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Shape

noun
1.
Any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline).  Synonyms: configuration, conformation, contour, form.
2.
The spatial arrangement of something as distinct from its substance.  Synonym: form.
3.
Alternative names for the body of a human being.  Synonyms: anatomy, bod, build, chassis, figure, flesh, form, frame, human body, material body, physical body, physique, soma.  "He has a strong physique" , "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"
4.
A concrete representation of an otherwise nebulous concept.  Synonym: embodiment.
5.
The visual appearance of something or someone.  Synonyms: cast, form.
6.
The state of (good) health (especially in the phrases 'in condition' or 'in shape' or 'out of condition' or 'out of shape').  Synonym: condition.
7.
The supreme headquarters that advises NATO on military matters and oversees all aspects of the Allied Command Europe.  Synonym: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
8.
A perceptual structure.  Synonyms: form, pattern.  "A visual pattern must include not only objects but the spaces between them"



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"Shape" Quotes from Famous Books



... Charley said, trying in vain to shake off the vague feeling of impending evil, that had suddenly settled over him. "Speaking for myself, I feel too keyed up and anxious to do anything much until we get this thing over with. I move we get all our gear into shape and try to plan some way to get the plume birds hereafter without killing. That will take us until dark, I guess. Then let's quietly take our blankets and move back into the forest a ways. Our neighbors may take a notion to pay us a visit without ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... the story of her extraordinary adventure, the only adventure of her life. The interest of the household centred chiefly, however, in the dining-room, which, as being the least habitable apartment in the house, was considered to be most adapted for anything in the shape of business. On the way from the church to Miss Wentworth's house the Curate had given his father a brief account of all the events which had led to his present position; but though much eased in his mind, and partly satisfied, the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... boy, with the glasses to his eye. "Von Kluck was right. It looks as if the rudder stock is twisted and bent badly out of shape. As the stern lifts I can see the blades of the propeller all right, but the ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... France stood knee-deep in the sun-tanned grass and looked slowly round as if seeking to imprint the scene upon his memory. He turned to glance at the crumbling church behind him, built long ago by men speaking the language in which his own thoughts found shape. He looked slowly from end to end of the ill-kept burial ground, crowded with the bones of the nameless and insignificant dead, who, after a life passed in the daily struggle to wrest a sufficiency of food from a barren soil, or the greater struggle to hold their own against ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... out, and put it between two plates, till it is cold. Put it in a pan, and keep it for use. It will keep a great while in a cool place. When you use it, pound it a little in a mortar, or mould it in your hands; then roll it out thin in whatever shape you choose, or make it up into walnuts or other moulds; press it down close that it may receive the impression of the nut, &c., and with a pin take it out of the mould and turn it out upon copper sheets, and so proceed till you have a sufficient quantity. The mould ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... Fort Erie about 8 o'clock, and shortly after Col. Peacockes force swept in from the west, bringing with them the spoils of victory in the shape of about sixty prisoners, being part of the picket line which Gen. O'Neil ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... of rubber, there is beginning to be some apprehension about the future supply of high-power gasoline, so great is the demand. Many students of this fuel problem believe that before many years there will be substitutes in the shape of alcohol and kerosene. The efficiency of alcohol has been proved in commercial trucks in New York, but its present price is prohibitive for a general automobile fuel. If denatured alcohol can be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... circumstance to my master, who was almost equally alarmed at the intelligence; for he feared his wife, and public censure at the meeting. After some weeks of deliberation had elapsed, I in continual fear that my altered shape would be noticed, my master gave me a medicine in a phial, which he desired me to take, telling me, without any circumlocution, for what purpose it was designed. I burst into tears, I thought it was ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... the liberties of Europe was unfolded in an ever widening sphere. But to the eyes of contemporaries all was then misty and chaotic, and it required the keen vision of a sage and a prophet to discern the awful shape which the future might assume. Absorbed in the contemplation of these portentous phenomena, it was not unnatural that the Advocate should attach less significance to perturbations nearer home. Devoted as was his life to save the great European cause of Protestantism, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... their "form" ever to indulge in that way; and the Chief, as dashing a sabreur as ever crossed a saddle, though lenient to looseness in all other matters, and very young for his command, would have been down like steel on "the boys," had any of them taken to the pastime of overmuch drinking in any shape. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... wanting there: and a fracture had taken place in another direction: even the perch was given way in the centre!" "Alas, for my voiture de voyage!" exclaimed I to my companion. Meanwhile, a man came forward with a red-hot piece of iron, in the shape of a cramp, to fix round the perch—which hissed as the application was made. And all this—before I could say wherefore! or even open my mouth to express astonishment! They were absolutely about to take off the wheels of the carriage; to examine, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... valley of Caxamalca, which, enamelled with all the beauties of cultivation, lay unrolled like a rich and variegated carpet of verdure, in strong contrast with the dark forms of the Andes, that rose up everywhere around it. The valley is of an oval shape, extending about five leagues in length by three in breadth. It was inhabited by a population of a superior character to any which the Spaniards had met on the other side of the mountains, as was argued by the superior style of their attire, and the greater cleanliness ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... plan had been simple. By the aid of cunning architects he had first blasted his harbour into shape, then built his hotels and pleasure-palaces, and then leased them to dependants of his who knew the right sort of people, and who knew that it was as much as their lease was worth to find accommodation ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... unable always to hide her feeling, and Basil should come to know it? how would he live? What if she had said strange things in her days and nights of illness? They were all like a confused misty landscape to her; nothing taking shape; she could not tell how it might have been. Restless and weary, she was going over all these and a thousand other things one day, as she did every day, when Basil came in. He brought a tray in his hand. He set it down, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... work well. Germany, instead of being almost beaten, now took on fresh courage. Thanks to Roumanian wheat, Roumanian oil, and above all, the glory of the victories, the central powers were now in better shape to fight than if Roumania had kept out of the war. The German comic papers were full of pictures which declared that as England and France had always wanted to see a defeated Hohenzollern they might now take a long look at King ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet

... birth and parents. A political lie is sometimes born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to be nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster, and licked into shape; at other times it comes into the world completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and often it sees the light in its full ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... French wolf-hounds. But they proved somewhat fierce and unmanageable, and were given up, and after that the following of the hounds was never resumed. In other respects there was little change. The work of the plantation and the affairs of the estate, much disordered by his absence, once more took shape and moved on successfully under the owner's eye. There were, as of old, the long days in the saddle, the open house and generous hospitality, the quiet evenings, and the thousand and one simple labors and enjoyments ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... tortoise twenty cubits in length and breadth. We observed also an amphibious animal like a cow, which gave milk;[56] its skin is so hard, that they usually make bucklers of it. I saw another, which had the shape and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... neat habit—the foliage spreads and touches the ground, rounding up to the flower stems (which are about a foot high) in a pleasing manner. The earliest flowers are very large—when fully open quite 11/2in. across—but they are more often seen in the unopen state, when they resemble a nutmeg in shape. Whether open or shut, they are a pure white, and their pendent habit adds not a little to their beauty, as also does the leafy involucre. The leaves are three-parted, the two lower lobes being deeply divided, so that at a first glance the leaves appear to be five-parted; each of the five lobes are ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... less jocund, was indeed filled with increasing anxiety, for just before harvest time a new and formidable enemy of the wheat appeared in the shape of a minute, ill-smelling insect called the chinch bug. It already bore an evil reputation with us for it was reported to have eaten out the crops of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, and, indeed, before barley cutting was well under way the county was overrun with laborers from ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... flash of richer tints made me start forward eagerly. There was no one near to apply to at the moment, so I carefully drew out my treasure trove. It was a cup and saucer, evidently of the finest quality of china, though pretty similar in shape to the regular Gruenstein ware, but in colouring infinitely richer—really beautiful, with an almost Oriental cleverness in the blending of the many shades, and yet decidedly more striking and uncommon than any of the ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... that this shell should have waited so long to act, as the after part of the ship was generally well cooled off. There was still much heat and some flames about the bow. One extraordinary fact is the survival, in proper shape, of many powder grains, baked hard; several of these were picked up ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... yes. And I revise and whip all their articles into shape. Smirdin gives me forty thousand ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol

... in the dim smoke and Tartarean atmosphere the actions of loading and aiming take the shape of huge writhing, convulsing, monstrous, grappling—come quick-moving lines of help. They rush through them, over them. The thirteen cannon behind the struggling hydra of gray seem one vortex—sulphurous, flaming, spitting, as from one vast mouth, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... brow, of which the proportions were extraordinary even to us heedless boys, knowing nothing, as may be supposed, of the auguries of phrenology, a science still in its cradle. The distinction of this prophetic brow lay principally in the exquisitely chiseled shape of the arches under which his black eyes sparkled, and which had the transparency of alabaster, the line having the unusual beauty of being perfectly level to where it met the top of the nose. But when you saw his eyes it was difficult to think of ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... The revolution of the spindles at a speed suitable for winding the threads upon the spindles as the carriage moves inwards. (3) The guiding of the threads upon the spindles in such a manner that a cop of yarn will eventually be formed upon each spindle, of such dimensions and shape as to be quite suitable for any subsequent processes ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... and at once rushed down—four soldiers comprised the garrison—to dissipate the crowd: this they managed to do in a peaceable way. There happened to be a heretical spur in the town, in the shape of three German artists, and this incited the bishop of the province, who was at once informed of the miracle-working doings of Father Ciprian, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... often declared, with an iteration which has been parodied by M. Richepin, that "comedy is the child of the ode," and that a drama without the "lyric" element is scarcely a drama at all. While comedy retains either the choral ode in its strict form, or its representative in the shape of lyric enthusiasm (le lyrisme), comedy is complete and living. Gringoire, to our mind, has plenty of lyric enthusiasm; but M. De Banville seems to be of a different opinion. His republished "Comedies" are more remote from experience ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang

... and charmed by the richness and grandeur of the prospects placed before his eyes by his king, and feeling pleasure in shedding light upon them whilst giving them a more positive and more complete shape than belonged to their first and original appearance. And thus came down to us the grand design, which, so far as Henry IV. was concerned, was never a definite project. His true external policy ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... great, vulgar, flaunting azalea. When June comes,—when the clethra is heaped with its bee-beloved blossoms, and the grass is green and bright as never again in the year, then the arethusa is to be sought. A most unaccountable flower, of all shades, from pale pink to a deep purple, with a lovely shape that I can liken to nothing so nearly as the fleur-de-lis on French escutcheons, it has a delicate, yet powerful, aromatic scent, as if it were an estray from the tropics. One specimen, snowy white, I have seen, and can tell you where to find another. You ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... from the above that the absolute truth of the Mahayanists varies from a severely metaphysical conception, the indescribable thing in itself, to something very like an all-pervading benevolent essence which from time to time takes shape in a Buddha. And here we see how easy is the transition from the old Buddhism to a form of pantheism. For if we admit that the Buddha is a superhuman intelligence appearing from time to time according to a certain law, ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... other half of me does not like it. I forget it, or put it off, and it comes to nothing. I do declare, though, I would get something to break my mind on, merely as a medical precaution, just to freshen myself up, if I could find any one to do it with. No, nothing in the shape of a ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... issued in France by Clovis, A.D. 489. About the same time, they were issued in Spain by Amalric, the Gothic king; in both countries they were called "trientes." The "mouton," worth about nine dollars, was issued in 1156. Gold coins were first issued in England in 1257, in the shape of a "penny," of the value of twenty pence; only two specimens have come down to us. "Florins" were next issued in 1334, of the value of six shillings. The "noble" followed next of the value of six shillings and eight pence; being stamped with ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... used to take place, is no little broader and higher than that of S. Felice, in addition to the part that supported Christ another Heaven was sometimes erected, according as it was thought advisable, over the chief tribune, wherein were certain great wheels made in the shape of reels, which, from the centres to the edges, moved in most beautiful order ten circles standing for the ten Heavens, which were all full of little lights representing the stars, contained in little copper lamps hanging on pivots, so that when the wheels revolved ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... 'putting before us,' writes the prince, 'all the defects of our present military hospital system, and the reforms that are needed.' On 5th March 1855, the Queen wrote to Lord Panmure suggesting the necessity of hospitals for sick and wounded soldiers, which eventually took shape in the ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous

... not enough that the committee had abandoned their report, and added this twenty-first section, in direct contravention of its reasonings and principles. The twenty-first section itself must be abandoned, and the repeal of the Missouri prohibition placed in a shape which would not deny the ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... were out-Pravda, Dielo Naroda and Novaya Zhizn. All of them devoted much space to the new "coalition" Government. The Socialist Revolutionary paper demanded a Cabinet without either Cadets or Bolsheviki. Gorky was hopeful; Smolny had made concessions. A purely Socialist Government was taking shape-all elements except the bourgeoisie. ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... These arytenoid cartilages, by means of an articulation or joint, move freely upon the cricoid, the second large cartilage of the larynx, forming its base, and sometimes called the ring cartilage, from its resemblance in shape to a seal ring. The vocal bands are composed of numberless elastic fibres running in part parallel to each other, and in part interwoven in various directions with each other. The fibres also vary in length; some are inserted into the extending projections, ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... eager curiosity with which I advanced to get a glimpse of a saint under a system as sublimated as that of the great monikin family. Civilization having made such progress as to strip all the people, even to the king and queen, entirely of everything in the shape of clothes, I did not well see under what new mantle of simplicity the heads of the church could take refuge! Perhaps they shaved off all the hair from their bodies in sign of supereminent self-abasement, leaving themselves ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the reply; "I ain't given to reading in any shape; my shipmates have read that 'ere ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... here, as well as a good physician, and there my Lord took me with the rest of the company, and singly demanded my opinion in the walks in his garden, about the bringing of the crooked wall on the mount to a shape; and so to dinner, there being Collonel Williams and much other company, and a noble dinner. But having before got my Lord's warrant for travelling to-day, there being a proclamation read yesterday against it at Huntingdon, at which I am very glad, I took leave, leaving them at ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... the candle with him; and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects. An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I now recognised as a son of our old Skulker: it had spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley. I fancy it knew me: it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... did not laugh long. Certain sounds from on deck indicated that he would soon be wanted, and certain indications of wintry weather in the shape of snow flurrying into the forecastle reminded him of his raiment. He hauled out the clothes bag from his bunk and opened it. To his surprise he found, neatly folded, his suit of store clothes; but as this would not do for shipboard wear ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... work lies in self-discovery: you are mining nuggets of power out of your own cosmos, and the find comes as a great and glad surprise. The kindergarten baby who discovers he can cut out a pretty shape from colored paper, and straightway wants to run home to show mamma his find, is not far separated from the literary worker who turns a telling phrase, and straightway looks for Her, to read it to double his joy by sharing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... entering the Convent, or at least of obtaining from the Nuns some intelligence of Agnes. To execute these schemes was the only inducement which could prevail on him to quit Don Raymond. He became a very Proteus, changing his shape every day; but all his metamorphoses were to very little purpose: He regularly returned to the Palace de las Cisternas without any intelligence to confirm his Master's hopes. One day He took it into his head to disguise himself as a Beggar. ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... Newfoundland Government were misrepresented, it being stated that they 'were consulted as to the terms of the modus vivendi, which was modified to some extent to meet their views, although concluded without reference to them in its final shape'; but the Newfoundland Government insisted that the terms of the modus vivendi had not been modified in accordance with their views, as they had protested against the whole arrangement. The Home Government quibbled ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... choose." Was she not a free woman, without even a guardian to trouble her with advice? She had no excuse to act ignobly, but had she any for being unmaidenly? Would it then be—would it be a very unmaidenly thing if—? The rest of the sentence did not even take the shape of words. But she answered it nevertheless in the words, "Not so unmaidenly as presumptuous." And, alas! there was little hope that he would ever presume to—He was such a modest youth with all his directness and fearlessness. If he had no respect for rank—and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... ambitions. I have to win them to the liberty of the Democratic party, and keep them from stopping halfway, contented with the fraudulent liberty of the Whigs. I take them in hand at political gatherings; I love to persuade and shape them. I will fill this population of Illinois with love of Democratic ideas. What have the Whigs to offer? Look at the mixed blood of the Whigs, at their tainted ancestors. I take the greatest pleasure in exposing them. It is ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters

... to the well-room, where I saw, on the meal-chest, two large pewter plates, two flagons of the same metal, and a dozen or more cups, some of silver, and marked with the owner's name. They were soon cleaned. Then she made a fire in the oven, and mixed loaves in a peculiar shape, and launched them into the oven. She watched the bread carefully, and took it out before ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... They could not at first think what this could mean, but in a little time they found that it was one of those malignant genies that are mortal enemies to mankind, and are always doing them mischief. He was black and frightful, had the shape of a giant, of a prodigious stature, and carried on his head a large glass box, fastened with four locks of fine steel. He entered the meadow with his burden, which he laid down just at the foot of the tree where the two princes were concealed, who gave themselves over ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... however the country itself is poor, the river is rich in the most excellent fish, procurable in the utmost abundance. One man in less than an hour caught eighteen large fish, one of which was a curiosity from its immense size, and the beauty of its colours. In shape and general form it most resembled a cod, but was speckled over with brown, blue, and yellow spots, like a leopard's skin; its gills and belly a clear white, the tail and fins a dark brown. It weighed entire ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... worse before he will be better. The refined hypocrisies which so elude his eye, and thus nurse his self-righteous pride, must put on a grosser form, till he cannot choose but see himself as he is. The secret devil within must blaze out in a shape too palpable to be ignored. And so, as often happens where the subtleties of self-deceit are thus cherished, he at length proceeds a downright conscious hypocrite, this too of the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... change others, to changes prone, That nothing shall their firmness shake. Truly a great wizard I And great marvels can I work, 30 All the powers of Hell that lurk Favour me exceedingly, As deeds impossible shall attest Of awful shape, Miracles most manifest 35 Such that all shall see and gape, Visibly and invisibly. For I'll make a lady coy, Though love's guerdon she defer, If her lover look on her, 40 The very breath of life enjoy; And two lovers, love's curse ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... Gascon brothers moved noiselessly as cats, and even the less trained youths were softly cautious in their movements. Downwards they pressed in breathless excitement, till they found themselves leaving the thick scrub behind and emerging upon a rocky platform of rude shape. Here the Master Huntsman made an imperative sign to the Prince to stop, whilst he crept forward a few paces upon hands and knees, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... a hundred feet distant. Old Trull and Bonney caught up the pike-poles to fend off with. "The Curlew" drove on. The vast shadowy shape seemed to approach. A chill came with it. A few seconds more, and the bowsprit punched heavily against the ice-mountain. The shock sent the schooner staggering back like a pugilist with a "blimmer" between the eyes. Had we been sailing ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... manifesting myself, I will move to another land. But if the city of the Thebans should in anger seek by arms to bring down the Bacchae from the mountain, I, general of the Maenads, will join battle.[3] On which account I have changed my form to a mortal one, and transformed my shape into the nature of a man. But, O ye who have left Tmolus, the bulwark of Lydia; ye women, my assembly, whom I have brought from among the barbarians as assistants and companions to me; take your drums, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... long-limbed and hard-visaged Yankees, Portuguese and Norwegian seamen from foreign merchantmen, dark-skinned Spaniards from the West Indies, swarthy Frenchmen who had served under the bold privateersman Lafitte,—all alike were taken, and all alike by unflagging exertions were got into shape for battle. [Footnote: Letter of Commodore Daniel G. Patterson, Dec. 20, 1814.] There were two regiments of regulars, numbering together about eight hundred men, raw and not very well disciplined, but who were now drilled with great care and regularity. In addition to this Jackson ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... is in a lower degree of the same class as the third-rate working farmer of the past. He is the old small dairy farmer in a coarser shape. With a little less education, ruder manners, with the instincts of eating, drinking, and avarice more prominently displayed, he presents in his actual condition at this day a striking analogy to the agriculturist of a bygone time. In fact, those farmers of twenty or thirty acres, living in ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... appearance in Brussels would have put an end at once to this juggling. In that case, the rebels would have been compelled to act up to their pretence, or to cast aside the mask, and so, by appearing in their true shape, condemn themselves. And what a relief for the Netherlands if the king's presence had only spared them those evils which were inflicted upon them without his knowledge, and contrary to his will. [1] What gain, too, even if it had only enabled him to watch over the expenditure ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... purer Berbers; as well as for their disposition to thieving and petty larceny, of which I have recently been obliged to give some examples. The pure Berbers, likewise, are much less sensual than their bastard descendants, who seem, indeed, to have no idea of pleasure but in its grossest shape. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... lamps. Very likely there was variety in the shape and material of the lamp, but only five of them had lamps that kept alight, for some of them had no means of replenishment. For anything we know, the lamps of the foolish were as good as the others, may-be better, but the ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness

... over in her sheets, which molded her firm, plump shape, took a bag of sweets from the chair beside her and offered it round. Poor little martyr, she had been forbidden them by the doctor, because of a cough.... But she took them all the same, merely for ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... thought the only one that meant richness and abundance for the human spirit. It hung there, a shimmering mass of lovely colors and exquisite textures and fineness and delicacy and beauty. And as she looked at it, it took on the shape of a glorious, uprooted plant, cut off from the very source of life, its glossy surfaces already beginning to wither and dull in the sure approach of corruption and decay. But what beauties were there to pluck, lovely fading beauties, poignant and exquisite ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each a stock, or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with: its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the husband or wife. If any yird, or earth, stick to the root, that is tocher, or fortune; and the taste of the custoc, that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... furniture that can interfere with the cool, palace-like emptiness of the apartments. A divan (which is a low and doubly broad sofa) runs round the three walled sides of the room. A few Persian carpets (which ought to be called Persian rugs, for that is the word which indicates their shape and dimensions) are sometimes thrown about near the divan; they are placed without order, the one partly lapping over the other, and thus disposed, they give to the room an appearance of uncaring luxury; except these (of which ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... rode into the camp, and ordered all to prepare to carry out a general assault on the next morning. Anything that could be used in the shape of furniture and fagots, to make a bridge across the town ditches, was collected. Joan, who had now her tent moved up close to the moat, worked harder, says an eye-witness, than any two of the ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... his body. At length the serpent stood up a man and spake; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away. Something like this was the transformation which, during the reign of George the First, befell the two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and color of its foe, till at length the Tory rose up erect the zealot of freedom, and the Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... bricks. The shapes still remained—spectres that seemed to move in the light wind from the valley. An odor that was not of the freshness of the morning assailed me. I climbed across the walk. No wall of buildings barred my path, but I mounted higher on the piles of brick and stones. A heavy black shape was now at my left hand. I looked up and in the shadow there was no fog. I could see a crumbled swaying side wall of a house that was. The odor I noticed was that caused by fire. Sticking from the wall I could see the charred ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... butter; one and one-half teaspoonful salt; two teaspoonfuls sugar. Let cool and add one cake yeast dissolved in lukewarm water. Two eggs well beaten; four cups flour; let raise three hours. Then roll out about one-half inch thickness. Butter, cut, turn over with silver knife and shape like parker house rolls. Raise two hours more and bake about ten minutes. Will ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... clump of trees stood apart, and from their shape he identified them as the incomparable spruce, perhaps the most distinguished and beautiful of all the evergreens. He marked their great height, their slender forms, their dark foliage that ever seemed to be silvered with frost; ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... ridge like the roof of a house, with this difference—the narrow part of the ridge is useless, and the top should, therefore, be rounded off when about a foot across. Some growers prefer a circular bed of six or eight feet diameter at the bottom and tapering towards a point, after the shape of a military tent; but here again the point will be worthless, and the bed may terminate abruptly. Either the long bed or the round heap answers admirably. Tread the manure down compactly, and for the sake of appearances endeavour to finish it off in a workmanlike manner. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... a director; but he's putty! Hand him some taffy and you can pat him into any shape you like. You should have heard his speech when he nominated me for president last year," and Nickleby laughed heartily ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... red with a blue border around the unique shape of two overlapping right triangles; the smaller, upper triangle bears a white stylized moon and the larger, lower triangle bears a white ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... with its vistas of massive tree-trunk and sombre foliage, the latter here and there relieved by clusters of scarlet-hued blossoms, there is withal an awesomeness about its beauty. Even the surroundings will soon begin to take on shape, and the boles and tossing boughs, and naked, dead, and broken fragments starting from the dank soil, assume form, attitude, countenance, in a hundred divers contortions—gnome-like, grotesque, diabolical. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... it into water, to learn from the shape as it cooled the secret of their future work; they floated needles on water, watching them sink, or swim and gather in groups; they roasted nuts in the ashes, and tried the old, old test of the three dishes ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... things, but delicate, strong sprays of an exquisite grey-green, with a bloom on them that throws a mist over the whole field; and as for the perfume, it surely is the perfume of Paradise. The plant is altogether lovely—shape, growth, flower, and leaf, and the horses have to wait very patiently once we get among them, for I can never have enough of sitting quite still in those fair fields of glory. Not far from here there is a low series of hills running north and south, absolutely without trees, ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... although they lose part of their point by translation. Chapelle, a short stout man, "with eyes that were continually opening and shutting, thick black eyebrows, a mouth always half open, and a pair of legs resembling in shape the feet of an elephant," was remarkable for his credulity, and his comrades took particular delight in mystifying him. "Seveste, who had just returned from fulfilling an engagement at Rouen, told the unfortunate dupe that, during his stay in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... hoofs in a village-street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... as soon as he became aware of my necessities, proceeded to fulfil the duties of these various situations with the greatest alacrity. First (as of the most importance in his eyes) he rubbed down Mad Bess, and administered some refreshment to her in the shape of hay and water; then he brought me a glass of ale, declaring it would do me good (in which, by the way, he was not far from right). He then brushed from my coat certain stains which I had contracted in my fall, and finally told me my way to Helmstone. I now remounted Mad Bess, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... plan to lay down before her and ask her to share, it would be something, he thought; or a brave resolve, like her own. But there was emptiness all around him; his feet could not find a square yard of solid earth to shape his future upon. It was not that he believed that she cared for money or the material rewards of success, for she had spoken bitterly of that. The ghosts of money's victims were behind her; she ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... we kindergarten people could get Froebel's educational idea in such a snug, portable shape, and drew nearer to gaze at it. I can give you a very complete description of the pictures from memory, as I copied the titles verbatim et literatim. The whole chart was a powerful moral object-lesson on the dangers of incendiarism and the evils of reckless disobedience. It was printed ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the entrance of a guardian angel in the shape of a skillful disciple of Esculapius would have been hailed by me as an especial joy? However, no such angel came, neither was he within call; so as the danger struck me as imminent, and his condition appeared ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... but I am in the same fix. I lost on a game last night, and it left me in bad shape. I would let you have ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... willing to learn from anything that God had made, however insignificant it might be. So he sat down and watched the worm at its work. He studied carefully the form of the hole it was boring. The thought occurred to him how strong a tunnel would be, that was made in the shape of this hole! And when he was asked whether it would be possible to build a tunnel under the Thames, he said he thought it could be done. He undertook to build it. He succeeded in the work. But, in accomplishing the great undertaking that ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton

... without knocking. The palace of the prefect and the hovel of the fag suffered equally. Trentham, the head of the House, lost sausages to an incredible amount one evening, and the next day Ripton, of the Lower Third, was robbed of his one ewe lamb in the shape of half a tin of anchovy ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... Karl Halir and Eugene Ysaye. "When I came to de Ahna in Berlin, I was, unfortunately, not yet ready for him, and so did not get much benefit from his instruction. In the case of Halir, to whom I went later, I was in much better shape to take advantage of what he could give me, and profited accordingly. It is a point any student may well note—that when he thinks of studying with some famous teacher he be technically and musically equipped to take advantage of all that the ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... taken tangible shape when he got his water bill for June. But there was no raise in price. Again yesterday, the bill for July came, and still no raise ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby

... important. The exchange of such things as a dainty menu for rough fare, of the stiff leather shoe for the soft, shapeless moccasin, of the feather bed for a couch in the snow, is after all a very easy matter. But his pinch will come in learning properly to shape his mind's attitude toward all things, and especially toward his fellow man. For the courtesies of ordinary life, he must substitute unselfishness, forbearance, and tolerance. Thus, and thus only, can he gain that pearl of great price—true comradeship. He must not say 'thank ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... He had dragged the boat beneath the shade of the overhanging tree, secured it to one of the boughs with the remains of the rope, several feet having fortunately been passed through the ring-bolt to lie loose in the bottom; and while Nic kept watch he roughed out something in the shape of a couple of basket-like caps, wove in and out a few leaves, and ended by placing them before ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn

... this is natural, and in the end usually does no harm. It is natural that the colonist, who is a rara avis in England, should be considered a very extraordinary personage among men who seek for novelty in any shape; because those who lavish favours upon him at one time and eschew his presence afterwards are usually ignorant of the very history of which he is the type. It is like the standing joke of sending out water-casks for the men-of-war built on the fresh-water seas of Canada, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... except when it would have seemed pedantic, or when, as in the word 'Tiphus,' I should have given an altogether wrong notion of the sound of the word. It has been a choice of difficulties, which has been forced on me by our strange habit of introducing boys to the Greek myths, not in their original shape, but in ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley

... little room, and the vales of Persia and the scented glades of the tropics were mine to wander through. Yes, a dreamer's Paradise, for I was only sixteen then, and untroubled by any thoughts of Love; yet sometimes Its shadow would enter and vaguely perplex me, a strange shape, waiting always beyond, in the midst of my glowing gardens, and I sighed with a prescient pain. How have I known Love since those days? As yet it has brought me but two things—Sorrow and Expectation. In that fragmentary love-time that was mine, I well remember ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... antidote which Ulysses bore about him, she cried out and bent her knees beneath his sword, embracing his, and said, "Who or what manner of man art thou? Never drank any man before thee of this cup but he repented it in some brute's form. Thy shape remains unaltered as thy mind. Thou canst be none other than Ulysses, renowned above all the world for wisdom, whom the Fates have long since decreed that I must love. This haughty bosom bends to thee. O Ithacan, a goddess wooes thee ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... all those beasts that prey upon life shall have power to destroy the sting of death in the animals which are their natural victims. I do not believe that this power is mercifully assigned to beasts of prey alone, but that the misfortunes that assail our limbs and forms, in whatever shape and at whatever time they may come, bring with them something which lightens the blow, or obviates the pain, if we will accept it. There is a calm consciousness in every soul, however harshly the lion's paw may fall upon the body which it inhabits, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... Should any of them succeed in falling in with friendly Indians, within a reasonable distance, and obtaining a supply of provisions and horses, they were to return to the aid of the main body: otherwise they were to shift for themselves, and shape their course according to circumstances; keeping the mouth of the Columbia River as the ultimate point of their wayfaring. Accordingly, three several parties set off from the camp at Caldron Linn, in opposite directions. Mr. M'Lellan, with three men, kept down along the bank of ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... leave an order at a florist's. Returning to the hotel some time after mid-day, they found the flowers awaiting them in Lynde's parlor, where a servant was already laying the cloth. There were bouquets for the ladies' plates, an imposing centre-piece in the shape of a pyramid, and a profusion ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... two princes, who during his absence had been at Goa. The first was king of Tanor, a kingdom situate along the coasts of Malabar, betwixt Cranganor and Calecut. This prince, who was party-per-pale, Mahometan and Idolater, but prudent, a great warrior, of a comely shape, and more polite than was usual for a barbarian, had from his youth a tendency to Christianity, without being well instructed in it. He was enamoured of it, after he had been informed to the full concerning the mysteries of our faith, by a religious ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... by the fingers of the seamstress. The art of printing has attained to a marvelous degree of progress. Hoe's printing-press, moved by steam, seizes on the blank paper, severs it from the roll in sheets of the right size, prints it on both sides, and folds it in a convenient shape,—all with miraculous rapidity. Inventions in rock-boring and rock-drilling have made it possible to tunnel mountains. The use of explosives for mechanical purposes is a highly important fact in connection with ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... however, was not the only bird in the house. Fanny's uncle had brought her a beautiful canary on her last birthday, and he was of the most graceful shape, the most delicate yellow color, and the most clear and joyful voice that ever were seen or heard. He lived in a large cage of bright brass wire, which had a circular top and three perches. One perch was just level ...
— The Goat and Her Kid • Harriet Myrtle

... me. You won't have this kind of thing at Moongarr. That's the worst of these cursed coast townships. I shouldn't have left you alone, but if I hadn't, we couldn't have got off properly to-morrow, and I'd set my heart on having things ship-shape for our first camping out. Everything's fixed up now—I've been wiring like mad up the line .... The buggy's at the Terminus all right, and I've got the black-boys there, and the tent and all that. It's going to be an experience you'll never forget. THAT'S to be your baptism into the Bush, ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... highest calling of man met. I saw that were I as free to do with my grandfather's money as it was possible for man to be, I could in no other way use it altogether worthily than in aiding to give outcome, shape and operation to the sonship and brotherhood in me. I have not yet found how best to use it all; and I will do nothing in haste, which is the very opposite of divine, and sure to lead astray; but I keep thinking ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... impressive ugliness. A richly carved mahogany "what-not" against one wall was laden with sea-shells and other curios. At various points about the room were many statuettes, vases, and figures, of every conceivable size and shape—some of bisque, others of common pottery, a few of exquisite marble—all standing upon the floor. A tremendous French chandelier of sparkling crystal cascaded downward from an American ceiling of pressed metal; at regular intervals around the wall were panels painted to resemble marble. Crouched ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... that clothed the mountain-side. The enormous trees looked in the dim evening light like the forms of the Anakim, maimed with lightning but still defying heaven. Years of battle with the mountain winds had twisted them into every conceivable shape of writhing and distorted deformity. I never saw trees that so nearly conveyed the idea of being the visible prison of tortured dryads. Their trunks, white and glistening with oozing resin, added to the ghostly impression ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... must have dined before our misfortunes. Save time, wine, and money, these misfortunes—and so far are convenient things. Besides, there is a dignity about them when they come only like the gout in its mildest shape, to authorise diet and retirement, the night-gown and the velvet shoe; when the one comes to chalkstones, and the other to prison, though, there would be the devil. Or compare the effects of Sieur Gout and absolute poverty ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... they had been held by the queer hole and its queer contents—by the gleaming gold that strewed its floor, by the mock symbol of majesty which he had lifted from it and still held in his hand, by the oddly suggestive shape and dimensions of the hole itself. But now he raised his eyes from these things and looked across at Mike, mutely asking what he thought of matters. He saw Mike stealing across the floor, looking very, very ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... of all this. Keith was now in such depths of low spirits that his wearied soul did not much care what became of him. He put his affairs in shape, shrugged his shoulders, and went to ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... Mr. Graham and others, he was aware that General Weitzel at Richmond had authorized the Virginia State government to assemble, Mr. Lincoln being on the ground. The views expressed in the famous interview at City Point had taken practical shape. In correspondence with Johnston while they were awaiting action on the first convention, Sherman referred to Weitzel's action as a reason for confidence that there would be "no trouble on the score of recognizing existing State ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... clothed the most abstruse ideas in the most beautiful forms of language and imagery that is only not poetry because it is not verse. While one wrote the story of his own intellectual development in secret and retained the record of it hidden from all eyes, the other scattered his to the winds in the shape of letters, which thus, widely distributed, kept his secret until they were gathered together by later hands. The letters of Coleridge as a collection is one of the most engaging psychological studies of the history of an ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... then taken away, and laid upon the smooth side of a long piece of wood, prepared for the purpose, and beaten, by the women servants, with instruments about a foot long and three inches thick, made of a hard wood which they call Etoa. The shape of this instrument is not unlike a square razor strop, only that the handle is longer, and each of its four sides or faces is marked, lengthways, with small grooves, or furrows, of different degrees of fineness; those on one side being of a width and depth sufficient to receive a small packthread, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr



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