Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Rattling   /rˈætlɪŋ/  /rˈætəlɪŋ/   Listen
Rattling

adjective
1.
Extraordinarily good or great ; used especially as intensifiers.  Synonyms: fantastic, grand, howling, marvellous, marvelous, terrific, tremendous, wonderful, wondrous.  "The film was fantastic!" , "A howling success" , "A marvelous collection of rare books" , "Had a rattling conversation about politics" , "A tremendous achievement"
2.
Quick and energetic.  Synonyms: alert, brisk, lively, merry, snappy, spanking, zippy.  "A lively gait" , "A merry chase" , "Traveling at a rattling rate" , "A snappy pace" , "A spanking breeze"



Related searches:



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 |





"Rattling" Quotes from Famous Books



... the rattling casement still The beating rain fell fast; When creeping fingers wandering thrice ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... to Arabella the whole of the evening. The effect produced on the mind of this ill-fated woman by her dazzling admirer was as sudden as it proved to be lasting. There was a strange charm in the very contrast between his rattling audacity and the bashful formalities of the swains who had hitherto wooed her as if she frightened them. Even his good looks fascinated her less than that vital energy and power about the lawless brute, which to her seemed the elements of heroic character, though but the attributes ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... joke as much as Daisy, and laughed jollily as the little girl came flying into the room with her cap all on one side, the lids of her basket rattling like castanets and looking like a very ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... weeks even, Wilbur had looked eagerly forward to this return to his home. He had seen himself again in his former haunts, in his club, and in the houses along Pacific avenue where he was received; but no sooner had the anchor-chain ceased rattling in the "Bertha's" hawse-pipe than a strange revulsion came upon him. The new man that seemed to have so suddenly sprung to life within him, the Wilbur who was the mate of the "Bertha Millner," the Wilbur who belonged to Moran, believed that he could see nothing to be desired ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... into the wood, with some inconvenience, from the furze that pricked his legs, and the briars that scratched his face. He at last sat down under a tree, and heard with great delight a shower, by which he was not wet, rattling among the branches: This, said he, is the true image of obscurity; we hear of troubles and commotions, but never ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... cried the Countess, rattling open her fan. "I have always been very curious to see you. I have received an ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James

... sea!—open not only to the Northward and Westward, but also to the Eastward! You can imagine my excitement." Turn the hands up, Mr. Wyse!" "'Bout ship!" "Down with the helm!" "Helm a-lee!" Up comes the schooner's head to the wind, the sails flapping with the noise of thunder—blocks rattling against the deck, as if they wanted to knock their brains out—ropes dancing about in galvanised coils, like mad serpents—and everything to an inexperienced eye in inextricable confusion; till ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... the ineffectual beam of lamp or lanthorn; on past gloomy streets and narrow courts where dim forms jostled, and ever and always the blusterous wind rioting 'twixt heaven and earth, booming in chimneys, moaning in dark corners, rattling windows, clapping-to crazy shutters and setting ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... river-bed undisturbed. Then the murmur was prolonged, until it became the continuous trouble of some far-off sea, and at last the wind possessed the ledge itself; driving the smoke down the stumpy chimney of the mill, rattling the sun-warped shingles on the roof, stirring the inside rafters with cool breaths, and singing over the rough projections of the outside eaves. At nine o'clock he rolled himself up in his blankets before the fire, as was his wont, and ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... infernal music." He wiped his eyes. This was impossible to bear ... Doo-da! Doo-da! A most frightful thing happened. A boy broke out of the ranks and came running, all rattling and jingling with swinging accoutrements, to the old woman beside Sabre, put his arms around her and cried in a most frightful voice, "Mother! Mother!" And a sergeant, also rattling and clanking, dashed up and bawled with astounding ferocity, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... Baird's skirmishers had been driven in, and his main line had hurled its thousands of bullets as the attacking enemy came into view. Instantly the answering fire was given, and then followed the continuous rattling roar of a fierce general engagement. Wounded men began to come out of the wood where Baird was as they made their way alone toward the hospitals or were carried off by the hospital corps. Suddenly, a hundred men with arms in their hands emerged from the woods into the open field ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... chased the vision—the sleeper awoke, The wonderful dream to expound; The lightning's bright flash from the thunder-cloud broke, And hail-stones were rattling around. ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... started on his expedition. His men carried their sabres, still sheathed, in their hands, to prevent the noise which they would have made rattling against their saddles; but still their journey through the country was anything but quiet. They only rode two abreast, as the roads were too narrow to admit of more. Westerman himself and one of the guides headed the column, ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... tea-pot of china received its customary quantity of tea, which was set upon the stove to brew, and carefully placed behind the stove pipe that no accidental touch of the elbow might bring it to destruction. Plates, knives, and teacups came rattling forth from the closet; the butter was brought from the place where it had been placed to keep it cool, and a corn-cake was soon smoking on the table, and sending up its seducing odour into the room over-head to which ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... week brought to the meadow what must seem from the bobolink point of view almost the end of the world. Men and horses and great rattling machines, armed with sharp knives, which laid low every stem of grass and flower, and let the light of the sun in upon the haunts and the nests of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... led around to the side of the farmhouse. They tied him to a halter-ring on the wall. Three times, he was given the chance of saving his life by treachery; and his only reply was: "I'm done. Damn you—shoot!" The rifles were raised; there was a rattling volley, a drooping figure on the halter-cord, and the officer turned his attention ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... Schoenau cried out to his daughter, who was still pounding away, that the window-panes were rattling and the strings of the piano would be ruined. He did not really care a particle how much noise she made, neither did her aunt, who answered him now, promptly ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... over the grade. The same instant the wheel team repeated the maneuver, but not so quickly, as the slouching figure on the seat sprang into action. A quick strong pull on the reins, a sharp yell: "You, Buck! Molly!" and a rattling volley of strong talk swung the four back into the narrow road before the front wheels ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... until altogether we had counted seven. The six now before us, after make-shift splashes in the basins beside their doors, went as the chap with the wood had gone; and shortly we heard sounds of knives and forks rattling on china. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... bedside, rolling bandages, when the sudden, far-distant, dull boom of cannon, followed by the quick rattling of the window-panes, gave intimation that the long contest was fiercely renewed. A courier had arrived from Malvern Mill with intelligence that here the enemy's forces were very strongly posted, were making desperate resistance; and though no doubt of ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... away" at that very moment. He listened intently, as he lay stretched upon the gun-tackles; and then he heard the splash in the water, as the boat was hauled closer to, in order to be brought beneath the chair. The rattling of oars, too, was audible, as Ghita left the seat and moved aft. "Round in," called out the officer of the deck; after which Carlo Giuntotardi was left in quiet possession of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... prejudiced in Lady Morgan's favour, admits that her attack on Croker had much effect in its day, and was written on the model of the Irish school of invective furnished by Flood and Grattan. As a novelist, he held that she pointed the way to Lever, and adds: 'The rattling vivacity of the Irish character, its ebullient spirit, and its wrathful eloquence of sentiment and language, she well portrayed; one can smell the potheen and turf smoke even in her pictures of a ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... Hilda's dismal meditations were interrupted by the sound of carriage wheels, which not only came rattling down the little street, but stopped at the hall door. She started up in a fright, pushed back her disordered hair from her flushed face, and the next moment found herself in the voluminous embrace of ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... with a might that shook the ship from stem to stern. The flaps of the mad canvas were like successive thumps of a giant's fist upon a mighty drum. The sheets were jerking at the belaying pins, the blocks rattling in sharp snappings like castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all over head was black with the flying scud. The English second mate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... a house, Peter could hear him bumping and rattling among the furnishings, while the black householders stood outside the door and watched him disturb their ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... of the judge's pipe spluttered; he brought his right fist heavily down upon the table, rattling the pens and ink bottles that littered its top. "No, young man; you are not mistaken—you have hit the nail squarely on the head. If you are going to stay here and fight Dunlavey and his crew, Blackstone Graney ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... bent. One on his clamorous "Corner" most relies; The other on his sinews and his size. Unequal in success, they ward, they strike, Their styles are different, but their aims alike. Big blows are dealt; stout DARES hops around, His pulpy sides the rattling thumps resound. ("He always was a fleshy 'un, yer know," Said brave SAYERIUS. "But on yer go!") Steady and straight ENTELLUS stands his ground, Although already rowdy rows abound. His hand and watchful eyes keep even pace, While DARES traverses and shifts his place, And, like a cornered rat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... great gusts were rattling at the windows; a very dark night, and a very cheerful fire, blazing in a genuine old fire-place in a sombre old room. A girl of a little more than seventeen, slight and rather tall, with a countenance rather sensitive and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... second-hand books displayed on the parapet, and he was on the point of bargaining for some. He smiled, thrust his hands philosophically into his pockets, and fell to strolling on again with a proud disdain in his manner, when he heard to his surprise some coin rattling fantastically in ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... water is easy enough, but when the ship is pitching into the fast-rising seas and heeling over to the gale, with the wind whistling through the rigging, blocks rattling, ropes lashing about, the hard canvas trying to escape from one's grip, and blatters of rain and sleet and hail in one's face, it is no pleasant matter. We had taken two reefs in the topsails, and even ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... spotless, appeared in a doorway; black boys sprang up like a crop of mushrooms and took charge of the buck-board; Dan rattled in with the pack-teams, and horses were jangling hobbles and rattling harness all about us, as I found myself standing in the shadow of a queer, unfinished building, with the Maluka and Mac surrounded by a mob of leaping, bounding dogs, flourishing, as best they could, another ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... lurched and began to roll; the motley crowd was left behind. Helen awakened to the reality, as she saw Bo staring with big eyes at the hunter, that a stranger adventure than she had ever dreamed of had began with the rattling roll of ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... of rattling on, but he could not keep the choking from his throat. Lloyd's mother sat down and held her two boys' hands in ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... you been?" demanded Weimer. "You don't deserve to be spoken to at all after quitting us like that. But Seldon is so good-natured," he went on, "that he sent us after you. It was a great success, and he made a rattling good speech, and you missed the whole thing; and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. We've asked half the people in front to supper—two stray Englishmen, all the Wilton girls and their governor, and the chap that wrote the ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... palmy; hopeful &c 858. merry as a cricket, merry as a grig^, merry as a marriage bell; joyful, joyous, jocund, jovial; jolly as a thrush, jolly as a sandboy^; blithesome; gleeful, gleesome^; hilarious, rattling. winsome, bonny, hearty, buxom. playful, playsome^; folatre [Fr.], playful as a kitten, tricksy^, frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c 838; cock-a-hoop. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... this friend, this gay, cynical knower of men's and women's ways, answering her chatter in short, smiling responses, with a steady eye fixed on her, and reading, Marguerite believed, as plainly as if it were any of the sign-boards along the rattling street, the writing on her fluttering heart. And so, even while she trembled with strange delight, pain, shame, and alarm pleaded through her dancing glances, now by turns and now in confusion together, for mercy ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... the Dilworthy's constantly and on such terms of intimacy that he came and went without question. The Senator was not an inhospitable man, he liked to have guests in his house, and Harry's gay humor and rattling way entertained him; for even the most devout men and busy statesmen must ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... into prominence during the time it was the end of the track was "Phil Sheridan" located near the point where the road crossed the hundredth Meridian, Mile Post four hundred and five. During its brief existence it was a rattling noisy place, full of life and vigor, rowdyism predominating. Not a stake, brick, or shingle is left to mark its site. It was here the construction rested for nearly a year and a half, financial troubles,—uncertainty as to whether to build to San Diego, Cal., or Denver, ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey

... There was a rattling of knives and forks, a clink of glasses, and a buzz of conversation. Doctor Mack was able to hear considerable of it. There were anecdotes of the professors, accounts of narrow escapes from "flunking" ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger

... toward the devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to spring a cragged and stupendous arch, from which, as from the jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the sudden Phlegethon. And through the still air was heard the rattling of the fragments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they were borne down the fiery cataracts—darkening, for one instant, the spot where they fell, and suffused the next, in the burnished hues of the flood ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... the convent, we prepared to depart, and were accompanied to the outward portal by the two friars. Our calasero brought his rattling and rickety vehicle for us to mount; at sight of which one of the monks exclaimed, with a smile, "Santa Maria! only to think! A calesa before the gate of the convent of La Rabida!" And, indeed, so solitary ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... remained. The pole, having been gaudily embellished, was majestically reared aloft and planted firmly in the ground. Round it the men and maidens danced, while the seigneur and his family, enthroned in chairs brought from the manor-house, looked on with approval. Then came a rattling feu de joie with shouts of 'Long live the King!' and 'Long live our seigneur!' This over, the seigneur invited the whole gathering to refreshments indoors. Brandy and cakes disappeared with great celerity before appetites whetted by an hour's exercise in the ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade; And ever and anon, in tones ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... was barefoot, playing in the yard. There were bushes around and I heard a queer noise like peas rattling in a box. I could not see what made it, so finally ran in and told father. He came out and lifted up a wide board over two stones. He jumped back and called to me to run in the house, then grabbed an ax and cut the head ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... to the door, and rattling the windows, roused them. "It is Alexander, who comes to pay you a visit," said the king, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... is a lively, rattling, breezy story of school life in this country, written by one who knows all about its ways, its snowball fights, its baseball matches, its pleasures and its perplexities, its glorious excitements its rivalries, and its ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope

... more tonic than all theories about nature; the buck's whistle more invigorating; the bull's bellow in the canyon more musical; the call of the bobwhite more serene; the rattling of the rattlesnake more logical; the scream of the panther more arousing to the imagination; the odor from the skunk more lingering; the sweep of the buzzard in the air more majestical; the wariness of the wild turkey brighter; the bark of the prairie dog lighter; ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... stood a clock, a tall looking-glass, and two lighted wax candles; a table in the middle with some packs of cards, and a liqueur bottle and glasses, and a bed on one side opposite the fireplace. The window looked on to a side street, noisy with the incessant rattling of vehicles, and so narrow that the numerous lighted interiors of the houses opposite were visible to the most casual observer. A smell of smoking pervaded the room, explained by the presence of a young man, who held a cigar in one hand, whilst he leaned half ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... of fact, they did; for after traversing some ten or fifteen yards the Indian halted and, releasing Escombe's hand, was heard groping about in the darkness, and a moment later the rattling of dry ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... his face. The "Seventh Officer," his only white companion, watched him respectfully. All the Malays were asleep, stretched prone or supine under the forward awning. Only Wing Kat stirred in the smother of his galley below, rattling tin dishes, and repeating, in endless falsetto sing-song, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various

... precaution, he had been wounded as he was removed from the cab. His forehead had been grazed by a piece of iron, and a tiny stream of blood was trickling down upon his face. However, he still breathed; and by listening attentively, one could distinguish a faint rattling in his throat. ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... can tell what is in the back of their brain from the words of their mouth, and if Whythe was imagining I had any value outside of my own self I would like to find it out. How I was going to find out I did not know, and when I said my prayers I started to pray that a rattling good way would turn up, but I remembered it wasn't exactly a thing to pray about and that watching ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher

... night revels said to have been held in the old hut, which had at last fallen into bad repute and been for years deserted. To one like Hagar, however, there was nothing intimidating in its creaking old floors, its rattling windows and noisome chimney, where the bats and the swallows built their nests; and when one day Madam Conway proposed giving little Maggie into the charge of a younger and less nervous person than herself she made no objection, but surprised ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... visit." Thus they went, ministering to high and low alike, in their democratic Christian way making no distinction between tavern-keepers and princesses. As they talked with Elizabeth and her friend the countess, discoursing upon heavenly themes, they were interrupted by the rattling of a coach, and callers were announced. The countess "fetched a deep sigh, crying out, 'O the cumber and entanglements of this vain world! They hinder all good.' Upon which," says William, "I replied, looking her steadfastly in the face, 'O come ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... went up and up and in and out, and I thought if I kept low and crawled round in this ditch I should come out at last close behind the firing-line, and then I could get in touch with the trenches. I could hear the machine-gun of the M—'s rattling ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... me is Marechal taking a holiday," observed Savinien. "They are still at dinner," he added, entering the drawing-room, through the great doors of which sounds of voices and rattling of plates were heard. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... with her voice modulated and her elbows covered, pouring tea in the marble teepee of a tree murderer. No! In Cypher's she belonged—in the bacon smoke, the cabbage perfume, the grand, Wagnerian chorus of hurled ironstone china and rattling casters. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... became aware of a knocking and a rattling at the door. It must have been going on ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... bright when he took his place at dinner that day, but his behaviour was more quiet and guarded than usual: he conducted himself more like Willie's ideal mouse, than like the noisy, rattling fellow he usually appeared. The brothers sat, three on each side of the table; no one claimed the place at the top, where the mother was accustomed to sit when well. Dr. Campbell looked tired, and was very silent, but took care that his sons' vigorous appetites ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford

... the corridor above, and down the broad front stairway, rattling the heels of my garden shoes on the tiles of the hall below with rather unnecessary emphasis. A loud slamming of the library door—which shook the pendants of the gasaliers and caused a momentary quaking of the whole house—announced my exit into the side garden, where I threaded ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... the roof-tree and the wide, vague world without. And still once more the two women fell to bemoaning their fate of exile beside the expiring embers, while the elder Gilhooley's voice sounded bluffly outside calling the oxen, and his son was rattling their heavy ...
— Who Crosses Storm Mountain? - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... my head." "And the gold?" "That was my wages for a seven years' servitude." "And I see you have known how to benefit yourself each time," said the Grinder; "but, could you now manage that you heard the money rattling in your pocket as you walked, your fortune ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... the other chickens and must now do his part toward salving the hurt and cheering the home-coming of Billy Louise. John returned, mumbled with Phoebe at the far end of the room, and went out again. Phoebe worked silently and briskly, rattling pans now and then and lifting the stove lids to put in more wood. Billy Louise heard the sounds but dimly. The fire was filled with pictures; her thoughts were wandering here and there, bridging the gap between the past and the misty future. After awhile the savory odor of the young ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... incredible that out here were street cars still clanging for right of way, pedestrians weaving in and out the great tapestry of a city day, factory whistles splitting asunder with terrific cleavage the fore—from the afternoon. There was a hurdy-gurdy rattling tinnily through the morning that must have played on uninterruptedly through this strange demise ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... was wakened from the painful doze into which I continually fell, by a sound of horses' feet over our head: sometimes lumbering heavily as if dragging a burden, sometimes rattling and galloping; and with the sharper cry of men's voices coming cutting through the roar of the waters. At length, day fell. We had to drop into the stream, which came above our knees as we waded to the bank. There we stood, stiff and shivering. Even ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... instead of sitting quietly still minding their own business, and preserving the stamp of originality of character which nature or education may have impressed on them. Off they go, jingling against each other in the rattling vehicle till they have no more variety of stamp in them than so many smooth shillings—the same even in their Welsh wigs and greatcoats, each without more individuality than belongs to a partner of the company, as the waiter calls them, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... I was conscious of a vague unrest, of a constant want of repose, of an emptiness and hardness which I had not noticed in life before. I had so identified religion with the Bible that I could not conceive them apart. When the foundation proved false, the whole structure came rattling about my ears. And then good old Carlyle came to the rescue; and partly from him, and partly from my own broodings, I made a little hut of my own, which has kept me snug ever since, and has even served to shelter a friend or ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... be sayin' sech words as that on this Fourth o' July mornin', which you always said was nex' door to swearin'!" replied his wife; but her stream of talk was frozen up for the time, and they were at length dressed, packed, and rattling over the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... rattling good yarn, full of excitement. Thoroughly brisk in action, her stories are told in a virile ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... fighting from essedae: They first drive round with them to all parts of the line, throwing their javelins, and generally disordering the ranks by the very alarm occasioned by the horses, and the rattling of the wheels: then, as soon as they have insinuated themselves between the troops of horse, they leap from their chariots and fight on foot. The drivers then withdraw a little from the battle, in order that, if their friends are overpowered by numbers, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... natural anchorage from time to time, the better to judge of her work, and not one of them all had such a fatal tendency to come up against an unoffending easel in the rear, sending canvas and paint-tubes rattling upon the floor. ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... picked men from the whole army. The charge of one of the regiments of cuirassiers, 1000 strong, upon the Champ de Mars, was one of the finest sights imaginable. The clattering of the horses feet on hard ground, and the rattling of the armour, increasing as they advanced, exceeded the sound of the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... It was a lovely afternoon, not too warm to make it hard upon the ponies, and they rode right round the Point, and along the road skirting the arm of the sea, going much farther than Bert had ever been before; now pattering along the smooth dry road at a rattling pace, and now jogging on quietly with the reins hanging loosely on the ponies' necks. If Bert's pony knew the more tricks, Frank's showed the greater speed, so they both had something to be especially proud of, and were ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... and bayonets, I could not help smiling, though my sensations were in some degree painful and humiliating, at the idea of two religious teachers meeting at the head of little armies, and filling the city which was the scene of their interview with the rattling of gunners, the clash of shields and the tramp of the war-horse. Had our troops been opposed to each other, mine, though less numerous, would have been doubtless far more effective from the superiority of arms and discipline. But in moral grandeur what a difference was there between ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... little while, pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarified air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and gray. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards. Out-door work ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens

... sound, half groan, half sobbing, came from the open windows of the little tent. And as they drew near, their feet rattling the dry sand, there came a ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... defends his eggs. They were fresh from the hen; he stood over her while she laid them. Juliet listens frigidly. 'I don't think,' she says. 'Well, half of sugar, one marmalade, and two of breakfast bacon,' she adds, and ends the argument. There is a rattling as of a steamer weighing anchor; the goods go up in the tradesman's lift; Juliet collects them, and exits, banging the door. The little ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... grated on the ground, and we lost way. The surge overtook us and drove us forward, crashing on the stones of the beach, but hardly striking with any force. The bows lifted, and I saw the rattling pebbles beneath us as the sea sucked them back. A great sea rolled in, hissing and roaring round the high stern, and breaking clear over it and Bertric as he stood at the helm, and it lifted us once more as if we were but a tangle of seaweed, and hurled us upward on the stony slope, canting ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... a struggle, their condition is next to desperate. When no art, no management, no argument, is necessary to abate their pride and overcome their prejudices, and their uneasiness only excites an obscure and feeble rattling in their throat, their final dissolution seems not far off. In this miserable state we are still further depressed by the overbearing influence of the crown. It acts with the officious cruelty of a mercenary nurse, who, under pretence of tenderness, stifles us with our clothes, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... seen rats and mice scuttle across the white sand some distance away. Though storms often raged during the day, the wind almost invariably blew itself out towards night, leaving a dead calm, broken only by the tramp of sentries or the distant rattling hum of a nightjar. It is a brave man who, having determined this mode of exit, leaves his hut when others are sleeping, and vanishes. Presently, if he gets safely across the intervening ground, the faint yet feverish ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... walked further up the yard, to the little office where Henry was to pass the next few weeks; and as Mr. Lingard turned over books, and explained to Henry what he was expected to do, the sound of horses kicking their stalls, and rattling chains in their mangers, came to him from near at hand with a delightful ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... love and constancy," said the Adelantado. "Good night, Villejo!" and turned upon his side with a rattling ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The khansamah completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He gave me the name of a well-known man who has been buried for more than a quarter of a century, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... calmly ignored me from the first. When the trouble supervened, his haughty immobility had still sustained him at such an altitude as to render Priestley, as well as myself, invisible even to bird's eye view. But the small soul, rattling about loose in the large, well-fed body, could n't let it pass at that. On my interposing, he placed a gold-mounted glass in his eye, and, with a degress of rudeness which I have never seen equalled in a ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... relief by the weird glow from the sputtering candles, a number of darting figures could be seen leaping to cover behind the rocks. From the shadows came bright jets of flame. Bullets whined through the cavern, clipping the walls and rattling the pebbles to the stone floor. Flattening his body against the slimy fish, Gregory wriggled foot by foot in the direction of the big rock which ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... country dame, to early-rising prone, Two clocks possessed: the one, a rattling Dutch, Seldom aright, though noisy in its tone, With naughty knack of striking two too much. The other was a steady, stately piece, That rang the hour true as the finger told: For many a year 't had kept its corner place; The owner said 'twas worth its weight in gold! ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... of their gloomy talk, and with the snow still rattling against the dry bison robes of their tepee, the flap was suddenly lifted and Deerfoot the Shawanoe entered and caught the hand of each delighted boy. His face was aglow with health and pleasure, for they were no happier than he ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... solicitude and muddled calculations had drawn her from a feast as yet too imperfectly commemorative. The heroine of the occasion of course had been intolerably missed, so that the old woman had both obliged the company and quieted her own nerves by jumping insistently into a hansom and rattling up to Saint John's Wood to reclaim the absentee. But if she had wished to be in time she had also desired not to be impertinent, and would have been still more embarrassed to say what she aspired ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... virtuous wife) the gentle Desdemona loved and trusted Cassio. Nor had the marriage of this couple made any difference in their behaviour to Michael Cassio. He frequented their house, and his free and rattling talk was no unpleasing variety to Othello, who was himself of a more serious temper: for such tempers are observed often to delight in their contraries, as a relief from the oppressive excess of their own: and Desdemona and Cassio would talk and laugh together, as in the days when he ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... emerged meanwhile and circled the water-hole, but even this brief exposure to the open air had served to harden his wet garments into a crackling armor. With rattling teeth, he asked: ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... Sir Marmaduke say, 'The door of the Garden Tower is unguarded,—wait the signal!' Fly, my liege! Hark! even now I hear the rattling of arms!" ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... behind a large beer-barrel at the foot of the stairs, while I could hear old man Tooter rattling several bottles at the other end of the cellar, and talking ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... off through the timber, even Jerry keeping up a rattling pace, although somewhat ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen

... horses. After them came the infantry: solid columns of grey-clad figures with the silhouettes of the mounted officers rising at intervals above the forest of spike- crowned helmets. After the infantry came the field artillery, the big guns rattling and rumbling over the cobblestones, the cannoneers sitting with folded arms and heels drawn in, and wooden faces, like servants on the box of a carriage. These were the same guns that had been in almost constant action for the ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell

... a rattling good tale, written with charm, and full of remarkable happenings, dangerous doings, strange events, jealous intrigues and sweet love making. The reader's interest is not permitted to lag, but is taken up and carried on from incident to incident with ingenuity and contagious enthusiasm. The ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow

... gone far out upon the Lake a great wind storm rose. It came sweeping down upon them from the hills, rattling the ropes and swelling the sails so that they had to bring them down and fasten them, and then take the oars. Every part of the little ship was covered with spray from the rising waves, and the disciples began ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury

... the breath of ether seeping out to her, sweet, insidious. She took to hugging herself violently against a sudden chill that rushed over her, rattling her frame. ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... permitted to say whether he would have any fried eggs or not, for at that moment Ethan crept from his concealment, whatever noise he made being drowned by the clatter of the dishes and the rattling of the chairs. Stealing up behind Baker, who was intent only on beefsteak and coffee, he slipped the hangman's noose over his head, and hauled it tight. The robber attempted to spring to his feet, but ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic

... examining us curiously. He was the only sign of life visible except ourselves, and soon he, satisfied that we were only crazy foreigners with nothing else to do but wander about, took himself off yawning, his hands clasped behind his back, and his short sword rattling audibly ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards

... thoroughly saddened for contention; indeed he scarcely noticed the magnificent change in Salina's manner; and, if the truth must be told, was rather glad to be left under the shelter of a roof, when the rain was rattling over ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... the passage, only a short distance from the old tool house, they heard a rattling and bumping on the shaft ladders and instantly ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher

... another room, as she spoke, and Alora, realizing the hall door could not be forced by her puny strength, advanced into the living room. There were three other doorways opening from this apartment. She could hear Janet rattling dishes and pans, so the way she had gone led into the kitchen. The other two doors she found gave entrance to small bedrooms, neither having egress other than through the living room. The furniture in all the rooms was cheap and tawdry but ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... gloom and sadness from this sullen land of fogs! Look at it scattered so delicately, as if by a loving hand, over the stones and the grass-flats on shore! But wind and current are much as they were, and during the day the wind blows up to a regular storm, howling and rattling in ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... strength, by the Samurai's trick of falling with one's enemy, heaved him up and shot him clean over his own shoulder: then, as they dropped together, struck with his wrist a paralysing blow at the base of the spine. Janaway's yell of fury was choked into a rattling groan. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde

... his kit in a tarpaulin bag, attended by plunderers to the very last moment of his shore-going existence. As though his senses, when released from the uproar of the elements, were under obligation to be confused by other turmoil, there was a rattling of wheels, a clattering of hoofs, a clashing of iron, a jolting of cotton and hides and casks and timber, an incessant deafening disturbance on the quays, that was the very madness of sound. And as, in the midst of it, he stood swaying about, with his hair blown all ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... passed, combining to make a momentary roaring noise at their nearest. The truck was not in a hurry. It simply lumbered along with loose objects in its cargo space rattling and bumping loudly. Its driver and his helper plainly knew nothing of untoward events behind them. They'd probably stopped somewhere to have a leisurely morning snack, with the truck waiting for ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... day the dance was slow and funereal, in honor of the Yo- kai-a chief who died a short time before. The music was mournful and simple being a monotonous chant in which only two tones were used, accompanied with a rattling of split sticks and stamping on a hollow slab. The second day the dance was more lively on the part of the men, the music was better, employing airs which had a greater range of tune and the women generally joined ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... till all four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repetition of "Are we going to the docks?" his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, "No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband's breast, and all that sort of thing, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wash, and all, I was just as happy as I am now. We only had one old negro to keep the store. Why don't you sell Gumbo, cousin George? He ain't no use here idling and dawdling about, and making love to the servant-girl. Fogh! guess they ain't particular, these English people!" So she talked, rattling on with perfect good-humour, until her hour for departure came; when she produced a fine repeating watch, and said it was time for her to pay a call upon her Majesty at Buckingham House. "And mind you come to us, George," says her ladyship, waving a little parting hand out of the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... little while the chain made a rattling noise, and she lay quite slack and swung oddly; and then there were little boiling and eddying places in the water, and the water seemed to come up from underneath sometimes, and altogether it behaved very strangely, and this was the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... clear as could be, I could hear the sound of the engine echoing back from the mountains; the chugging and rattling sounded double, like. Then, pretty soon, ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... careful avoidance of the note of pathos on which our last conversation had closed, that she was preparing to leave that afternoon; and the trunks obstructing the threshold showed that her preparations were nearly complete. They were, I felt certain, the same trunks that, strapped behind a rattling vettura, had accompanied the bride and groom on that memorable voyage of discovery of which the booty had till recently adorned her walls; and there was a dim consolation in the thought that those early "finds" in coral and Swiss wood-carving, in lava and alabaster, ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton

... N. velocity, speed, celerity; swiftness &c. adj.; rapidity, eagle speed; expedition &c. (activity) 682; pernicity|; acceleration; haste &c. 684. spurt, rush, dash, race, steeple chase; smart rate, lively rate, swift rate &c. adj.; rattling rate, spanking rate, strapping rate, smart pace, lively pace, swift pace, rattling pace, spanking pace, strapping pace; round pace; flying, flight. lightning, greased lightning, light, electricity, wind; cannon ball, rocket, arrow, dart, hydrargyrum[Lat], quicksilver; telegraph, express train; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... still sounded with a steady shout in the neighbor trees. At the casements it tugged and rattled; against them it flung the rain fiercely. Every bay and passage of the interior uttered its own voice, and overhead was creaking of old timbers, rattling of old slates, and rustling of mortar fragments ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... a woman in one of the promenade boxes, a young woman wearing a stunning gown and a preposterous picture-hat, who started the applause. Her hand-clapping was echoed all around the rail, was taken up in the boxes and finally woke a rattling chorus from the crowded tiers above. The three judges, men with whips and long-tailed coats, looked earnestly ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... The music was now rattling on, and the ladies in their foam-like dresses were busily threading and spinning about the floor, when Faith, casually looking up into her brother's face, was surprised to see that a change had come over ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... Suddenly a rattling volley of musketry was heard, and three of the Greeks bit the dust, while a number of cries told that ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... the winter under the grass. Those words, "fragile and valuable," had made the men lift Hirschvogel gently and with care. He had begun to get used to his prison, and a little used to the incessant pounding and jumbling and rattling and shaking with which modern travel is always accompanied, though modern invention does deem itself so mightily clever. All in the dark he was, and he was terribly thirsty; but he kept feeling the earthenware sides of the Nurnberg giant ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... no appeal, no pleading, for the look that she gave him was hard and determined. Harsh words flew to the Major's mind, and he shook with the repression of them; but he was silent. He shoved his hands into his pockets and she heard his keys rattling. He arose with a deep sigh, and now, with his hands behind him, walked up and down the room. Suddenly he faced about and stood looking down upon her, at the rose in ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... "Surely I locked the door?" He walked to the front of the shop, switching on the cluster of lights that hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything else seemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came trotting out from the kitchen, his claws rattling on the bare wooden floor. He looked up with the patient inquiry of a dog accustomed to the eccentricities ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... Jean was sleeping soundly. He had succumbed in spite of rattling dishes and her talk, and slept the heavy sleep of physical exhaustion. The cigarette had fallen from his fingers half finished. His throat was still muffled in her silken scarf, but she tried to see if the marks were still there. For ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... stacked up on a bench to dry out in the sunlight. Perhaps it was the rays of the sun on the bright tin that attracted Billy's attention. At any rate he went through it with a bound, amid the crash of rattling ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... Flannagan's jitney-bus, rattling up the driveway, bearing back to the Bannister campus the victorious Gold and Green nine, and the State Intercollegiate Baseball Championship, though the hour was midnight, found every student on the grass before the Senior Fence! Over three hundred leather-lunged ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... a shriek, dropping the comb, for the thundercloud was now directly over the city, and a loud peal, following close upon the flash of lightning, shook the house; but Barbara scarcely heeded the dazzling glare and the rattling panes. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... you hold the willow, a shooter from Wills May transform you into a hopper, And the football meadow is rife with spills, If you feel disposed for a cropper; In a rattling gallop with hound and horse You may chance to reverse the medal On the sward, with the saddle your loins across, And your hunter's loins on the saddle; In the stubbles you'll find it hard to frame A remonstrance firm, yet civil, When oft as ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... wafted the balloon on her course; perhaps Gambetta landed at Cahors, his natal town, perhaps somewhere else—perhaps in the arms of Cremieux, that aged lion. To-morrow the provinces will resound with his voice, which will mingle with the rattling of arms and the sound of drums. Like a trumpet, it will peal along the Loire, inflaming hearts, forming battalions, and causing the manes of St. Just and Desmoulins to ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... going to say is this: wouldn't it be much better to turn your car into the means of making an honest living, and at the same time having some rattling good fun, rather than sell the thing for less than half cost, and not only get no fun at all, but not know how to get out of the scrape in which ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... It went on, rattling, with little pauses now and then as if the gun were taking breath, for an hour or more: a paralysing sound, as if some giant were drawing a great ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... fine as to be undistinguishable by the naked eye. Yet when the blade comes off, like this, you see that although the weight is absolutely adjusted, the inside is hollow. The dagger itself is encased in this cotton wool to avoid any rattling. I put it away in rather a hurry the last time I used it, and as you see ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... time did Cott van Cott misinterpret the gesture and heaved himself upward, the violin and the bow clicking and rattling at every stride. He was fleeing to the leads to save his life and his violin from death by fire—fire in the basement—and the crowd in the street roared below him with the roar of a ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... then that she had been rattling on because her mind was full of something else. I don't believe she knew half that she had said. Presently to my surprise I saw a ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... sleeping-place there came sounds of energetic house-cleaning: pieces of property came tumbling out of the door—an old saddle-blanket, a yellow slicker, a pair of boots, a tin bucket. Finally a branding-iron bounded back from the heap and fell rattling on the door-sill; then there was a sound of wiping and dusting out. Janet sat silent, her hands in her lap. In a little while he came crawling backwards out of the door and brushed the accumulated dirt off the door-sill with a light blue shirt. He went in again, and after a moment ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... when Matteo was fuddled, Ippolita in tears, Alessandro in a fever, and the more reputable Padovani turning down their beds, the watch came rattling at the Sub-Prefect's door to report a dead Jew in the Via della Gatta. Of all nights in the year, this, the eve of the Glorious Ippolita's home-bringing, to be vexed by a dead Jew! Messer Alessandro ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... just before dawn, someone came rattling down the steep slope above us, and to our joy we found it was the Brigade-Major coming to look for us, and that Brigade H.Q. was just above us—"just above" being 600 feet up one of the steepest slopes one could climb. However, we got up all right about 7 A.M. and managed to get a ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... good time for the coach; and the ringing notes of the guard's bugle made them aware of its approach some time before they saw it rattling merrily along in its cloud of dust. What a sight it was when it did come near! The cloud that had enveloped it was discovered to be not dust only, but smoke from the cigars, meerschaums, and short clay pipes of a full complement of gentlemen passengers, scarcely one of whom seemed ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... wagons, gun carriages, and caissons rolling slowly along, the rattling drums, with here and there the inspiring strains of a band, the general officers, with their staffs, were full of interest and excitement to the soldier boy; and though the business before him was stern and terrible, yet it seemed like some great pageant, moving ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... any foreign tongue. But during the two days spent en route in Paris, where the British party was fted and shown round by the French Esperantists, on the journey to Geneva, which English and French made together, on lake steamboats, at picnics and dinners, etc., etc., here they were, rattling away with great ease and mutual entertainment. Many of these came from the North of England, and it was a real eye-opener, over which easy-going South-Englanders would do well to ponder, to see what results could be produced by a little energy and application, building ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... day we were sent for by the governor, to be examined. It was a triumph to us to be conducted as a spectacle through the market-place and the streets, with our chains rattling. The soldiers, who knew not where the governor would hear its, dragged us from place to place, till, at length, he ordered us to be brought into his closet. He put several questions to us; our answers were modest, but firm: at length we ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... island all to themselves, where they would not be annoyed by the contemptuous looks and bitter jibes of better men. All night long the blacksmith plied his hammer and made the ship resound with the rattling chains and ringing manacles, as he fastened them well on the legs of the prisoners. At dawn of day, chained together in pairs, they were landed on Goat Island; that was the bright little isle—their promised land. Every morning they were taken over in boats to the town of Sydney, where they had ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... for G. Harvey, in his "Four Letters," &c., 1592, says: "I have enquired what speciall cause the pennyless gentleman hath to brag of his birth, which giveth the woeful poverty good leave, even with his Stentor's voice, and in his rattling terms, to revive the pitiful ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... absurdities of the situation are already there. No invention required. Immense hit. Wish I knew Gilbert. Money in it. English people might see the thing in the true light, if presented in comic songs, with a rattling chorus. Friend of mine bringing out a Gladstone Suppression Company Unlimited, forty million shares at twopence-halfpenny each. At a premium already. Money ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... the longer because Mr. Kendal did not answer immediately, was shocked at his own impetuosity; but a rattling peal of thunder was not ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the dark cold night with the noise of the rattling train ever in their ears. Though there had been a railway running close by Nuremberg now for many years, Linda was not herself so well accustomed to travelling as will probably be most of those who will read this tale of her sufferings. Now ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... our own destruction, awake those sleeping lions, by rattling up a company of old records which have lain for so many ages by the wall, forgotten and neglected. To all my afflictions, add not this, my lords, the most severe of any; that I, for my other sins, not for my treasons, be the means of introducing a precedent ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume

... fasting-spittle, Their sacred salt here, not a little. Dry chips, old shoes, rags, grease, and bones, Beside their fumigations. Many a trifle, too, and trinket, And for what use, scarce man would think it. Next then, upon the chanter's side An apple's-core is hung up dried, With rattling kernels, which is rung To call to morn and even-song. The saint, to which the most he prays And offers incense nights and days, The lady of the lobster is, Whose foot-pace he doth stroke and kiss, And, humbly, chives of saffron brings For his most cheerful offerings. When, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... speaking a faint rattling of the door handle was heard. Instantly Miss Trelawny's face brightened. She sprang up and went over to the ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker

... curiously alike in face and curiously unlike in nature. So much for the great science of physiognomy! It often seemed to me that they were the complement of each other. For instance, Derrick in society was extremely silent, Lawrence was a rattling talker; Derrick, when alone with you, would now and then reveal unsuspected depths of thought and expression; Lawrence, when alone with you, very frequently showed himself to be a cad. The elder twin was modest and ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... of a chain, apparently being let out through the hawse-holes of a vessel, then a little more rattling, followed by the disappearance of the light, and ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... would you?" he said, taking out the whip, as the horses recoiled from a man who lay by the roadside, leaping so high that the harness seemed rattling from their backs. He struck them, and said, "Go on now, go on, devils." There was no further trouble. He encouraged mother not to be afraid, looking keenly at me. I looked back ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... the shadow of the clock, and stayed there until the rattling had ceased and all had grown quiet, then he slipped from behind the clock and climbed down the side of the fireplace as fast as he could. Johnny Cricket was too cold to stop and put on his little red boots, but scrambled through the crack in the fireplace and ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle

... drink a draught of the WELL at the WORLD'S END, and even so I did." As he spake, he drew himself up, and his brows were knit a little, but his eyes sparkled from under them, and his cheeks were bright and rosy. He half drew the sword from the scabbard, and sent it back rattling, so that the sound of it went about the hall; he upreared his head and looked around him on this and that one of the warriors of the aliens, and he sniffed the air into his nostrils as he stood alone amongst them, and set his foot down hard on the floor of the King's ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room, stripping off his coat while appraising with ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... the teeth of vicious man-eating crocodiles finishing up his adornment, sat in the middle of a court surrounded by the members of the tribe. In his hand he carried a gourd which contained beads, shot, or small stones. He began his incantations by rattling the contents of the gourd, shouting and making many weird wails and peculiar contortions. After this had gone on for sometime until he was near exhaustion his face assumed the expression of one in great pain and this ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various

... When the rattling conversation had gone on for several minutes, Terry ran a few steps and picked up the bell that the Indian had placed on the ground. The string which had held it about the neck of the animal was missing, having probably been cut by the knife ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... came by, Dallas was standing at the dashboard, plying the lash. Her face was ashen, her eyes were hollow. She did not see the Indian, for her gaze was upon the shack. He swung himself into the rattling box. There lay Marylyn, still in the grasp of the stupor that had bound them, brain and ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates

... hardly disappeared from sight, when a shot was heard to the left and rear of us, then another, followed quickly by a rattling volley of small arms, and at almost the same instant a shell came crashing through the tree-tops near us, followed by a rapid and incessant firing from Dodge's Corps. At the first shots every officer sprang to his ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge

... woman listened long in the hall. Above the muffled roar of conversation, the dismal wailings of babies at night, the thumping of feet in unseen corridors and rooms, mingled with the sound of varied hoarse shoutings in the street and the rattling of wheels over cobbles, they heard the screams of the child and the roars of the mother die away to a feeble moaning and ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane

... lay fiat upon his back, for the atmosphere of the wigwam was too warm for covering, his ponderous belly rising and falling like a wave of the sea, and his throat giving forth that peculiar rattling of the glottis, which might be mistaken for suffocation. The boys certainly would have been outside, basking in the genial sunshine, had not their mother, Keewaygooshturkumkankangewock, positively denied them that coveted privilege. The commands ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis

... richest and proudest, not the daughters of a German Grand Duke, with a kingdom so large that you could scarcely walk across it in a long summer day, nor any East-Indian Princesses, twinkling with diamonds, and rattling with pearls, and riding on elephants, nor Turkish Princesses wearing baggy satin trousers and velvet jackets, and walking on costly carpets, nor Chinese Princesses that don't walk at all, nor Spanish Princesses who go to bull-fights in splendid state-coaches, and wear long ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood

... and Ellen, the entrance of the Teton warrior into the lodge of his favourite wife, was made with the tread and mien of a master. The step of his moccasin was noiseless, but the rattling of his bracelets, and of the silver ornaments of his leggings, sufficed to announce his approach, as he pushed aside the skin covering of the opening of the tent, and stood in the presence of its inmates. A faint cry of pleasure burst from ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Ramon's great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face, while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the inner door; the click of the latch; the stream of light. The door, petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember the rattling of the bolts on that door, and the tall figure that appeared there, snuffbox in hand. In that land of white clothes, that precise, ancient, Castilian in black was something to remember. The black cane that had made the tap, tap, tap dangled by a silken cord from the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... their controversy who should come into the house, ringing ben to the hearth-stane with his iron heels and the rattling rowels o' his spurs, but Winterton, without observing my grandfather, who was then sitting with his back to the window light, in the arm-chair at the chimla lug; and when he had ordered Dame Lugton to spice him a drink of her best brewing, he began to joke ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... creditable to their own activity and bravery, as to the skill and energy of their officers. The battle soon became general, and was maintained on both sides with signal and even desperate valor. The Indians advanced and retreated by the aid of a rattling noise, made with deer hoofs, and persevered in their treacherous attack with an apparent determination to conquer or die upon the spot. The battle raged with unabated fury and mutual slaughter, until daylight, when a gallant and successful ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... leave Holland without once more referring to the rattling of the wooden shoes upon the pavements, the red artificial flowers which old gray-headed women wear upon their heads and the gaudy colors of some of their dresses; also to the universal custom of ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... "show" approached interest. Here everything was different. This was the real thing. Yet there seemed less reality in it than in the mock battles of Aldershot, with their mock situations, tired charges and rattling bolts. Here you knew nothing, you were barely told where to move. There were none of those charming little papers headed: "General Idea, White Army moving on, etc...." and: "Special Idea, the nth Infantry Brigade, commanded by, etc. etc...." The ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... but of what use were they? They were very big slippers, and her mother had used them till then, so big were they. The little maid lost them as she slipped across the road, where two carriages were rattling by terribly fast. One slipper was not to be found again, and a boy had seized the other, and run away with it. He thought he could use it very well as a cradle, some day when he had children of his own. So now the little girl ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells



Words linked to "Rattling" :   extraordinary, crepitation rale, energetic, noise



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com