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Skull   /skəl/   Listen
Skull

noun
1.
The bony skeleton of the head of vertebrates.



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"Skull" Quotes from Famous Books



... was not in the shop when Rickman Junior arrived on the scene. He was in a great bare room on an upper floor of the second-hand department. He looked more than ever studious and ascetic, having exchanged his soft felt hat for a velvet skull-cup, and his frock coat for a thin alpaca. He was attended by a charwoman with scrubbing brush and pail, a boy with ladder and broom, and a carpenter with foot-rule, note-book and pencil. He moved among them with his most solemn, most visionary air, the air, not so much of a Wesleyan minister, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... cried the poor nigger, hopping about on one leg and rubbing his shin, writhing with pain at being thus assaulted on his tenderest point; grabbing up some missile or other from the roadway, whither he retreated, "I'se crack yo' tam skull wid um ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... must I then escape?" "No," exclaimed the knowing shape, "You shall perish by Lynch-Law." Through his skull he struck a claw, On the tempest burst a wail, Through the bars a serpent-tail, Flashing like a lightning spire, Seemed to set the cell on fire; Far and wide was heard the clang, Through the whirlwind as they sprang. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... Apaches, and the fellow that shot Thorp was a half-breed nigger and Apache. He scalped Thorp and carred off the whole upper part of his skull with it. He got Thorp's rifle and bullet-pouch too, and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... seven of the party in quest of this monster, we at length found his trale and persued him about a mile by the blood through very thick brush of rosbushes and the large leafed willow; we finally found him concealed in some very thick brush and shot him through the skull with two balls; we proceeded dress him as soon as possible, we found him in good order; it was a monstrous beast, not quite so large as that we killed a few days past but in all other rispects much the same the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... These were skull-jarring, and not to be endured. So One-Eye thrust his head between Big Tom's spraddled legs; then, calling upon every atom of his strength, he forced his shoulders to follow his head, loosening the longshoreman's clutch; and with a grunt, down came the giant, falling ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... was to any great degree abnormal, but I am satisfied that criminal's brains are generally abnormal, for there are many criminals whose heads do not, by their exterior form, indicate their depravity, but wherever I have examined the interior of the skull I have found the basilar organs active, growing and imprinted upon the interior table of the skull, while the superior region reveals the decline of the moral nature by the increased thickness of the bone which is growing inward and has not the digital impressions ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... slight bruise was the only result. Her legs were short and powerful, her toes webbed, and her tail served the purpose of a rudder. Nostrils, eyes, and ears—all were small and water-tight, and set so high on the skull that, when she rose to breathe, little more than a speck could be seen on the surface, unless she felt it safe to raise her head and body further for the sake ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... that they thought not of raising the chief judge, who lay motionless on the pavement. But at length some of the police-officers so far recovered themselves as to be able to devote attention to that high functionary—it was, however, too late—his skull was fractured by the violence with which he had been dashed against the rough wall, and his brains were scattered on the pavement. Those who now bent over his disfigured corpse ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... his face is slight. His skull, however, is fractured, but not very badly. He's a strong fellow, but he's lost a lot of blood. We'll take him over ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... antique Iceland and Norway. The first part, which is really padding and has nothing whatever to do with Frey or his matrimonial affairs, treats of one Ogmund, who was called Ogmund Dint, for the very good reason that he had been literally dinted as to the skull. It was done by a gentleman named Halward. Everybody naturally expected Ogmund to dint back; but he was something of a conscientious objector in the matter of face-to-face dinting, and being too proud for vulgar conflict he bided his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various

... himself bubbled with good-cheer. He made foolish puns, and routed the serious ones of earth by turning their arguments into airy jests. If in those early days he had been caught and carried in the death-tumbrel to the Place of the Skull, he would have remarked with Mercutio, "This is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... butting my skull against a wall," he had said in those hours of confidence; "and, to be as sublime a blockhead, if you'll allow me the word, you, my dear fellow, have kept sounding the charge. We've sat prating here of 'success,' heaven help us, like chanting ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... that Tip is GOOD enough," said Featherhead carelessly; "but then he is so very common! he hasn't an idea in his skull above his nuts and his hole. He is good-natured enough, to be sure,—these very ordinary people often are good-natured,—but he wants manner; he has really no manner at all; and as to the deeper feelings, Tip hasn't the remotest idea of them. I mean always to ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... resistance to the Stamp Act was manifested. Ominous proceedings were adopted by the public. As soon as the news of it arrived in America, at Boston the colours of the shipping were hoisted half-mast high, and the bells were rung muffled; at New York the act was printed with a skull and cross bones, and hawked about the streets by the title of "England's Folly, and America's Ruin;" while at Philadelphia the people spiked the very guns on the ramparts. The public irritation daily increased, and when at length the stamps arrived, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! —I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... over the Indian lad, he uttered an exclamation of joy; from the matted hair and abundance of blood he had believed him shot through the head. A closer examination showed, however, that the bullet had only ploughed a neat little furrow down to the skull. Charley washed the wound clean, forced some of the brandy down the boy's throat, and dashed a cup of cold water in his face. The effect was startling. In a few minutes the little Indian was sitting ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... of Derbyshire. By the way, I wager you a gold pound sterling that by the time you see Doll Vernon—Mistress Vernon, I pray your pardon—you will have grown so fond of me that you will not permit me to leave you." She thought after that speech he could not help but know her; but John's skull was like an oaken board that night. Nothing could penetrate it. He began to fancy that his companion was a simple witless person who had ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... has even accomplished the feat of making a bald-headed beauty. The bare skin on the whole crown is of a brilliant blue color most oddly crossed by narrow rows of minute feathers, which irresistibly remind one of the sutures of the human skull. That color shall not be lacking, it bears, besides the blue of the head, black, straw color, bright red, and green; and is further adorned with two very long central tail feathers, which reach far beyond the rest of the tail, and return, making a complete ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... head, as Montague Shirley leaned forward to observe an abrasion at the base of his skull. It was dressed with a ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... appeared the gentleman's indispensable lace ruffles. His knee-breeches were of black satin, red plush, or blue cloth, according to his fancy. They were plainly made and fitted tightly, buckling at the knee. At home, a black velvet skull-cap sometimes usurped the place of the wig and a damask dressing-gown lined with silk supplanted the coat, the feet being made easy in fancy morocco slippers. Judges on the bench often wore robes of scarlet faced with black velvet in winter, and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... is difficult to get a sufficient cooling effect by means of cold cloths without unduly chilling the patient. When the head has to be cooled, as in the very dangerous disease meningitis, the effect must pass through the mass of the skull before reaching the brain. A large and long continued application is needed for this. The surface is apt then to be overcooled before the interior of the head is affected. In such a case the surface of the head, when the patient ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... an exclamation of surprise at seeing the prodigious change which the good news had produced in the old man. He now saw a man of about sixty, extremely well preserved, a lean Italian, as straight as an I, with hair still black, though thin and showing a white skull, with bright eyes, a full set of white teeth, a face like Caesar, and on his diplomatic lips a sardonic smile, the almost false smile under which a man of good ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... through the thin, green lattice of which one could look down on the lower floor of the synagogue. There, behind high praying-desks, stood the men in their black cloaks, their pointed beards shooting out over white ruffs, and their skull-capped heads more or less concealed by a four-cornered scarf of white wool or silk, furnished with the prescribed tassels, and in some instances also adorned with gold lace. The walls of the synagogue were uniformly white-washed, and no ornament was to be seen other than the gilded iron grating ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... noise of our own guns. At Nieuport I stood only a few hundred yards away from the warships lying off the coast. Each shell which they sent across the dunes was like one of Jove's thunderbolts, and made one's body and soul quake with the agony of its noise. The vibration was so great that it made my skull ache as though it had been hammered. Long afterwards I found myself trembling with those waves of vibrating sounds. Worse still, because sharper and more piercingly staccato, was my experience close to a battery of French ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... stage," said one of the ladies in our carriage, pointing to a group on the sidewalk. The men wore tights, low shoes with pompons on the toes, black garters with tassels, blue jackets ornamented with many brass buttons, red skull caps with large black tassels, and very full skirts. The guide said that these men were soldiers of the king's guard and though their uniforms might appear peculiar to our eyes they did not seem more strange than the tartans of Scotch Highlanders ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... ornaments, encircles the body of this statue, and fastens a long sword to its right side. The giant has four extended arms, and, in his great hands, he bears an elephant's head, a twisted serpent, a human skull, and a bird resembling a heron. The moon, shedding her light on the profile of this statue, serves to augment ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... forth without disguise against Barneveld and all his adherents when his removal, as will be related on a subsequent page, was at last effected. And his hatred was likely to be deadly. A man with a shrewd, vivid face, cleanly cut features and a restless eye; wearing a close-fitting skull cap, which gave him something the lock of a monk, but with the thoroughbred and facile demeanour of one familiar with the world; stealthy, smooth, and cruel, a man coldly intellectual, who feared no one, loved but few, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... imploring mercy! He received thirteen more balls in his body. He survived: by a miraculous chance, not one of his wounds was mortal. The ball which struck his head tore the skin, and made the circuit of his skull without fracturing it. ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... column—the internal organs of hearing consist of two more or less complex membranous sacs (containing calcareous particles—otoliths), which are primitively or permanently lodged in two chambers, one on each side of the cartilaginous skull. The primitive cartilaginous cranium supports and protects the base of the brain, and the auditory nerves pass from that brain into the cartilaginous chambers to reach the auditory sacs. These complex arrangements of parts could not have been evolved by "Natural Selection," ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... captain bold set his men to swabbing decks, etc., and ordered the watch up aloft on the tower to plant the flag with the skull and crossbones and keep the lookout. Boldly he paced up and down on top of the tower, sweeping the seas with his spy-glass. Suddenly he paused and uttered a shout. The pirates crowded to the edge of the dock. Looking in the direction he pointed they ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... little, hung quite still above the soup-tureen. Nothing could have altered the rich colour of my commander's complexion, laid on generously by wind and sea; but between the two tufts of fair hair above his ears, his skull, generally suffused with the hue of blood, shone dead white, like a dome of ivory. And he looked strangely untidy. I perceived he had not shaved himself that day; and yet the wildest motion of the ship in the most stormy latitudes we had passed through, never made him ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... stinted the bodies and limbs of the French nation, has been very liberal to them of hair, as you may see by the following specimen. Fancy these heads and beards under all sorts of caps—Chinese caps, Mandarin caps, Greek skull-caps, English jockey-caps, Russian or Kuzzilbash caps, Middle-age caps (such as are called, in heraldry, caps of maintenance), Spanish nets, and striped worsted nightcaps. Fancy all the jackets you have ever seen, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... duly informed of the existence of the new society and their initiation thereinto. They offered no objections, and indeed would have been prepared at Raymonde's request to join a Black Brotherhood, or a Pirates' League with a skull and cross-bones for its emblem. A special committee meeting was held to discuss the matter of ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... Little Giant, philosophically, "ef any o' them big rocks had hit our heads we wouldn't hev been troubled with wounds. My skull's hard, but it would hev been shattered ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... is responsible for the strange story of Minerva—how Jupiter commanded Vulcan to split open his skull with a sharp axe, and how the warlike virgin leaped in full maturity from the cleft in the brain, thoroughly armed and ready for deeds of martial daring, brandishing her glittering weapons with fiery energy, and breaking at once into the wild Pyrrhic dance. We refer ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... herself a little, she said, "The Old Boy has discovered that I have been your counsellor, and has resolved to destroy us both. We must fly this very night, or we are lost. Take an axe, and strike off the head of the white-headed calf with a heavy blow, and then split the skull in two with a second stroke. In the brain of the calf you will find a shining red reel, which you must bring me. I will arrange whatever else is needful." The prince thought, "I would rather kill an innocent calf than sacrifice both myself and this dear girl, and if our flight succeeds, I ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... a Captain to his trade, Wi' ill-lined skull, but back weel clade, March'd round the barn, and by the shed, And papped on his knee: Quoth he, My goddess, nymph, and queen, Your beauty 's dazzled baith my e'en! Though ne'er a beauty he had seen But ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... sir. Wasn't aware I stared," Ricardo apologized good-humouredly. "The sun might well affect a thicker skull than mine. It blazes. Phew! What do you think a fellow ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... on its side, the masonry rested here and there upon jutting masses of the rock, serving as corbels or brackets, the surface of the rock itself completing the wall front. Above, grass grown heaps and mounds, and one isolated bit of wall pierced with a little window, like an empty eyesocket with no skull behind it, was all that was visible from the sea of the structure which had once risen lordly on the crest ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... and goodfellowship, if ruddy for the moment with tears, were the eyes of one who could not be driven. The forehead, too, was like Charles's. High and straight, brown and polished, merging abruptly into temples and skull, it has the effect of a bastion that protected his head from the world. At times it had the effect of a blank wall. He had dwelt behind it, intact ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... asleep. The servant on going into her chamber in the morning, saw her lady's two feet distant from the bed, a heap of ashes, and two legs with the stockings on. Between the latter was part of the head, but the brains, half the skull, and the chin, were burnt to ashes, which, when taken up in the hand, left a greasy and offensive moisture. The bed received no damage, and the clothes were elevated on one side, as by a person rising from beneath them. She ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... dim damp air, covered with brown holland, reminding one of desertion and charwomen, if not of a chamber of death and spiritual undertakers, who have shrouded and coffined the truth. Gaping, empty, unsightly, the place is the very skull of the monster himself—the fittest place of all wherein to encounter the great slug, and deal him one of those death blows which every sunrise, every repentance, every childbirth, every true love deals him. Every hour he receives the blow that kills, but he takes long to die, for every ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... whole organism as well should be derived from the earlier forms. If, for instance, it be possible to arrange horses and their tertiary kindred in an unbroken line of descent according to the formation of their feet, whilst the other characteristics (teeth, skull-structure, etc.,) do not admit of arrangement in a corresponding series, the first ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... of beautiful tertiary colours, rows of coral round their necks, and large silver-gilt brooches, and rosette ornaments on their breasts with chains attached. On their heads, tied round the base of the skull, they had white handkerchiefs, sometimes with ornamented borders. Over the bodice a kind ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... insulted you. I left the house in order that I might not see you again. To the doorsteps down which he should have kicked me, your grandfather followed me with words of kindliest courtesy. If he had sped me with a kick so skilful that my skull had been shattered on the kerb, neither would he have outstepped those bounds set to the conduct of English gentlemen, nor would you have garnered more than a trifle on account of your proper reckoning. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... history, which made one realise, as one reflected,' the progress of development of the literatures with which one was familiar. Those were pleasant evenings, those moonlight Spring evenings in the open veranda out there at Meudon, when the old man with the sharp-pointed beard and the little skull-cap on one side of his head, was spokesman. He had the aptest and most amusing way of putting things. For instance, to my question as to whether Guizot had really been as austere by nature as he was in manner, he replied: "It is hard to say; when one wishes to impress, one cannot ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... the next word. He had taken off his funny little cap, and his bare skull shone like an egg. I noticed a little sort of fairy ring of tiny drops ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... have stood within a few yards of a buffalo and fired shot after shot from a Springfield rifle, straight at his head, the balls producing no effect whatever, except, perhaps, a toss of the head and the flying out of a tuft of hair. Every time the ball would glance off from the thick skull. The wonderful mat of curly hair must break the force some, too. This mat, or cushion, in between the horns of the buffalo Lieutenant Alden killed, was so thick and tangled that I could not begin to get my fingers ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... unusual at this late day to base intellectual capacity upon the shape and size of skull. Investigations have shown that facial angle and capacity of cranium and cephalic index afford no certain criterion of thought power or susceptibility to culture. The latest word on this subject is given by Prof. Ripley, in a series of articles ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller

... Hugh prayed a prayer; and looking upon his sword, off which the blood now dripped, he poised it in his hand like a lance. The spearmen had closed in to the rock. But Hugh hurled his sword point foremost at the Red Hound, and saw it sink through his skull, till the hilt clattered on his brow; and then he cast one look upon the Lady; and, as a man might enter the gates of his home, he leapt very joyfully ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... door slowly opened, and a figure in white stood in the entry. In its hand it held a skull, made of gold, with ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa

... gracilis Miller (N. Amer. Fauna, 13:126, October 16, 1897) only three specimens are known; two are from Piaxtla, Puebla, and the third is from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Only the specimen from the Isthmus has a complete skull. The broken skull of the holotype is partly separated from the skin of the head and in such a manner as to reveal the teeth. The skull of the holotype seems to be broader (relative to its length) across the mastoids and posterior parts of ...
— Taxonomic Notes on Mexican Bats of the Genus Rhogeessa • E. Raymond Hall

... lamentation; and when they think the flesh of their bodies is putrified and fallen from their bones, then they take up the carcase again and hang it in the cacique's house that died, and deck his skull with feathers of all colours, and hang all his gold plates about the bones of this arms, thighs, and legs. Those nations which are called Arwacas, which dwell on the south of Orenoque, of which place and nation our Indian pilot was, are dispersed ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... has earned the Cross of Kara George I shall be glad to see him here again." ... As in the old days, the Serbian civilization is far superior, but this is not everything; that the Albanian is ready to meet it with peace or war he shows clearly as he glides along in his white skull-cap, his close-fitting white and black costume, with his panther-like tread and with several weapons ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... comprised several acres in which were plants of almost every conceivable shape and form, and more or less bright and delicate in colour. Fancy may feign shrubs, standard and clipped; elaborate bouquets, bunches of grapes, compact cauliflowers, frail red fans. Rounded, skull-like protuberances with the convolutions of the brain exposed, stag-horns, whip-thongs yards long, masses of pink and white resembling fanciful confectionery, intricate lace-work in the deepest ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... heaven, any'ow his skull, from ear to ear 'tis solid! Ah, I mean, of co'se, roun' the h-outside. Inside 'tis hollow. But outside it has ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... once was king, had on a crown Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside. And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass, All in a misty moonshine, unawares Had trodden that crown'd skeleton, and the skull Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown Roll'd into light, and turning on its rims Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn: And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught, And set it on his head, and in his heart Heard murmurs, 'Lo, thou ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang

... now followed the elf through it, but not without misgivings, for as he groped along he stepped on a round object which, to his horror when the little blue flame of the elf's lantern revealed its empty sockets and grinning jaws, proved to be a skull. ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... Mahmoud's vassal, and wore an Amir's tassel In his green hadj-turban, at Nungul. Yet the head which went so proud, it is not in his shroud; There are bones in that grave,—but not a skull! ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... eye aloft. Whereby he missed what was happenin'. Whereby he had just come abreast of the mainmast, when—sock at his very feet—there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had missed his hold, an' dropped somewhere on the back of his skull. 'Hallo!' says the Cap'n, 'an' where the devil might you come from?' Eli heard it, poor fellow—an' says he, as I lifted him, 'If you please, sir, from Botusfleming, three miles t'other side of Saltash.' 'Then you've ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... stopped us to recite a Fatihah in honor of Ao Umar Siyad and Ao Rahmah, two great saints who repose under a clump of trees near the road. The soil on both sides of the path is rich and red: masses of plantains, limes, and pomegranates denote the gardens, which are defended by a bleached cow's skull, stuck upon a short stick [33] and between them are plantations of coffee, bastard saffron, and the graceful Kat. About half a mile eastward of the town appears a burn called Jalah or the Coffee Water: the crowd crossing it did not prevent my companions bathing, and whilst they donned clean ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... what is left of Shakespeare's bodily frame, the thought of doing reverently and openly what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one. There is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which covers him, he would rest, like Napoleon, like Washington, in a fitting receptacle ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... other hand, those of hearing, seeing, and smelling, are ascertained to be acute, but the first in a lesser degree than both the second and third. Their possession of an auditory organ was long doubted, and even denied by some physiologists; but it has been found placed on the sides of the skull, or in the cavity which contains the brain. It occupies a position entirely distinct and detached from the skull, and, in this respect, differs in the local disposition of the same sense in birds and quadrupeds. In some fishes, as in those of the ray kind, the ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... a medium-sized man, five-eleven or so, with a barrel chest, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and lean hips. His light brown hair was worn rather long, and its straight strands seemed to cling tightly to his skull. His gray eyes had a perpetual half-squint that made him look either sleepy or angry, depending on what the rest of ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett

... stick, (which might, perhaps, be more properly termed a heavy club,) and so lustily did he lay about him, that he soon managed to knock his adversary down, through the agency of a blow, (which, as it was afterwards discovered, fractured the villain's skull,) when Blackbeard and the other man, who had just got clear of Pat, fell suddenly upon Henry Huntington, and ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker

... saw a troop passing the Place du Carrousel, composed of clowns, harlequins, fishwives, etc., all rubbing their skulls, and making expressive grimaces; while a clown bore several skulls of different sizes, painted red, blue, or green, with these inscriptions: Skull of a robber, skull of an assassin, skull of a bankrupt, etc.; and a masked figure, representing Doctor Gall, was seated on an ass, his head turned to the animal's tail, and receiving from the hands of a woman who followed him, and was also seated on an ass, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... a progress; now to join the King for some great tournament; now to visit King Rene, at Tarascon, where he had a study of his own and saw all manner of interesting things—Oriental curios, King Rene painting birds, and, what particularly pleased him, Triboulet, the dwarf jester, whose skull-cap was no bigger than an orange.[51] Sometimes the journeys were set about on horseback in a large party, with the fourriers sent forward to prepare a lodging at the next stage. We find almost Gargantuan details of the provision made by these officers against ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his sword was taken forth, Opened his eyes, and this word to him spoke "Thou'rt never one of ours, full well I know." Took the olifant, that he would not let go, Struck him on th' helm, that jewelled was with gold, And broke its steel, his skull and all his bones, Out of his head both the two eyes he drove; Dead at his feet he has the pagan thrown: After he's said: "Culvert, thou wert too bold, Or right or wrong, of my sword seizing hold! They'll dub thee fool, to whom the tale is told. But my great one, my olifant I broke; Fallen from ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... having been inflicted by a heavy instrument. Again, it is often difficult to decide whether the injury which caused death was the result of a blow or a fall. A heavy blow with a stick may at once cause fatal effusion of blood, but this might equally result from fracture of the skull resulting from a fall. The wound should be carefully examined for foreign bodies, such as grit, dirt, or sand. The distinction between incised wounds inflicted during life and after death is found ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... Signior, all a foote, euery one hauing his harquebush, who be his gard, all clothed in violet silke, and apparelled vpon their heads with a strange forme, called Cuocullucia, fashioned in this sort: the entering in of the forehead is like a skull made of white veluet, and hath a traine hanging downe behind, in manner of a French hoode, of the same, colour, and vpon the forepart of the said skull, iust in the middes of his forehead there is standing bolt vpright like a trunke of a foote long of siluer, garnished ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt

... ago, while I was engaged in the practice of medicine in my native city, I was called to treat a case of contusion of the skull. I made the diagnosis that a splinter of bone was pressing upon the brain, and that the surgical operation known as trepanning was required. However, as the patient was a gentleman of wealth and position, I called in for ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... fell back, and crushed his rider against the trunk of a poplar tree. Never more did I look on the face of the true lover to whom I was so closely knit—save only in dreams; and I thank those who held me back from beholding his broken skull. To this day he rises before me, a silent vision, and I see him as he was in that hour when he gave me a parting kiss on our threshold, in the pale gleam of early morning, solemnly glad and in his festal bravery. Yet they could not hinder me from pressing my lips to the hands of the beloved ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... task, took again his giant form; and the gods, seeing that it was a mountain-giant with whom they had to deal, feeling that their oath did not bind them, called on Thor. He at once ran to them, and paid the builder his fee with a blow of his hammer which shattered his skull to pieces and threw him down ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... in surgery whereby portions of the skull are removed by means of an instrument called a trepan, which consists of a small cylindrical saw; resorted to in all operations ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... negro's head and face, whereon was stamped a most fiendish and terrifying expression. There was no doubt about it; there were the thick lips, the fat cheeks, and the squat nose standing out with startling clearness against the flaming background. There, too, was the round skull, washed into shape perhaps by thousands of years of wind and weather, and, to complete the resemblance, there was a scrubby growth of weeds or lichen upon it, which against the sun looked for all the world like the wool on a colossal negro's head. It certainly was very odd; so odd that ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... stabbed with savage fury, and the assailants were driven back. Manners sprang to their head to lead them again himself, when a ball fired by one of the sailors in the American tops crashed through his skull, and he fell, sword in hand, with his face to the foe, dying as honorable a death as ever a brave man died in fighting against odds for the flag of his country. As he fell the American officers passed the word to board. With wild cheers the fighting sailormen sprang forward, sweeping the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt

... afford better accommodation: Meanwhile my spruce landlord has broken the cork, And called for a bodkin, though he had a fork; But I showed him a screw, which I told my brisk gull A trepan was for bottles had broken their skull; Which, as it was true, he believed without doubt, But 'twas I that applied it, and pulled the cork out. Bounce, quoth the bottle, the work being done, It roared, and it smoked, like a new-fired gun; But the shot missed us all, or else we'd been routed, Which yet was a wonder, we were ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... which indicates the engraving tool; and the I. B. are undoubted indents made after the ring was finished.' It is not the usual emblem of a mourning gift, for that would have the cross-bones under the skull; it was more probably given as a special mark of esteem. Three things are certain—1st, That it so valuable a gift excited the poor man's pride, its loss must have been a serious annoyance to one whose family was dependent upon his daily labour. 2d, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... when he was going to present to you one of the most popular of all dishes at a New England banquet, tongue garnished with brains. He seems, following the late teachings of Harvard and Yale, to have invited the guests to enter for a sort of skull-race. [Laughter.] Now, I suppose that, in calling first upon those on his right and left, it is a matter of convenience for himself, and he has acted from the same motives that actuated a newly fledged dentist who, when his first patient applied, determined to exercise all that ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... the prisoners in columns to return them to the pontoons. The storm broke with such fury that the masts snapped and the sails flew about. A piece of a mast knocked a convict overboard, and when he was fished up his skull was found to be fractured. A cry of terror ran through the lines and the jailers hastened to bring the columns to the pontoons. Benedetto and Anselmo cowered in their corners and listened to the roar of the mistral. The louder it became, the more ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... the long, lithe sword in the hand became As a leaping light, as a falling flame, As a fire through the flax that hasted; Slender, and shining, and beautiful, How it shore through shivering casque and skull, And never a stroke was void and null, And never a ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... most of the ills to which the flesh is heir. [17] Thus, the walnut was regarded as clearly good for mental cases from its bearing the signature of the whole head; the outward green cortex answering to the pericranium, the harder shell within representing the skull, and the kernel in its figure resembling the cover of the brain. On this account the outside shell was considered good for wounds of the head, whilst the bark of the tree was regarded as a sovereign remedy for the ringworm. [18] Its leaves, too, when bruised and moistened ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... by a despairin' effort, and screamed 'Help! help!' When I came to I was on an Austrian merchant ship, bound to Wilmington, North Carolina, for naval stores, and then to Trieste. The blow of the spar had given me a slight crack av the skull." ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend

... many things. But the curiosity of a simian is as excessive as the toil of an ant. Each simian will wish to know more than his head can hold, let alone ever deal with; and those whose minds are active will wish to know everything going. It would stretch a god's skull to accomplish such an ambition, yet simians won't like to think it's beyond their powers. Even small tradesmen and clerks, no matter how thrifty, will be eager to buy costly encyclopedias, or books of all knowledge. Almost every simian family, even the ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.

... out again, and Northwick, after some efforts, made out to rise. His skull felt sore, and his arms as if they had been beaten with hard blows. But after he had bathed his face and hands in the warm water Bird had brought with the lamp, he found himself better, though he was still wrapped in ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... a little more, Clare might have asserted that the men about the menagerie were at least as respectable as almost any farmer with a horse to sell. But he knew next to nothing of wickedness, whence many a man whose skull he had brains enough to fill three times, regarded him as ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... good to me!" said Sancho, lifting up his voice; "and is it possible that your worship is so thick of skull and so short of brains that you cannot see that what I say is the simple truth, and that malice has more to do with your imprisonment and misfortune than enchantment? But as it is so, I will prove ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... upward, taking in his breath in convulsive, rattling snorts, and blowing it out in sputters of froth which crawled creamily down his cheeks, piling itself alongside his neck and ears. A bullet had clipped a groove in his skull, above the temple; from this the brain protruded in bosses, dropping off in flakes and strings. I had not previously known one could get on, even in this unsatisfactory fashion, with so little brain. One of my men, whom I knew ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... they tied the wrapper round her throat it is related that she would have immediately torn it asunder if her courage had not failed her. And when at the first movement of the shears she felt the cold iron against her skull, I tell you it seemed to her as if they were piercing her heart with a bright dagger. It is possible that she did not keep her head still for a moment while this tonsuring was taking place; she moved it in spite of herself, now to one side, now to another, to flee from the clipping scissors, ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... to hear you say that, Frank; because I'd hate to have him along. Why, he might take a notion to step on my fingers when I was climbing up after him, and claim it was only an accident, but if I had a broken leg, or a cracked skull, that wouldn't do me any good, I ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... likewise invite the bald(6) to give me their votes; for, if I triumph, everyone will say, both at table and at festivals, "Carry this to the bald man, give these cakes to the bald one, do not grudge the poet whose talent shines as bright as his own bare skull the share he deserves." ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... in the shops as children's caps. The child is then taken out of doors and because of the inadequate covering of the hot perspiring head, catches cold and the mother never knows how it came." Every baby and child should wear under such caps a skull cap of thin flannel, especially in cold weather. In summer or windy day a light silk handkerchief folded under the cap ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... to Thessaly, where dwelt the giant Termerus, who with his skull knocked to death every traveler that he met; but on the mighty cranium of Hercules the head of the giant ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... recent origin. The cool, still, empty chambers in which indifferent collections are apt to be preserved, the red brick tiles, the diffused light, the musty odour, the mementos around you of dead fashions, the snuffy custodian in a black skull-cap, who pulls aside a faded curtain to show you the lustreless gem of the museum—these things have a mild historical quality, and the sallow canvases after all illustrate something. Many of those in the museum of Nantes illustrate the taste of a successful ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... him lurched suddenly forward, clutching at the sergeant. In another instant there was a dull thud, and Donald Ward stood over the sergeant with a pistol, grasped by its barrel, in his hand. He had brought the butt of it down on the man's skull. Two more of the yeomen fell almost at the same instant. The rest, three of them with wounds, fled, yelling, ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... thrust its political boundary in a long wedge down to the lowland of the Po near Como; and the Alpine race, spilling everywhere over the mountain rim into the inviting Po basin, has given to this lowland population a relatively broad skull, blond coloring and tall figure, sharply contrasted with the pure Mediterranean race beyond the crest of ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... war'nt goin to finish him. I tell ye, boys, it required some spunk about then, for the critter got his claws upon me with a death grip, and the dogs ripped him like an old corn stalk, and would'nt keep off. And then there was no fracturin his skull; and seeing how he was overpowering me, I just seizes him by the throat and pops his head off quicker than a ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... its mates, stood motionless, in a crouching attitude, glaring at each man in turn, and seemingly undecided which to attack first; and its hesitation or cowardice was fatal. The two men fired almost together, one bullet drilling a hole in its skull, and the other smashing in at one side of its body and out at the other. It did not live long enough to raise even a whimper, but dropped dead where it stood, a pool of blood immediately welling ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... sleeves, and with the thermometer at over a hundred, the phosphates soaked in through every pore of Jurgis' skin, and in five minutes he had a headache, and in fifteen was almost dazed. The blood was pounding in his brain like an engine's throbbing; there was a frightful pain in the top of his skull, and he could hardly control his hands. Still, with the memory of his four months' siege behind him, he fought on, in a frenzy of determination; and half an hour later he began to vomit—he vomited until it seemed as if his inwards must be torn into shreds. A man could get used to the fertilizer ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... thee back, thou Crocodile of the West, that livest on the never-resting stars. That which is thy taboo is in me. I have eaten the brow (or, skull) of Osiris. ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... and over—now he uppermost, and now I; but never for a second did I relax my hold. Whatever position we were in, my teeth were slowly grinding into the bone of his arm, and again and again I felt his teeth grating and slipping on my skull as I clawed and pushed blindly at his face to keep him away. More and more desperate he grew, and still I hung on; and while I clung to him in dead silence he was growling and snarling frantically, and I could hear his tone getting higher and higher till, just as I felt the bone ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson

... travellers are," said he, "and what a habit they have of getting people's skulls to carry home with them. Even if they are arrested for it, they are so rich, they always buy over the judges. Who knows but they might try to kill me for the sake of my skull?" After much persuasion, he was finally induced to come, and, seeing that Ludwig supposed he was still afraid, he said, with great energy: "I have made up my mind to go, even if a shower of knives should ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor

... gunner of the Adventure. There had been a quarrel in which Moore accused Kidd of having ruined them all, on which Kidd called him a 'lousy dog'; to which Moore replied in a rage, that if he was a dog it was Kidd who had made him one. At this Kidd hurled a bucket at him and fractured his skull. The jury found him guilty. He was then tried, together with nine of his crew, for the taking of the Quedah Merchant. His line of defence was that it was sailing under a French pass, and therefore ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... care of our eyes" more intelligently if we know something of their structure and how they perform their functions. The eye is a hollow globe filled with transparent material and set in a bony cavity of the skull, which, with the eyelids and eyelashes, protect it from injury. It is moved at will in every direction by six muscles which are attached to its surface, and is lubricated and kept moist by the secretions of the tear gland and other glands, which secretions, having done their work, are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... failing in humor, challenged then and there every member of his enemy's fraternity and every member of his own. Thereafter it became the custom there and at other institutions of learning in the State to settle all disputes fist and skull; and of this Miss Holden, who was no pacifist, thoroughly approved. Now she was in a community where the tendency to kill seemed well-nigh universal. St. Hilda was a gentle soul, who would never even whip a pupil. She might not approve—but Miss Holden had the spirit ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... is built, the workmen hang up an egg shell or a piece of alum, or an old root, or a donkey's skull, in the front door, to keep off the evil eye. Moslem women leave their children ragged and dirty to keep people from admiring them, and thus smiting them with the evil eye. They think that blue eyes ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... blew, but it had veered. This time it caught the sand from the skeletons, and bore it rapidly back to the dunes. Dorthe watched the old bones start into view. Sometimes a skull would thrust itself suddenly forth, sometimes a pair of polished knees; and once a long finger seemed to beckon. But it was an old story to Dorthe, and she pursued her ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton



Words linked to "Skull" :   malar bone, cheekbone, eye socket, skull session, os zygomaticum, braincase, malar, jugal bone, zygomatic, brainpan, sphenoid bone, cranium, orbit, axial skeleton, endocranium, head, bone, cranial orbit, caput, os sphenoidale, os, vomer, orbital cavity, craniometric point, jaw, zygomatic bone, sphenoid



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