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Skeleton   /skˈɛlətən/   Listen
Skeleton

noun
1.
Something reduced to its minimal form.  "The bare skeleton of a novel"
2.
A scandal that is kept secret.  Synonyms: skeleton in the closet, skeleton in the cupboard.
3.
The hard structure (bones and cartilages) that provides a frame for the body of an animal.  Synonyms: frame, skeletal system, systema skeletale.
4.
The internal supporting structure that gives an artifact its shape.  Synonyms: frame, skeletal frame, underframe.



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"Skeleton" Quotes from Famous Books



... puffing out of his broad chest, contrasted shockingly with the shrinking of the body at the pit of the stomach, by which the arch of the ribs was left as well defined as if the skin had been drawn over a skeleton, and the distortion of the muscles of the cheeks and throat evinced the fearful strength of the convulsions which had preceded his dissolution. It was evident, indeed, that throughout his whole person above ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... ruins of a recently destroyed Indian encampment, set in the shadow of a belt of pine woods which mounted the abrupt slopes of a great hill. The woods on the hillside were burnt out. Where had stood a dense stretch of primordial woodland, now only the skeleton arms of the pines reached up towards the heavens as though appealing despairingly for ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... wonderful scarab? I say!"—halting suddenly before a long, narrow case, with a glass front, which stood on end in a far corner, and, being lined with black velvet, brought into ghastly prominence the suspended shape of a human skeleton contained within—"I say! What the dickens is this? Looks like a doctor's specimen, b'gad. You haven't let anybody—I mean, you haven't been buying any prehistoric ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Or I can do better than that, sir. I can take you there yourself—in three months I can show you all you need to see, without danger to you in any way. And they would not know me, now that I have grown a beard, and I am a skeleton to what I was. I can speak the language well, and I know just what you should see, and then you could come back as one speaking with authority and not have to say, 'I have read,' or 'have been told,' ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... must begin with a very sharp knife at the top of the wings, and scrape the flesh loose from the bone without dividing or cutting it to pieces. If done carefully and dexterously, the whole mass of flesh may be separated from the bone, so that you can take hold of the head and draw out the entire skeleton at once. A large quantity of force-meat having been prepared, stuff it hard into the turkey, restoring it by doing so to its natural form, filling out the body, breast, wings and legs, so as to resemble their ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... Hair [sic] the other from Dr B. Rush for the two communicates my charge is 5.00 which if you will send me per registered mail I will remit you per return mail Respfy J.V. Mansfield I judge from the com. it relates to a skeleton.' ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... from a communication to the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for Dec. 1791, by Sir Egerton Brydges, who chiefly compiled it from Hasted, compared with Berry's KENT GENEALOGIES, 474, where there are a few inaccuracies. It is, of course, a mere skeleton-tree, and furnishes no information as to the collateral branches, the connexion between the houses of Stanley and Lovelace, &c. Sir Egerton Brydges' series of articles on Lovelace in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, with the exception of that from which the foregoing table ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... man without a hope in the world. We have already seen that an awful change had come over him since the day of his arrest, three months before. Now, as he leaned forward where he sat, and rested his head upon his skeleton hands, that clasped the top of the railing of the dock, his face, or what could be seen of it, was ghastly pale with agony, while his emaciated frame trembled from head to foot. He looked like a guilty man. And his ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... a skeleton of the scheme for elevating and renovating the Beggar population of India. It is no doubt open to criticism on some points, but it has special advantages which I will proceed to point out, apologising for the extra space I am obliged to occupy, in dealing ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker

... run beside the procession, but fresh at heart as in the beginning, they arrived with it on the Commons, where the tent-wagons were already drawn up, and the ring was made, and mighty men were driving the iron-headed tent-stakes, and stretching the ropes of the great skeleton of the pavilion which they were just going to clothe with canvas. The boys were not allowed to come anywhere near, except three or four who got leave to fetch water from a neighboring well, and thought themselves richly paid with half-price tickets. ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... the nights were harder. For the first time in his life he could not sleep well. He would lie for hours so wide awake that his eyes grew used to the dark, and he could see everything in his room. He was troubled, too, by bad dreams and in many of these dreams he was a living skeleton, wandering about and condemned to live forever without food. More than once he bitterly regretted the resolution he had taken, but having taken it, he would never alter it. His silent, concentrated nature would not let him. Yet he endured undoubted torture day by day. Torture was ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... chasm that is fixed The sunshiny world and the shadowy betwixt, His Today with a pale wond'ring face stood alone, And over the border Tomorrow had flown. So after went he, his accounts as he could To settle and make his loose reckonings good, And left us his tomb and his skeleton under,— Two boons to his race,—to sit down on and ponder. Heaven help him! Yet heaven, I fear, he hath lost. Here lies his poor dust; but where cries his poor ghost? We know not. Perhaps we shall see by-and-by, When out of our coffins ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... himself. For some time the elector tried by argument and persuasion to penetrate his secret or to induce him to make a certain quantity of gold; but as Seton steadily refused, the rack was tried, and for several months he suffered torture, until finally, reduced to a mere skeleton, he was rescued by a rival candidate of the elector, a Pole named Michael Sendivogins, who drugged the guards. However, before Seton could be "persuaded" by his new captor, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... turn into dust. Old Becky might have put them there the autumn before she died; or some successor of hers in the years that were blank to the daughter of the house. As she pushed open the door a sighing draught swept past her and seemed to draw her inward. It shook the sere bundle. Its skeleton leaves, dissolving into motes, flickered an instant athwart the light. They sifted down like ashes on the woman's dark head as she passed in. Her color had faded, but not through fear of ghost clocks. It was the searing process she had to face. And any room ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... near together, and so form a hamlet. Their huts are either quadrangular, oblong, or circular. The walls consist of strong stems of trees, bound together by twining plants; and the roof is of palm leaves laid over a skeleton of reeds. The entrance, which is on the side opposite to the prevailing wind, is left open, and but seldom protected by a door. At Chanchamayo I saw a very simple kind of hut among the Chunchos. It resembled ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... trot out the family skeleton. The 'Heavenly Twins' can talk from now until doomsday tolls on the importance or non-importance of mathematics. It's as thrilling as modern warfare when they get started, but I can't afford to let them go, because ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke

... He told me that he had come from your land when he was a child. His trouble was the lungs and he had fallen off to a skeleton. He talked to me of your wide ocean land. Is it, indeed so great? And has it no walls ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben

... thousands of intermediate varieties; as for instance between the bear and the whale; and a still greater number between the mollusk with its external shell, and the vertebrate with its internal skeleton. And we ought to find these intermediate forms closely connected with their parents and their children. For intermediate forms in another continent could not be the connecting links between the ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... a sudden he became aware of a curious phenomenon. A black beam was shooting across the sky. A black searchlight! It came from the flat top of a large hotel that had somehow escaped the universal destruction, and, with its gaunt skeleton of structural steel showing in squares, towered out of the ruin all about it like ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... incarcerated for fifteen years. Whether the whole of this time had been spent in Wesel or not I could not say, but when I came face to face with him for the first time he gave me a severe shock. He was a walking skeleton. Every bone in his body was visible, while his skin was the colour of faded parchment. He looked more like an animated mummy than a human being. I stood beside him one day in the corridor, and a bright ray of sunshine happened ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... "Skeleton key," was Mr. Pyecroft's brief explanation. "Mrs. De Peyster, we three will watch the door to see she doesn't get out—there may have been more than one of her. You go and telephone for a locksmith and ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... arrive at his severity because they are not flint yankee. They have not the hard head and snappy tongue. It was yankee crabbedness that gave Homer his grip on the idea he had in mind. Florida lent a softer tone to what Maine rocks could not give him. He is American from skin to skeleton, and a leader among yankee as well as American geniuses. He probably hated as much as Thoreau, and in his steely way admired as much. It was fire from the flintlock in them both, though nature had a far softer and loftier persuasion with ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... Supply and Demand. The laws enunciated in the preceding chapter constitute the framework and skeleton of all economic analysis; but they do not carry us very far. It is only through the agency of these laws that any influence can affect the price of anything: but what influences may so affect it is a question which we have ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson

... hence, as I am assured, the capital of the Great Republic will have put on a regal robe of magnolia and other blossoms, that will "knock spots out of" Solomon in all his glory. In the meantime, the trees line the avenues in skeleton rows, like a pyrotechnic set-piece before it is ignited. It is useless to pretend, then, that I have seen Washington. The trumpet of March has blown, the pennon of May is not yet unfurled; and even the cloudless sunshine of the past ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... done all he can for him, which he would have done if he hadn't expected a copper for selling him when cured. "So you see, madam," he reiterates, "it isn't all profit. I paid a good price for the poor skeleton, have had all ny trouble, and shall have no gain-except the recompense of feeling. There was a time when I might have shared one hundred and fifty dollars by him, but I felt humane towards him; didn't want him ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... Lord!" she gasped. "I THOUGHT there was something mighty familiar even about the skeleton of you! Oh, Peter, Peter, where did you get this, and ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... successfully carried out a daring robbery. Perhaps he had been lingering concealed about the gardens all day or even many days. Who could tell? At any rate, he had chosen a propitious moment, provided himself with a skeleton key, and carried Lola away in the waiting motor car. Where they were now, who could tell? A car travels fast and a long distance could be covered in the two hours that had elapsed. Certainly no more ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... again, looking at the thin skeleton frame, sadly visible through the tattered clothing. "Poor little chap! it's sharp weather for such a mite as you. There! get something to warm you." And feeling in his pocket he drew out half-a-crown, which he slipped into Wikkey's hand, and then turned and walked away. Wikkey stood looking ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM

... seen me a couple of months ago. I was a skeleton then," said Percival, as he opened the door for her. "A shell-fish diet is not one which I should recommend to ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... still. At her feet was a dark excavation where was the skeleton of Ovi the King. This was the hidden burial-place of the modern Hiawatha of these savage islands, unknown even to the natives themselves, and kept secret with a half-superstitious reverence by this girl, who had discovered ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... approached the door of the lad's room. There he crouched listening until assured by the regular breathing of those within that both slept. Quietly he inserted a slim, skeleton key in the lock of the door. With deft fingers, long accustomed to the silent manipulation of the bars and bolts that guarded other men's property, Condon turned the key and the knob simultaneously. Gentle pressure upon the door swung it slowly inward ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... The peerless Dulcinea del Toboso. I knew of her enchantment and her fate, From high-born dame to peasant wench transformed And touched with pity, first I turned the leaves Of countless volumes of my devilish craft, And then, in this grim grisly skeleton Myself encasing, hither have I come To show where lies the fitting remedy To give relief in such a piteous case. O thou, the pride and pink of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... last words, I started, and did, like the ghost of Hamlet, Senior, "jump at this dead hour," being convinced that young HOWARD had found out (perhaps from Hon'ble CUMMERBUND) that my title was a bogus, and anticipating that, if he divulged the skeleton of my bare cupboard to his highly genteel parents, I should infallibly experience the crushing ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... precipitation,* the slopes might be rounded and verdure-clad, though this would depend on the AMOUNT of precipitation. On lower Snake River a change seems to be going on. The former canyon-cliffs are covered by debris and vegetation, but in places the old dry cliff-lines can be discerned beneath like a skeleton. The precipitation there has not been great enough to destroy the old ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... in front of the galley-fire—which shows as if long-extinguished—sits a man, bolt upright, his back against the bulkhead. Is it a man, or but the semblance of one? Certainly it is a human figure; or, speaking more precisely, a human skeleton with the skin still on; this black as the coal-cinders in the ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... suddenly became nervous and hurried. He had locked the gate on his departure, he was sure, and Mr. Thurwell's steward had told him that there was no duplicate set of keys. How could it have been opened save with a skeleton key. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... colour being a muddy grey—was the most altered, though that seemed scarcely possible when I saw him last. As for the Trackless, or Susquesus, as he was commonly called, his temperance throughout a long life did him good service, and his half-naked limbs and skeleton-like body, for he wore the summer dress of his people, appeared to be made of a leather long steeped in a tannin of the purest quality. His sinews, too, though much stiffened, seemed yet to be of whip-cord, and his whole frame a species of indurated mummy that retained ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... wanted watering and with children perched on the top rail of the fences who cheered the train as it passed. Sometimes the train puffed between lines of grey slab fencing in which were armies of white skeleton trees that had been 'rung' for extermination, or with bleached stumps sticking up in a chaos of felled trunks, while in some there had ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... soon as given— Slid from my hands, when I was leaning out Above the river—that unhappy child Past in her barge: but rosier luck will go With these rich jewels, seeing that they came Not from the skeleton of a brother-slayer, But the sweet body of a maiden babe. Perchance—who knows?—the purest of thy knights May win them for the purest ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... exuvia that have perished in the ground? The law of all life is progress, not return, ascent through future developments, not descent through the stages already traversed. "The herb is born anew out of a seed, Not raised out of a bony skeleton. What tree is man the seed of? Of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... to imitate Squire Atherton and take two pews in church for your sons and daughters and walk up the aisle every Sunday before them. It is comical to watch them. And poor Mrs. Atherton! Once she was the beauty of the West Riding! Now she is a faded, draggled skeleton, carelessly and unfashionably dressed, following meekly the long procession of her giggling girls and sulky boys. Upon my word, John, it is enough to cure any girl of the marriage fever to see Squire Atherton and his friend ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... it," said the painter, with a ghastly smile; but in that smile was an expression so fearful, yet mysterious, that even De Vessey quailed before it. Another miniature portrait, a precise copy of the one in hand, hung from the neck of the skeleton. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... an indifference that was not without a certain sadness, "I'll probably be a skeleton myself before I have another chance to display my erudition. But what the devil are you doing? Why did you put out the torch? You're not going to make me eat and sleep here ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... The skeleton work of the trestle now rose more clearly into view. The rain had almost ceased and faint rays of moonlight showed through the rifts where the clouds had broken apart. The boys distinctly heard the gurgling rush of waters, and ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... becoming impossible to feed it; under pressure of privation it began to fall apart and disperse—which pleased the trifling court exceedingly. Joan's distress was pitiful to see. She was obliged to stand helpless while her victorious army dissolved away until hardly the skeleton of it ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... traveling companion, who exercised a certain influence over him. That Chamorra was a bad soul! A thief, but of the sort that go the limit, not recoiling before the necessity of shedding blood and with his knife always handy beside his skeleton-keys. It was a matter of cleaning out a certain house, upon which this fearful fellow had set his eye. Magdalena modestly excused himself. He wasn't made for such things; he couldn't go so far. As for gliding up to a roof and pulling down the clothes that had been hung ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... said Bradley, "so this couldn't have been a ghost. Furthermore, there are no such things. I've been trying to place this creature. Just succeeded. It's a tyrannosaurus. Saw picture of skeleton in magazine. There's one in New York Natural History Museum. Seems to me it said it was found in place called Hell Creek somewhere in western North America. Supposed to have lived ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... only that they desired to inflict punishment on the miscreant in accordance with the law, but also that they did not desire that the miserable man should die in a hole like a starved dog, and that then they should go after him to take out his wretched skeleton. There was something in that idea so horrid in every way, that all agreed that active steps must be taken. The warders of the prison felt that they would all be disgraced if they could not take their prisoner alive. Yet who would get round that perilous ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope

... quite natural, and Mr. Middleton continued: "Ashton was wasted to a mere skeleton by ship fever, and my heart yearned toward him. Perhaps I felt a stronger sympathy for him when I learned that he was an American. He, like myself, had run away. The vessel, in which he had embarked, had been wrecked, and he, with two others, were saved in a small boat. For ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... asks, Whether this (pointing to me) was his Daughter? This (added he) is the very Picture of Death. My Child was a plump-fac'd, hale, fresh-coloured Girl; but this looks as if she was half-starved, a mere Skeleton. My Governess, who is really a good Woman, assured my Father I had wanted for nothing; and withal told him I was continually eating some Trash or other, and that I was almost eaten up with the Green-sickness, her Orders being never to cross me. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... it originality and value in sectarian history. To these extravagant ritualists ceremonies are not simply the garb of religion: they are its flesh and blood, in whose absence dogma is but a lifeless skeleton. Thus, the Raskol is the direct opposite of ordinary Protestantism, which by its very nature sets small store by outward ceremonies, regarding them as needless ornament or a dangerous superfluity. Ritual to the Starovere ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... any one of the animals which left these great footmarks has been found; in fact, the only animal remains which have been met with in all these deposits, from the time of their discovery to the present day—though they have been carefully hunted over—is a fragmentary skeleton of one of the smaller forms. What has become of the bones of all these animals? You see we are not dealing with little creatures, but with animals that make a step of six feet nine inches; and their remains must have been left ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... London pride grew, and water, and great trees with hollows in them where the water lodged. Beth called these fairy wells, and put her fingers in to see how deep they were, and there were dead leaves in them; and there, on a memorable occasion, she found her first skeleton leaf, and told Jane Nettles she really didn't know before that there were such things. Once there was a wasp's nest hanging from a branch, and they met a young man coming away from it, holding a handkerchief to his face. He stopped to tell Jane Nettles how he had been stung, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... bars must first be joined, as those form the skeleton framework of the structure. Fig. 375 shows them in position, but as it is a puzzle in itself as to how they can be got thus some ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... stood motionless, and the drip from the thatch of the mill over it in the sun, had frozen in the shadow into icicles, which hung in long spikes from the spokes and the floats, making the wheel—soft green and mossy when it revolved in the gentle sun-mingled summer-water—look like its own gray skeleton now. The sun was getting low, and I should want all my time to see my other friends before dinner, for I would not willingly offend Mrs Pearson on Christmas Day by being late, especially as I guessed she was using extraordinary ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... Often carried away by the anti-hero, but rescued either by her father or the hero. Often reduced to support herself and her father by her talents, and work for her bread; continually cheated, and defrauded of her hire; worn down to a skeleton, and now and then starved to death. At last, hunted out of civilised society, denied the poor shelter of the humblest cottage, they are compelled to retreat into Kamtschatka, where the poor father quite worn down, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... exclaimed Otto, in a voice so despairing that his companion turned to look at him in surprise. "Look! see! the ship has been on fire! It can only be the mere skeleton that ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne

... a rule the monk came in, wiping the perspiration from his brow with a coarse blue handkerchief, and loudly assuring the prisoner how pleasantly cool it was in his cell. But this time he was nervous and ill at ease. How did the prisoner look? Emaciated to a skeleton, his teeth prominent between fleshless lips, his eyes wide open, a wondrous fire burning in ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger

... answer: "Your letter of this morning has suggested to me another scheme—a series of articles on 'Imagination in Landscape Painting.'" The idea pleased my husband very much, and as he reflected about it he began a sort of skeleton ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... contentment for an unlimited period. Every conchologist takes it for granted, of course, that the shells which he receives from foreign parts have had their inhabitants properly boiled and extracted before being exported; for it is only the mere outer shell or skeleton of the animal that we preserve in our cabinets, leaving the actual flesh and muscles of the creature himself to wither unobserved upon its native shores. At the British Museum the desert snail might have snoozed away his inglorious existence unsuspected, but for a happy accident which attracted ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... higgledy-piggledy, carpenter's tools, retorts, bottles of chemicals. In one corner, beside a door leading to his bedroom, stood a turning-lathe three inches deep in sawdust and shavings; in another, a human skeleton hung against the wall, its feet concealed by the model of a pumping-engine. Hard by was nailed a rack containing a couple of antique swords, a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... It brings on painless consumption and decay. It eats the life out of a man while the moon empties and fills once or twice. His friends say he dies of quick decline, and so he does! ha! ha!—when his enemy wills it! The strong man becomes a skeleton, and blooming maidens sink into their graves blighted and bloodless, with white lips and hearts that cease gradually to beat, men know not why. Neither saint nor sacrament can arrest the doom ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... pigs on the Atlantic Slope. Take him any way you please, he's the most gorgeous pig anywheres around. Fat! Why, he's all fat! There's no lean in him. He ain't anything but a solid mass of lard. Put that pig near a fire, and in twenty minutes his naked skeleton'd be standing there in a puddle of grease. That's a positive fact. Now, you ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... she looks like," said Rupert Gunning thoughtfully. "Connolly tells me you want to send her to the show—Barnum's, I suppose—as the skeleton dude?" ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... in a large pattern; over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor. But her chief points were her jewels: she had long, clear earrings, blazing with a lustre which could not be borrowed or false; she had rings on her skeleton hands, with thick gold hoops, and stones—purple, green, and blood-red. Hunchbacked, dwarfish, and doting, she was adorned like a ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... months had elapsed since Mulligo had severely injured his spine by a fall from a tree; and immediately after the occurrence of this accident he had completely lost the use of his lower extremities, and had day by day declined until he was now reduced to a perfect skeleton. I was therefore but little surprised at the intelligence which Yenna brought me; and as I was anxious to see the ceremonies that would accompany his last moments I at once started ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... back to tell my master of my success, for which I was praised and regaled with good things. Then we went back to the forest together and dug a mighty trench in which we buried the elephant I had killed, in order that when it became a skeleton my master might return and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... people of the second generation in the West thus had no military training whatever, and though they possessed a skeleton militia organization, they derived no benefit from it, because their officers were worthless, and the men had no idea of practising self-restraint or of obeying orders longer than they saw fit. The frontiersmen were personally brave, but ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... about to suspend our labors, supposing from the nature and uniformly dark color of the earth, that we had reached the surface of the alluvium, when a sign of the inevitable wood and bark layer was seen in a crevice. An excavation, five or six feet, into the wall, revealed the skeleton of a man laid at length, having an extra coverlid of wooden material. Eighteen large oblong beads, an ax of polished green stone, eleven arrow points, and five implements of bone (to be described) were deposited on the left side; and ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... of their class. At one dinner impersonations in both the comic and the tragic vein were given by a girl of unmistakable genius. Frequently a plain, elderly geisha will display unsuspected mimetic ability. Alas, behind the merry laugh and sprightliness of the girls who adorn a feast lurks a skeleton. One is haunted by thoughts of the future of a large proportion of these butterflies. No doubt most foreigners generalise too freely in identifying the professions of geisha and joro. In the present organisation of society some geisha play a legitimate role. They gain in the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... but the world is not a nice place. He picked her up somehow—they say she was a commercial traveller's wife—left on his hands at a country inn. Anyway she's not divorced, and the husband's alive. She looks like a walking skeleton, and is probably going to die. Nevertheless they say Burrows adores her. And as for my resentments—don't be shocked—I'm inclined to like Burrows all the better for that little affair. But then I'm not pious, like the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... his environment in the same way he has outlined and measured the bonds uniting the various characters; so well that each individual is defined separately as to his personal and his social side, and in the same manner each family is defined. It is the skeleton of these individuals and of these families that is laid bare for your contemplation in these notes of Messieurs Cerfberr and Christophe. But this structure of facts, dependent one upon another by a logic equal to that of life itself, is ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and [like] little dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius

... to show me something of a different kind lately discovered. He led me to a spot where the brook was deep, and had somewhat undermined the edge. A horse trying to drink there had pushed a quantity of earth into the stream, and exposed a human skeleton lying within a few inches of the water. Then I looked up the stream and remembered the buttercups and tall grasses, the flowers that crowded down to the edge; I remembered the nests, and the dove cooing; the girls that came down to dip, the children that cast their flowers ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... but somewhat remote analogy, the Vowel-Sounds of Language may be regarded collectively as the Flesh, and the Consonant-Sounds as the Bone or Skeleton of the Lingual Structure. Flesh is an Analogue or Correspondential Equivalent of Substance. Bone or Skeleton, which gives outline or shape to the otherwise soft, collapsing, and lumpy flesh-mass of the Human or Animal Body, is an Analogue of Correspondential Equivalent of Limitation or Form; as the framework ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... There were no children about, no noisy cackling of cocks and hens, no flowers in the yard, not a sound to break the awful silence of the accompanying hills. It was as if life died there long ago and left behind only the rickety skeleton of a house as ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... be said that the gravity of the events that surround us demands a greater force than is provided by this bill. The regular army is a mere skeleton. The present force will scarcely defend our frontier from Indian incursions; but it forms a nucleus capable of any re-enforcement demanded by the exigencies of the times. I do not contemplate, in any event, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... A skeleton key took us into Hanford's well-lighted but now empty studio. For Miss Ashton's sake I wished that the photographs had been there. I am sure Kennedy would have found slight compunction in a larceny of them, ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... happy to be able to tell you that he did not. It would have been painful, and not helped a bad matter a particle. Your nephew had dissipated until he was only a skeleton just breathing his last. It's probable that his fear of death helped your son out, so that he got the evidence he wanted easier than he hoped to in the beginning. I don't mean that he is dead now; but he is passing slowly, and loathsomely. Robert thinks word that he has gone ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... Near the skeleton lay a helmet of hammered brass and a corroded breastplate of steel while at one side was a long, straight sword in its scabbard and an ancient harquebus. The bones were those of a large man—a man of wondrous strength and vitality Tarzan knew he must have been to have penetrated thus far through ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... departed secretly from Nantes, and hid himself in a hermitage. He was sought far and near by the knights of Arthur's court, and Cador made a vow never to desist from the quest till he should have found him. After long wandering, Cador discovered his friend in the hermitage, reduced almost to a skeleton, and apparently near his death. All other means of relief having already been tried in vain, Cador at last prevailed on the enchanter Eliaures to disclose the only method which could avail for his rescue. A maiden ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... was a sufficiently uninviting one; nothing so far as could be seen but a steep and shelving bank of shingle, made of loose little pebbles such as children like, but slanting up higher than a house. On the top of the mound, against the sky line, stood up the brown skeleton of some broken fence or breakwater. With the grey and watery dawn crawling up behind it, the fence really seemed to say to our philosophic adventurers that they had come at last to the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... concerning the long life of the natives. A party visited a chief in the midst of the wilderness who gravely assured them that he was the father of five generations, and had lived 250 years. Opposite him, in the same hut, sat his father, a mere skeleton, whose "age was so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could speak one onely word but with exceeding great paine." The credulous Frenchmen gazed with awe on this wonderful pair, and congratulated themselves on having come to such a land,—where certainly there would be no need ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... many important aspects of the NNGA that I want to list his outline here and then simply hang some thoughts on the skeleton of his report. For your own enjoyment and understanding, please read again Dr. MacDaniels's address "The Forward Look," which is found on page 27 of our 1952 report. I just mention his subjects and comment on them ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... other than instinctive, of seizing and comprehending by a single effort the general outlines of the grammatical structure of a language from a few faint indications—as a comparative anatomist will build up an entire skeleton from a single bone—enabled him to overleap all the difficulties which beset the path of ordinary linguists, and to attain, almost by intuition, at least so much of the required language as enabled him ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... and when once they got on our trail, they would, I was convinced, press on at their utmost speed. But darkness favoured us for some time, though we ran the risk of one of our horses stepping into a hole or stumbling over the skeleton of a buffalo or deer, numbers of which strewed the plain. At length the first streaks of dawn appeared ahead; the light rapidly increased and the sun which was to guide us rose ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the whole force destined for the attack was made rapidly, and with but little noise. The boats, all with skeleton crews, swung back into the stream, where they anchored, ready to receive the army if it should ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... The painter of the present may turn his eye from the land and ocean, but in the skies he can always find some great effect which cannot be polluted. At this moment I looked from the railway-carriage window, and I saw the skeleton of a gigantic tower arising. It had apparently been abandoned at a lofty stage, possibly in consequence of the workmen having found that they spoke different languages at the height at which they had arrived. [Laughter.] I made inquiries, and I found that it was the enterprise of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... contour of the outer ditch and wall; the large framework of the pavilion beneath which the Shah gives his annual tazzia (representation of the religious tragedy of Hussein and Hassan), denuded of its canvas covering, suggests from this distance the naked ribs of some monster skeleton. The square towers of the royal anderoon—which the Shah professes to believe is the tallest dwelling-house in the world—loom conspicuously skyward above the mass of indefinable mud buildings and walls that characterize the habitations of humbler ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... year, and turns on its axis once in twenty-four hours,—while the tide ebbs and flows twice daily, and the seasons come and go in rotation, every atom changes its relations to every other atom every moment. Influences are tossed into these skeleton cycles of motion and event which start a myriad of diverse currents, and break up the whole surface of life and being into a healthful confusion. There are never two days alike. The motherly sky never gives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... the true successor in the Supreme Buddha Line." Hardy concludes his account of the Kasyapa Buddha (M. B., p. 97) with the following sentence:—"After his body was burnt, the bones still remained in their usual position, presenting the appearance of a perfect skeleton; and the whole of the inhabitants of Jambudvipa, assembling together, erected a dagoba over his relics one ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien

... both; I have not leisure now; A crown is come, and will not fate allow: And yet I feel something like death is near, My guards, my guards,— Let not that ugly skeleton appear! Sure destiny mistakes; this death's not mine; She dotes, and meant to cut another line. Tell her I am a queen;—but 'tis too late; Dying, I charge rebellion on my fate. Bow down, ye slaves:— [To the Moors. Bow quickly ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... converted into a school. Delightedly the scholars show me round. On the outside wall, for him who runs to read, are scored up long addition sums in our Western figures. Inside, the walls are hung with drawings of birds and beasts, of the human skeleton and organs, even of bacteria! There are maps of China and of the world. The children even produce in triumph an English reading-book, though I must confess they do not seem to have profited by it much. Still, they can say "cat" when you show them a picture of the creature; which is more than ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... living curiosities were saved; but the giant girl, Anna Swan, was only rescued with the utmost difficulty. There was not a door through which her bulky frame could obtain a passage. It was likewise feared that the stairs would break down, even if she should reach them. Her best friend, the living skeleton, stood by her as long as he dared, but then deserted her, while, as the heat grew in intensity, the perspiration rolled from her face in little brooks and rivulets, which pattered musically upon the floor. At length, as a last resort, the employees ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... emerald passes rapidly into a whitish vesicular glass, and with borax it forms a fine green glass, while its sub-species, the beryl, changes into a colorless bead: with salt of phosphorus it slowly dissolves, leaving a silicious skeleton.[A] ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... large part of the armies operating against Richmond is left behind. The enemy, knowing this, may, as an only chance, strip their lines to the merest skeleton, in the hope of advantage not being taken of it, while they hurl everything against the moving column, and return. It cannot be impressed too strongly upon commanders of troops left in the trenches not to allow this to occur ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... not the wreck she anticipated that met her eyes as she came through the hedge. On the opposite side of the road a long low skeleton car was standing, one side lurched drunkenly down with two wheels in the gutter. Still in his seat, the driver was leaning over the steering-wheel, out of breath, but laughing a greeting to ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram

... collated over 3000 words in English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Celtic. He had ample opportunity to leave England but he never did so. At length, in 1759, a labourer who was digging for limestone, at a place known as St. Robert's Cave, Thistle Hill, near Knaresborough, came upon a human skeleton, bent double and buried in the earth. Suspicion was aroused. These bones, it was surmised, might be those of Daniel Clarke. His mysterious disappearance and his associates were remembered. The authorities sent forth and arrested Terry, Houseman, and Eugene Aram, and those persons ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... he led his master down two long corridors that ended in a chapel. There, lying before the altar, they found a man clad in a filthy priest's robe, a dying man who still had the strength to cry for help or mercy, although in truth he was wasted to a skeleton, since the plague which had taken him was of the most lingering sort. Indeed, little seemed to be left of him save his rolling eyes, prominent nose and high cheekbones covered with yellow parchment that had been skin, and a ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... I can't believe," said Mr. Polly suddenly, "and one is your being a skeleton...." He pointed his hand towards the neighbour's hedge. "Look at 'em—against the yellow—and they're just stingin' nettles. Nasty weeds—if you count things by their uses. And no help in the life hereafter. But just look at the look ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... and ability, but not too remote from him in their habits of thinking, and who can thus prepare for him infusions of history and science that will leave some solidifying deposit, and save him from a fatal softening of the intellectual skeleton. Among such serviceable writers, Mr. Lecky's History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe entitles him to a high place. He has prepared himself for its production by an unusual amount of well-directed reading; he has chosen his facts and quotations with much judgment; ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... splintery crags Tumbled about by lightning and frost, With rifts and chasms and storm-bleached jags, That wait and growl for a ship to be lost; No island, but rather the skeleton Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten one, Where, aeons ago, with half-shut eye, The sluggish saurian crawled to die, Gasping under titanic ferns; Ribs of rock that seaward jut, 10 Granite shoulders and boulders and snags, Round which, though the winds ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... articulate our words; that is, we give them joints. We utter vowels, we articulate consonants. If we utter a single vowel-sound and interrupt it by a consonant, we get an articulation. Consonants, then, not only give speech its articulation or joints, but they help words to stand and have form, just as a skeleton keeps the animal from falling into a shapeless mass of flesh; therefore, consonants are the bones of speech. The consonant is the distinguishing element of human speech. Man has been defined in various ways according to ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... clergyman. Men of this profession have always been considered the most efficient guardians against the powers of darkness. He, with the help of Mrs. M——, made the excavation in the cellar which brought to light the half-consumed skeleton. Here, unfortunately, is a gap in the evidence. The remains were pronounced by medical authority to be human, but was that authority reliable? was that doctor skilled in comparative anatomy? If not, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... so he had a skeleton! Well, I don't see how it can hurt us. The man probably knows nothing about us, and even if he could trace the girl, he must know that she ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mr. Patteson not to offend the men who had first worked on these islands, that on one Sunday when Tutoo was ill, he merely gave a skeleton of a sermon to John Cho to preach. On the 27th of July, however, the deputation arrived in the 'John Williams'- -two ministers, and Mr. Creagh on his way back to Nengone, and the upshot of the conference on board, after a dinner in the house of Apollo, the native teacher, was that as ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Hupfeld brought the criticism of the text had been reached. Graf originally followed the older view, espoused by Tuch in particular, that in Genesis the Priestly Code, with its so obtrusively bare skeleton, is the "main stock," and that it is the Jehovist who supplements, and is therefore of course the later. But since, on the other hand, he regarded the ritual legislature of the middle books as much more recent than the work ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... nation; the Whale was already pillaged of every valuable part by the Kil a mox Inds. in the vecinity of whose village's it lay on the Strand where the waves and tide had driven up & left it. this Skeleton measured 105 feet. I returned to the village of 5 Cabins on the Creek which I shall call E co-la or whale Creek, found the nativs busily engaged boiling the blubber, which they performed in a large Squar wooden trought by means of hot Stones; the oil when extracted was Secured in bladders ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... sooner is the work finished than I think of the same task to be done on the morrow, until I'm on the verge of nervous prostration,' and Mrs. Goose waddled up and down the room as if she was a living skeleton, instead of the fattest bird ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice

... in full activity destroying the last clusters of foliage. It is only a question of weeks, perhaps days, before some blast of wind will throw this humbled forest-monarch over the steep bank of the river. When the water rises again, the trunk with a few skeleton branches will be carried away with the current to begin a slow but relentless drift to old Father Amazon. Here and there will be a little pause, while the river gods decide, and then it will move on, to be caught somewhere along the course and contribute to the formation of some new island ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... she cried, "I am so glad that we have a wild turkey. And you shall have your side-bone." The girl carved deftly, feverishly, talking the while, aided by that most kind and accomplished of hosts, her father. In the corner the dreaded skeleton of the subject grinned sardonically. Were they going to be able to keep it off? There was to be no help from Judge Whipple, who sat in grim silence. A man who feels his soul burning is not given to small talk. Virginia alone had ever possessed the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... knowledge of the world and society, books and men. He modestly disclaimed having any imagination, and said he must always have facts to work upon. This was true; but the same may be said of some great poets, who have lacked invention except around a skeleton ready furnished. What was true of Keats and Fitzgerald cannot nullify the merit of Barham. His fancy erected a huge and consistent superstructure on a very slender foundation. The same materials lay ready to the hands of thousands of others, who, however, saw only stupid monkish ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... mass, rendering it beyond the power of language to describe, or give the slightest idea of it. The skull, or brainbone, was divided vertically, with a view to convenience in moving the head (this portion of the skeleton weighing eight tons). This section displayed the cavity for containing the brain; and thus some knowledge of the sentient and leading organ of an animal, the dimensions of whose instruments of motion fill the mind with astonishment, will at last be obtained. Results, unexpected, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various

... was a stiff, tall, bony man, of about fifty-five, and for this worthy I wrote an advertisement for a wife. He was thin, and shy, and emaciated—a breathing skeleton, in the receipt of some hundred and twenty pounds a-year; a martyr to the rheumatism, and a radical. He required but little; a moderate fortune; tolerable person; good education; perfect housewifery; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... Spanish plate-fleet, Grenville was vice-admiral, and he opposed his ship single-handed against five great Spanish galleons, supported at intervals by ten others, and he fought them during nearly fifteen hours. Then Grenville's vessel was so battered that it resembled rather a skeleton than a ship, and of the crew few were to be seen but the dead and dying. Grenville himself was captured mortally wounded, and died uttering these words, "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life, as a true soldier ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... mammoths' tusks—are discovered in the marsh-lands of Eastern Siberia. There are no mammoths now—unless we call elephants by that name; yet their remains have been found upon both continents. In the year 1799, the perfect skeleton of one of these animals was found in an ice-bank near the mouth of a Siberian river. As the vast ice-field thawed, the remains of the huge animal ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... on Sunday night before they were ready to start on their errand. Meantime Aggie had done two turns at the foreign clubs, and John Storm had led a procession through Crown Street and been hit by a missile thrown by a "Skeleton," whom he declined to give in charge. At the corner of the alley he stopped to ask Mrs. Pincher to wait up for him, and the girl's large eyes caught sight of the patch ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... to such dreamers as the author of the 'Vestiges', by whose well-intentioned efforts the Lamarckian theory received its final condemnation in the minds of all sound thinkers. Notwithstanding this silence, however, the transmutation theory, as it has been called, has been a "skeleton in the closet" to many an honest zoologist and botanist who had a soul above the mere naming of dried plants and skins. Surely, has such an one thought, nature is a mighty and consistent whole, and the providential order established in the world of life must, if we could ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley

... outline, the skeleton of the piece; what, we cannot help wondering, was it like when it first appeared clothed in the beauty of the flesh and inspired with the spirit of song? Its fashion and its form we have indeed yet before us, though nothing can again quicken it into the life it enjoyed ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... a laugh, 'It is some skeleton he has unearthed; but why he should refuse to let me share in the ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre

... escape his fatal destiny, and set forth to reconnoitre the ground once more if perchance succor might be found. Alone, with none to close his eyes, he fell asleep, and Howitt after long search found the skeleton body stretched upon the sands, the natives having compassionately covered it with boughs and leaves. Burke's last words are dated on the 28th, one day earlier than those of Wills: "We have gained the shores of the ocean, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... Baltimore physician, together with a friend, was playing in his father's office, during the absence of the doctor, when suddenly the first lad threw open a closet door and disclosed to the terrified gaze of his little friend an articulated skeleton. ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... somewhat difficult to investigate any other subject. My mind at the time was enervated by disease, and by no means well disciplined. Hence I could not control it. For this reason, I at once concluded to draw up a skeleton or outline of my essay on slavery; after which I contemplated resuming my work in regular order. It was about this time that my health rapidly declined, and I became so feeble that I could not sit at my table more than one or two hours in twenty-four. ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... of us have skeletons, large or small, in some cupboard of our lives, but a well regulated skeleton that will stay in its cupboard quietly does not much matter. There are skeletons, however, which can never be quite trusted not to open the cupboard door at some awkward moment, go down stairs, ring the hall-door bell, ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... river was filled from rim to rim with a rolling brown flood. The bars, sand-spits, gravel-banks had all disappeared. Whole trees bobbed and sank and raised skeleton arms or tangled roots as they were swept along by the current or caught back by the eddies; and underneath the roar of the waters we heard the dull rumbling and crunching of boulders rolled beneath the flood. A crowd ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... to the Reverend John Atwood. In the foregoing pages it has come oftener in our way to illustrate the bland and prepossessing features of General Pierce's character, than the sterner ones which must necessarily form the bones, so to speak, the massive skeleton, of any man who retains an upright attitude amidst the sinister influences of public life. The transaction now alluded to affords a favorable opportunity for indicating some ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a man of resource, hoisted what he called "Old Roger" over the Charles—a brigantine which had been equipped as a privateer to cruise against the French of Acadia. This curious flag of his was described as displaying a skeleton with an hour-glass in one hand and "a dart in the heart with three drops of blood proceeding from it in the other." Quelch led a mutiny, tossed the skipper overboard, and sailed for Brazil, capturing several merchantmen on the way and looting them of rum, silks, sugar, gold dust, and munitions. ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... across the room, and even when standing still: yet he seldom suffered from these falls; and he constantly laughed at them, maintaining that it was impossible he could hurt himself, from the extreme lightness of his person, which was indeed by this time the merest skeleton. Very often, especially in the morning, he dropped asleep in his chair from pure weariness: on these occasions he fell forward upon the floor, and lay there unable to raise himself up, until accident brought one of his servants ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... explored; only rarely have human remains been found. Here and there, particularly in the cellars, the labourers engaged in the work of disinterring the cities note that their picks enter a cavity; examining the space, they find they have discovered the remains of a human skeleton. It has recently been learned that by pouring soft plaster of Paris into these openings a mould may be obtained which gives in a surprisingly perfect manner the original form of the body. The explanation of this mould is as follows: Along with the fall of cinders in an eruption there is always ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... hoped to thoroughly overhaul every portion of the debris, and insisted that it would take 5,000 men to complete the task. Of the hundreds of bodies buried beneath the rubbish, sand and stones, the skeleton or putrid remains of many was all that could be hoped ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... disgrace, as Muir says, and for that reason they are collected at burial. Compare the custom as described by the French missionaries here. The American Indian has to have all his bones for future use, and the burying of the skeleton is an ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... wet blanket of so terrible a size was in itself pernicious to the Cabinet, and heartrending to the poor Duke. But Sir Orlando could do worse even than this. As he was not to build his four ships, neither should Mr. Monk be allowed to readjust the county suffrage. When the skeleton of Mr. Monk's scheme was discussed in the Cabinet, Sir Orlando would not agree to it. The gentlemen, he said, who had joined the present Government with him, would never consent to a measure which would ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... way in which the inspired Psalmist puts it; and this is the truth of it all; this is the very kernel and marrow and life and soul of it all: while the facts which I told you just now are the mere shell and dead skeleton of it—"Thou sendest the springs into ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... life. Thus, for example, there exists in adult life a disturbance of the nervous system which is called "anorexia nervosa." A boy of nineteen was brought to the Out-patient Department of Guy's Hospital suffering from this complaint. He was little more than a skeleton, unable to stand, hardly able to sit, and weighing only four and a half stones. His mother, who came with him, stated that he had always been nervous, and that lately, after receiving a call to join the army as a recruit, his appetite, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron



Words linked to "Skeleton" :   aircraft, musculoskeletal system, minimum, scandal, outrage, supporting structure, hoop, lower limit, skeletal, system, frame, axial skeleton, skeletal structure, chassis, edifice, building, skeletal frame, ship



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