clear weather & very hotte, and not a cloud or any signe of raine to be seen, yet toward evening it begane to overcast, and shortly after to raine, with shuch sweete and gentle showers, as gave them cause of rejoyceing, & blesing God. It came, without either wind, or thunder, or any violence, and by degreese in y^t abundance, as that y^e earth was thorowly wete and soked therwith. Which did so ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... suddenly the sky became overcast and darkness fell upon the earth. A bright light surrounded Miao Shan, and when the sword of the executioner fell upon the neck of the victim it was broken in two. Then they thrust at her with a spear, but the weapon fell to pieces. After that the King ordered that ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... southward journeying, the travellers found themselves one night at the head of a little creek where the tide lapped pleasantly on a smooth, sandy beach. They were already getting into milder weather, and here, a half mile inland, there was no wind. The sky was overcast, and the seals lay in contented security along the edge of the water. The blacker darkness of a fir forest came down to within perhaps fifty paces of their resting-place. But they had no anxieties. The only creatures that they had learned to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... to Archie that Nature, contrary to her usual custom of indifference to human suffering, was mourning with him. The sky was overcast, and the sun had ceased to shine. There was a sort of sombreness in the afternoon, which fitted in with his mood. And then something splashed ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... been reading it that Mr. Roberts has passed one of the two terrible nights, his faithful Bill at one end of the rickyard and himself at the other. The second night they took up their positions in the same manner as soon as it was dark. There was no moon, and the sky was overcast with those stationary clouds which often precede a great storm, so that the darkness was marked, and after they had parted a step or two they lost sight of each other. Worn with long wakefulness, and hard labour during the day, they both dropped asleep at their posts. Mr. Roberts awoke ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... riches inexhaustible. It was necessary besides to explain the dangers of the bottle; and either people disbelieved the whole thing and laughed, or they thought the more of the darker part, became overcast with gravity, and drew away from Keawe and Kokua, as from persons who had dealings with the devil. So far from gaining ground, these two began to find they were avoided in the town; the children ran away from ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... time. Things seemed dark around him, but he was not sure whether this was due to the sky being overcast or to the approach of twilight. Perhaps it was neither. It might be only that his eyes were dimmed by the fever that was ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... involving Iceland, Ireland, and the UK (Ireland and the UK have signed a boundary agreement in the Rockall area); Denmark has challenged Norway's maritime claims between Greenland and Jan Mayen Climate: temperate; humid and overcast; mild, windy winters and cool summers Terrain: low and flat to gently rolling plains Natural resources: crude oil, natural gas, fish, salt, limestone Land use: arable land 61%; permanent crops NEGL%; ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... was ended, and the day's sport was about to begin in earnest. But since noon the bright, sunny weather had changed; the heavens were overcast, and there was a fear that one of the sudden, heavy storms which were frequent at this season, might come before the day ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... night, when the sky was overcast and neither moon nor stars were to be seen, and a storm of unusual violence was filling the air with a tumult of fierce and angry meanings, a weird and gruesome scene was enacted at the grave where the father of Yin had been buried. Hideous sounds of wailing and shrieking could be heard, ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... disturbed and dissipated if we stayed longer. Clear vision goes with the quick foot. Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see them for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal like a dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, shifting round towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, and belie what they showed us in the morning. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... when all shines fair; but when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... unfriendly, the sky was overcast, and the boys, shivering with cold and apprehension, at length made their entry into Kharkov. The commander of the garrison, a grim-visaged, bearded warrior, received them, heard the story of their capture from one ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... now Time's whiter series is begun, Which in soft centuries shall smoothly run: Those clouds, that overcast your morn, shall fly, Dispell'd to farthest corners of the sky. Our nation with united interest blest, Not now content to poise, shall sway the rest. Abroad your empire shall no limits know, But, like the sea, in boundless circles flow. Your much-loved ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... Nicholls. I hear he has got a curacy, but do not yet know where. I trust the news is true. He and papa never speak. He seems to pass a desolate life. He has allowed late circumstances so to act on him as to freeze up his manner and overcast his countenance not only to those immediately concerned but to every one. He sits drearily in his rooms. If Mr. Grant or any other clergyman calls to see, and as they think, to cheer him, he scarcely speaks. I find he tells them nothing, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... the contentious scenes of worldly affairs. Or, at least, it might have been expected that his traducers would only be found among the oppressors of the New World, or the slave-traders of the Old. This felicity has not been his lot; and the evening of his days has been overcast by an assault upon his character, proceeding from the quarter of all others the most ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... come to Erfurt to meet again the friend he had gained at Tilsit, the Emperor Alexander. Nearly eighteen months had passed since the first meeting of the two monarchs. Since that time the morning sky of their friendship had been overcast. The meeting at Erfurt was to renew their former relations. Both emperors felt that they could not do without each other, and they sought this meeting with equal eagerness. Alexander desired to continue his war against Sweden for the possession of Finland. Napoleon had not yet been able to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... up into his face, which was coming once more to be overcast with its accustomed aspect of preoccupation, and gave him her hand. He took it kindly enough, and she bestowed on his a quiet little pressure. It was hardly cordial; it was far indeed from effusive. Yet she had hoped, half an hour ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... into town with one of the hired men. The man was in a hurry to go about his own affairs and left the boy at the head of the street in which the Hardy house stood. It was early dusk of a fall evening and the sky was overcast with clouds. Something happened to David. He could not bear to go into the house where his mother and father lived, and on an impulse he decided to run away from home. He intended to go back to the farm and to his grandfather, ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... forgetful of the hours; while the death-bell cries out harshly for the grave's occupant, and [168] the corpse itself is borne along stealthily not far from them, and, unnoticed by either, the entire aspect of things has changed. Under the overcast sky it is in darkness they are playing, by guess and touch chiefly; and suddenly an icy blast of wind has lifted the roof from the old chapel, the trees are moaning in wild circular motion, and their devil's penny-piece, when Apollyon throws it for the last time, is itself but a twirling leaf in ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... of the action, the weather, which had hitherto been fair and sunny, became overcast, and a heavy blast of rain and sleet beat directly in the faces of the Highlanders. The English artillery then began to play upon them, and, being admirably served, every discharge told with fearful effect ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... and Barbarians can contain nothing instructive, or entertaining, the Antemilesian Inhabitants of this Land having been mostly such, and all surviving Accounts of them almost totally overcast with Fable, we are therefore, in treating of the antient Scotia, or modern Ireland, to refer principally to three distinguished aeras, whereof the first is, its being peopled by an Iberian or Spanish Colony: The second, truly glorious, the Arrival of St. Patrick, in his most salutary ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... he, "in my voyages, when I was a man and commanded other men, I have seen the heavens overcast, the sea rage and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, beating the two horizons with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain refuge, that trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury of the waves and the sight of the sharp rocks announced the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the twenty-eighth we knew the time was come. The longboat rolled drearily on an empty, windless sea, and the stagnant, overcast sky gave no promise of any breeze. I cut three pieces of cloth, all of a size, from my jacket. In the ravel of one of these pieces was a bit of brown thread. Whoever drew this lost. I then put the three lots into my hat, covering it with Captain ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... morning early they ate a hastily prepared breakfast and were off to the boat. Neither Robinson nor Friday stopped for their noonday lunch. "A storm is brewing," said Robinson, "the air is calm, the sky is overcast with clouds, the heat is oppressive. We must hurry." With the utmost diligence they rowed back and forth all day. They made nine trips. They had now on shore a surprising quantity of all kinds of tools, goods and weapons. They ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison

... none of us quite knew what to make of the weather. The glass stood fairly high, with a rising rather than a falling tendency, yet the sky was hazy without being exactly overcast. Nor, considering where we were, was the weather particularly hot; the atmosphere, however, seemed surcharged with damp, although no rain fell. With the going down of the sun it fell exceedingly dark, for the moon ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... stood and spoke not. The unhappy woman, unaccustomed to the language of supplication, scarcely knew in what terms to crave assistance. Owen himself stood back, uncovered, his fine, but much changed features overcast with an expression of deep affliction. Kathleen cast a single glance, at him, as if for encouragement. Their eyes met; she saw the upright man—the last remnant of the M'Carthy—himself once the friend of the poor, of the unhappy, of the afflicted—standing crushed and broken down by misfortunes ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... reach or disturb them for hours. Not one of the sleepers stirred enough to know that the sky gradually became overcast and that there was a distant ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay." As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... the joys, and all the glories, are 19 Of three great kingdoms, sever'd from the care. I, that of fumes and humid vapours made, Ascending, do the seat of sense invade, No cloud in so serene a mansion find, To overcast her ever-shining mind, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... ought to have kissed his hand—that he had indicated precisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was within me a vague feeling, akin to suspicion—akin to dismay which chilled and overcast my soul. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... But before the sun set, the weather unexpectedly changed, and a fine drizzling rain set in. So gently come the autumn showers that dull and fine are subject to uncertain alternations. The shades of twilight gradually fell on this occasion. The heavens too got so overcast as to look deep black. Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she took up, in the lamp light, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... the three of us silently made our way to the Twelve Acre Plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came out of the east. Gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full of sighings. We found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, and each shouldering his piece, we followed our leader ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... de Chamondrin was a witness to some of these facts. The letters of his son revealed others. He was extremely anxious in regard to the future, and more than once Dolores and his wife saw his brow overcast and his ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... watched these grim proceedings intently; it became quite silent now. The hour was growing late, the day had been overcast, and a damp chill that searched the marrow was settling as the short afternoon drew to a close. The prisoner's naked body showed very white beneath his shock of coal-black hair; his flesh seemed tender and the onlookers ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach



Words linked to "Overcast" :   stitch, inclementness, haze, inclemency, sew together, bad weather, darken, cloudy, semidarkness, casting, sew, whipstitch, clear up, cast, whipstitching, fog up, run up, oversew, whipping



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com