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Swim   /swɪm/   Listen
Swim

noun
1.
The act of swimming.  Synonym: swimming.  "They took a short swim in the pool"



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"Swim" Quotes from Famous Books



... riderless, his gold-'broidered trappings floating on the wind. When this happened, out of the illumined sea would writhe a glittering dragon, or scaly heraldic beast, to prance or fly along the horizon after the vanishing charger of the fallen knight. Sometimes the rushing steed would swim to a fairy island or siren-rock that floated silver-pale on the shining water, or jutted dark out of a creamy line of breakers; and though I knew that the knights and ladies and wondrous animals were but inhabitants of Sunset Kingdom, Limited, and ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... cabin doorway Ellen could see Harlan sitting by the bonfire in a borrowed undershirt and the scarlet blanket. He seemed refreshed and strengthened by his lunch and was telling Kayak Bill of his failure to swim back to the Hoonah, and his subsequent landing on the south end of the Island. Though all but exhausted by his battle with the waves he had managed to dig himself into the dry, sun-warmed sand, and had slept heavily for hours. When he awoke the position ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... was protected by a third eyelid or nictitating membrane. At a still earlier period the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits; for morphology plainly tells us that our lungs consist of a modified swim-bladder, which once served as a float. The clefts on the neck in the embryo of man shew where the branchiae once existed. In the lunar or weekly recurrent periods of some of our functions we apparently still retain traces of our primordial birthplace, a shore washed by ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... fall in the water would of itself have been a serious thing to poor Gubbins, who, of course, could not swim; but to add to his terror there was a shark, plainly visible, his back fin indeed now and then rising out of the water, swimming round and round, opening his mouth, but by no means shutting his eyes, to see what luck would send him. And ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... he mentioned it. It turned out to be a suncracked water-course with a little muddy water lying in hollows, and one or two deeper holes from which the manganese miners got their water. She had been hoping for a swim: she had to be content with dipping a handkerchief in one of the hollows and wiping her face with it, since all the rest was ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... of. Remember what I say; be kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kick back; for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid?" With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask? I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho'. May be, may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see Ahab standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... Again he goes—again she looks for him— At the death-stake her warrior-love is tied: Say, when he thought of her, did the tear swim? Shook, for an instant, that bold Indian's pride? No! when he thought of her, it was to nerve A soul whose purpose knew not how to swerve! For this she loves him, holds him doubly dear; He knows what 'tis to love, but ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... by his most hazardous escape from prison. Being confined at Bremen, in a dungeon on the third story of the prison of that town, he contrived to let himself down without exciting the vigilance of the sentinels, and to swim across the Weser, though heavily laden with irons. When about half-way over, he was espied by a sentinel, who fired at him, and shot him in the calf of the leg: but the undaunted robber struck out manfully, reached ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... stand stood stood stave stove (staved) (staved) steal stole stolen stick stuck stuck sting stung stung stink stunk, stank stunk stride strode stridden strike struck struck, stricken string strung strung strive strove striven swear swore sworn swim swam or swum swum swing swung swung take took taken tear tore torn thrive throve (thrived) thriven (thrived) throw threw thrown tread trod trodden, trod wear wore worn weave wove woven win won won wind wound wound wring wrung wrung ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... for his indomitable grit, a half-drowned father and daughter, clinging to a capsized fishing-smack in a winter sea, would not be alive—there are even fisherfolk who cannot swim. Monsieur le Cure saw this at a glance, alone he fought his way in the freezing surf out to the girl and the man. He brought ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... Ralph said, when they finished. "For a really long swim, I daresay they would be very fatiguing; but it is cold, not fatigue, we have to fear, and speed ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... the sun's last rays, The Fairy City rose to view: It seemed to "swim in air"—a blaze Of parting glory round ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... very few Indians can swim, probably from their fear that they shall drown while learning. They believe that, if drowned, their spirits wander for ever in a vain search for the happy hunting-grounds, and no Indian will marry the daughter of one who has met his death in that way, lest the curse ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... We both have fed as well; and we can both Endure the winter's cold as well as he: For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, "Darest thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow: so indeed he did. The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside And stemming ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... just going ruefully to retrace his steps and try to find a good place to swim the stream when it struck him that the officer who had passed him wore clothes very like his own. He, too, had had a grey sweater and a Balaclava helmet, for even a German officer ceases to be dressy ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... the peoples of Europe will have to cross: they will come out of it cleaner, healthier, and stronger, but while the others are already in the water, plunging, puffing, paddling, losing their ground, trying to swim, and even half-drowned, you are still standing on the other side of it, roaring unmercifully about the poor swimmers, screamers, and fighters below,—but one day you will have to cross this same river too, and when you enter it the ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... combined bathroom and sleeping chamber. This latter room, the stone floor of which was covered with fine matting, contained a very beautiful and spacious ivory couch, most luxuriously furnished, a number of elegant and equally luxurious divans, and an immense bath, almost big enough to swim in, sunk into the floor. The official who had me in charge pointed out these various matters to me, as well as a very handsome suit of clothing, evidently made expressly for me, which, he intimated, it ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... the Salt Adhering, for the most part, to the Sides and Top, and the Phlegme Fastening it self there too in great Drops, the Oyle and Spirit placing themselves Under, or Above one another, according as their Ponderousness makes them Swim or Sink. For 'tis Observable, that though Oyl or Liquid Sulphur be one of the Elements Separated by this Fiery Analysis, yet the Heat which Accidentally Unites the Particles of the other Volatile Principles, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... that fish could swim, or had some muscular power, several of the bystanders were rife for experimenting ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... the foot of which the remainder of his company stood. The boat was within twenty yards of them when a huge wave fell on it as it were out of the sky. It sank like lead. Thanks to the lifebuoys Underhill and the men rose quickly to the surface. Two of them, who could not swim, cried out despairingly for help. Underhill seized one and held him up; the other was saved by the promptitude of young Smith. Seeing their plight, he caught up a rope which had been brought ashore, and flung it among the group of men struggling in the ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... better a Description of the rest,— I mused, how sweet to wander Beside the river, yonder; And then the sudden whim Seized my head to pillow On Hudson's sparkling billow, A midnight, moonlight swim! ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... Both crossed the river on horseback, and the army uttered shouts of admiration as they saw that the chiefs were the first to set the example of intrepidity. They braved enough dangers to make the strongest brain reel. The current forced their horses to swim diagonally across, which doubled the length of the passage; and as they swam, blocks of ice struck against their flanks and sides, making ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... men employed on the Dennison place comes down for a swim, or to look after some night line he's set here for trout," ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... billion morsels of wet mud were no more imposing than one. Geology, chemistry, astronomy—they were all in the splashes of mud from a passing carriage. Everywhere one law and one futility. The human race? Strange marine monsters crawling about in the bed of an air-ocean, unable to swim upwards, oddly tricked out in the stolen skins of other creatures. As absurd, impartially considered, as the strange creatures quaintly adapted to curious environments one saw in aquaria. Kant's Moral Law Within! Dissoluble by a cholera germ, a curious blue network under the microscope, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... the very words out of my mouth when you say that, Rob!" asserted Tubby valiantly. "No matter what happens, we're bound by the ties of old friendship. We'll sink or swim together, boys. And Merritt, please don't ever tell us again you're feeling sorry ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... are together in great number. These haue two enemies, the one in the sea, the other in the aire. In the sea the fish which is called Albocore, as big as a Salmon, followeth them with great swiftnesse to take them. This poore fish not being able to swim fast, for he hath no finnes, but swimmeth with moouing of his taile, shutting his wings, lifteth himselue aboue the water, and flieth not very hie: the Albocore seeing that, although he haue no wings, yet he giueth a great leape out of the water, and sometimes ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on. She felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into her own eyes came the large tears. They did not fall, but through them she saw the forest swim in green and gold. "I have no father or mother," she said, "and no brother or sister. In all the world there is no one that ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... city of Chersonesus. Since I have seen this strait, I find nothing improbable in the adventure of Leander, or very wonderful in the bridge of boats of Xerxes. 'Tis so narrow, 'tis not surprising a young lover should attempt to swim, or an ambitious king try to pass his army over it. But then, 'tis so subject to storms, 'tis no wonder the lover perished, and the bridge was broken. From hence we had a full view ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... I can at least produce the cause of this serious mishap." He put his fingers to his lips and gave three sharp whistles, ending in a long musical note. A moment later a boy came bounding up the path from the river; he was barefooted, his coat was off and he was plainly preparing for a swim. He stopped suddenly a few paces away when he saw who was with his brother and hung his ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... He used to drive his mother nearly crazy by the antics he cut up. And he was always getting into danger. He would climb the highest trees, and swim in the deepest pools; he was never satisfied to let any other ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... my old hearty, the first thing for you to do is to poke out your manifest, and any other little matters of vallew ye may have stowed away; and be quick, mind ye, for you haven't much time to sail in this 'ere craft. Howsoever, I s'pose ye can swim?" ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... young son of the owner of the boat. And in some way the boat was overturned, as they came back towing the stag after them, when some hundred or more yards from shore, and in deep water where a swift current ran. Two men clung to the upturned boat; but the other must swim, holding up his son, who, though a big boy of fourteen, was helpless in the water. And I saw that it was like to go hard with both of them, for the current bore them away from ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... it is. He couldn't swim ashore with the things, and there isn't any other way he could make off with them, except by taking them in the dinghy, and that chump couldn't any more manage ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe

... we; we shall only cry the louder. On fine sunny days, it pleases us to hop through galingale and sedge and to sing while we swim; and when Zeus is pouring down his rain, we join our lively voices to the rustle of ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... had been to her, And mentioned me to him; She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... yet the moment a fine one is proposed to you, you jump back after your gentleman's estate. You tell me that you have peddled crucifixes: what more does Palamone expect of you? Be what you choose, Don Francis; kiss me or kiss your Aurelia; go afoot or in a coach; beg or give, sink or swim. You have two hands, you will say. It is true; but you have only one person. If, with a fistful of gold in your right hand, you go about begging with your left, you will be ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... a boy may be found who has never taken the trouble to learn how to swim. In the country this is a rare occurrence; which would make the neglect of such an athletic fellow as Puss ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy

... quickness of eye—verily circumspect, though without the least betrayal of alarm or want of confidence, which was learnt from the need of being always as it were on guard, was soon learnt likewise by Patteson, while the air of suspicion or fear was most carefully avoided. The swim back to the boat was in water 'too warm, but refreshing,' and ended with a dive under the boat for the pure pleasure of ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "but I can't help watching that Chapman boy; he's only got one reef in, and the next time he jibs he'll capsize, and he can't swim, and he'll drown. I told his mother ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... Territory was fraught with the deepest and most far-reaching benefits to all the American people; it likewise benefited, in at least an equal degree, the boldest and most energetic among the French inhabitants, those who could hold their own among freemen, who could swim in troubled waters; but it may well be doubted whether to the mass of the ignorant and simple Creoles it was not a curse rather than ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... were saying,) taught him his grammar, law, and his gymnastic exercises. Nor did he only show him, too, how to throw a dart, to fight in armor, and to ride, but to box also and to endure both heat and cold, and to swim over the most rapid and rough rivers. He says, likewise, that he wrote histories, in large characters, with his own hand, that so his son, without stirring out of the house, might learn to know about his countrymen and forefathers: nor ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... trembling with fear in their Ministries—all those men with fiendish hearts. Here I stand talking to you, and when I think of all the cruelties, oppressions, and injustices that are going on at this very moment, my head begins to swim. I have looked closely at what would seem inconceivable if one's own eyes had not to be trusted. I have looked at things that made me hate myself for my helplessness. I hated my hands that had no power, my voice that could not be heard, my very mind that would not become unhinged. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... injustice—she bestowed inventive faculty, and set us naked and helpless on the shore of this great ocean, the world—let those swim who can—the heavy** may sink. To me she gave naught else, and how to make the best use of my endowment is my present business. Men's natural rights are equal; claim is met by claim, effort by effort, and force by force—right is with the strongest—the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... course, give up their little house and go into rooms, but that would make very little difference. She looked at it from every point of view and could think of no easier alternative. She puzzled until her head ached, and the room, misty with figures, seemed to swim round her. She felt cruelly lonely, and her whole soul cried out for Harry—he would help her, he would tell her what to do. She knew now that she loved him with all the strength that was in her, that she had always loved him, from the first moment that she had known him. She remembered her ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole

... close as you can, boy," he said sternly, "and keep both your feet out of the stirrups. If your horse goes down hang to is tail, and let him swim out." ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... the spear, the oar, I plied by lake and sea— Happy to swim from shore to shore, Or ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... such a thing as protective mimicry, as it is called-animals having the power—some of them to a much larger extent than others—of changing their hues in order to match the gravel of the stream in which they swim or the leaves of the trees on which they feed. That is like what a great many of us do. Put us into a place where certain forms of frivolity or vice are common, and we go in for them. Take us away from these and we change our hue to something a little whiter. But all through we never ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... spears went to kill all the people in the town. So the spears and headaxes went among the people and killed all of them, and Aponitolau swam in the blood and his son stood on the blood. "What is the matter with you, father, that you swim in the blood? Can't you use your power so you don't have to swim?" Then he took hold of him and lifted him up. As soon as all the people were killed they used their power so that all the heads and valuable things ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... that Mike talks French fluently, but that his German 'leaves much to be desired.' Those were her words. Were all the boys wonderful when you were my age too, Mr. Osborne, can you remember? Another thing Mike says is that 'when he was my age' all boys were taught to swim by being taken to the ends of piers and flung into the sea—Mike says he was taught like that just as the rest were, and that he jolly well had to swim or he'd have been drowned, which seems pretty obvious, doesn't it, when ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... had driven it still nearer. The seamen were all provided with cordage, which I had beforehand twisted to a sufficient strength. When the ships came up, I stripped myself, and waded till I came within a hundred yards of the boat, after which I was forced to swim till I got up to it. The seamen threw me the end of the cord, which I fastened to a hole in the forepart of the boat, and the other end to a man-of-war. But I found all my labor to little purpose; for, being out of my depth, I was not able to work. In this necessity, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... going fast in that cedar bark and before he can get that tail untied he is burned so bad that he just keeps running till he gets to Bayupa (Little Colorado River). There was a great flood going down the river and he was so weak from running that he could not swim, so he drowned. And that is what he got for trying to get even ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... shall be shod All in silver, housed in azure, And the mane shall swim the wind! And the hoofs, along the sod, Shall flash onward in a pleasure, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... conduct in life, for neither would they do well to employ much accuracy in the roof wherewith their houses are covered; but having fallen into fortune so deep as thou hast, how dost thou imagine thou canst swim out? But if thou hast more things good than bad, mortal as thou art, thou surely must be well off. But cease, my dear child, from these evil thoughts, cease too from being haughty, for nothing else save haughtiness is this, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... she ordered tea. The roar of the street noises penetrated into the shadowy room through the open windows, and came to Dion like heat. He remembered the silence of Claridge's. Suddenly his head began to swim. It seemed to him that his life, all of it that he had lived till that moment, was spinning round him, and that, as it spun, it gave out a deafening noise and glittered. He sat down on a chair which was close to a small table, laid his arms on the table, and hid his face against them. Still the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... thousands the greatest danger of all awaited them. Their movements were slow, painfully slow, and the progress was delayed by the necessity of waiting for those who were the worst mounted; but they were "all in the same boat, and, like Englishmen, would sink or swim together." In the accumulation of difficulties that stared them in the face not the least seemed to be that they were advancing in the teeth of their own countrymen's fire, which was growing fiercer every minute. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... galled them cruelly; but in one respect it would not have troubled him if his burden had been heavier, for their provisions were running out rapidly. There was a river close by, but he no longer felt the least inclination for a morning swim, or, indeed, for any occupation that was not obviously necessary. He had lived very sparingly of late, and had contrived that Grenfell got rather more than his share of the cut-down rations. It was clear to him that the older man's strength ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... the chap that slipped into the water this morning. He is a persevering chap, to be sure. He says he is determined to learn to row, and to swim, and to punt, and to fish. And he went down this afternoon, and now he's gone up, and he is dead-beat already; and how he'll get home he can't tell for the life of him. Why, he knows just as much about boating as Juliet there. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison

... ought to give him more money," he said; "and then we should soon be rich enough to swim in gold. There's not the thickness of a farthing ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... his performance. He jumps high to snap at imaginary flies; he chases his bushy tail; he rolls over and over in clouds of flying sand; he gallops up the shore, and back like a whirlwind; he plays peekaboo with every bush. The foolish birds grow excited; they swim in smaller circles, quacking nervously, drawing nearer and nearer to get a better look at the strange performance. They are long in coming, but curiosity always gets the better of them; those in the rear crowd the ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... understand!' exclaimed Selkirk exasperated, 'I will not endure your infamous treatment another week! If you refuse to consent to my demand, I will leave without your permission; were the vessel twenty miles from the land, and were I to perish twenty times on the way, I will attempt to swim ashore. Will you land me at Coquimbo, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine

... woman, Mr. Latz. You can put a fish in water, but you cannot make him swim. That's me ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... behind him. Rorie and I both stopped, for the thing was now beyond the hands of men, and these were the decrees of God that came to pass before our eyes. There was never a sharper ending. On that steep beach they were beyond their depth at a bound; neither could swim; the black rose once for a moment with a throttling cry; but the current had them, racing seaward; and if ever they came up again, which God alone can tell, it would be ten minutes after, at the far end of Aros Roost, where the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... parapet rise the towers of Westminster, warm grey against the starlight. The black river goes by with only a rare ripple breaking its silence, and disturbing the reflections of the lights that swim upon ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... with the stir and hubbub of a garrison town in which his walled garden stood isolated, as it were, all day long, amid marchings, countermarchings, bugle-calls, and the rumble of wagons filled with material of war, gave him a sense of being in the swim—of close participation in the world's affairs; failing which a great many folk seem to miss half the enjoyment ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Importance, and why they went to the Beach in October; Miss Carlisle Heth, and how she met an Unwelcome Swain at Sea; how this Swain could swim enough for one. . . . . ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... Holliday. I would agree to join you in the matter, but I cannot swim a stroke. Pat Dillon cares as little for his life as any man; and after all, there's no more danger in it than in going out in a duel; and I could ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty

... facts, I am filled with grief at the thought of what we must have lost. His classification was based on the labours of years, as testified by a vast accumulation of rough notes and sketches, and as a conspicuous feature of it there stands the embodiment under one head of all those fishes having the swim-bladder in connection with the auditory organ by means of a chain of ossicles—a revolutionary arrangement, which later, in the hands of the late Dr. Sagemahl, and by his introduction of the famous term—"Ostariophyseae," has done more than ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... that no boat should go within reach of the pirates' guns. And at night Mr. Fea caused fires to be made upon the hills round him, to alarm the country, and ordered all the boats round the Island to be hauled up upon the beach, as far as it was possible, and disabled also, lest the pirates should swim from the ship, and get any of them ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... things that walk, swim, creep, or fly, Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon Her worshipper. Then thou becam'st a boy, More daring in thy frenzies: every shape, Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild, Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls; The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... a great party on a neighboring estate, amid the swim of the music and the whirl of soft lace. Suddenly loud voices and threats, a shower of cards flung at a man's face, an uplifted arm caught by the host. Then a hall door thrust open and a half-frenzied man with disordered ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... anger and turned the valve, shouting, "One more thing, Mister Hero! The minute the air lock is empty, you take a swim in space too!" ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... Strassburg in the fort All woe began for me The Alpine bugle's call enticed me o'er, I had to swim to my dear country's ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... boy, 'tis pleasure enough To have a sup of such goodly stuff— To float away in a sky of fog, And swim the while in a sea of grog; So, high or low, Let the world go, The how-d'ye-do boy ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... worth a dozen Ripleys" murmured one man who, unable to swim, was obliged to stand ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... unfordable, between Scythopolis and the lake, all who could not swim were ordered to carry with them, on their march down to the river, logs of light wood sufficient to support them in crossing. Those who could swim were to assist in piloting over those unable to do so. This would be a work of no great difficulty, for the width of the Jordan is not great, ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... began to swim before the eyes of our hero as they gradually closed; nor did he re-open them till the morning sun was high on the lake without, though there was but a faint and glimmering twilight in the recesses of Uaimh an Ri, or the King's Cavern, as the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... ministry, when, coming out from beneath the shadows of the olives in the garden, He said to the soldiers 'Whom seek ye?' and they fell backwards and wallowed on the ground. An overwhelming impression of His personal majesty, and perhaps some forth-putting of that hidden glory which did swim up to the surface on the mountain of Transfiguration, bowed all these men before Him, like reeds before the wind. And though there was no recognition of His claim, there was something in the Claimant that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... interpolates, and again gives vent to his frenzy: "fellows! bring me brandy-whiskey-rum-anything to quench this flame that burns me up. Bring it, and when I'm free of this place of torment, I will stand enough for you all to swim in." ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... are Boy Scouts with medals showing proficiency in the art!" declared Harry. "We can all swim," he continued. ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson

... while. As far as one can see stretches the paddy land in every stage of development. Some fields are hardly more than pools of water mirroring the clouds overhead. Others are dotted over with thin clumps of rice through which the ducks swim gaily, while still others are solid masses of green, and transplanting has ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... touched her shoulder, and he could feel the gentle rise and fall of her breast, as she breathed. The bodily contact made his head swim. When she raised her head to stare at the sky, a fugitive moonbeam caressed her face and touched her briefly with a wondrous beauty. Her curved, parted lips were almost within reach of his own at such instants; he had but to bend swiftly forward! Martin was all atremble at the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... nephew of Nigel Graheme. Seeing how deep the floods were I came out to show you the way, for the best horse in the world could not swim ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... people were coming to our aid; we went after him again, but we were obliged to fight for more than four hours, as our shots did him very little harm. After having received a blow in the back with a hatchet, which was wielded by such a strong arm that it remained sticking in him, he attempted to swim off, but a cut on the head finished him. We took the carcase on board Ryp's vessel, and stripped off the hide, which measured twelve feet in length. The flesh we cooked, and some of us liked it as well as beef. In consequence of this adventure ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... mirage!" exclaimed Seaton, rubbing his eyes in astonishment. "I've seen mirages before, but never anything like that. Wonder what this air's made of? But we'll land, anyway, if we finally have to swim!" ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... little farther up the shore a fisher-cat and a fox hugged close to the water line, hesitating to wet their precious fur until death itself snapped at their heels; and as if to bring fresh news of this death a second fox dragged himself wearily out on the shore, as limp as a wet rag after his swim from the opposite shore, where the fire was already leaping in a wall of flame. And as this fox swam in, hoping to find safety, an old bear twice as big as Neewa, crashed panting from the undergrowth, plunged into the water, and swam OUT. Smaller things ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... exercise of testing their powers of credulity, and Blenkinthrope, in the false security of an assured and receptive audience, waxed industrious and ingenious in supplying the demand for marvels. Duckby's satirical story of a tame otter that had a tank in the garden to swim in, and whined restlessly whenever the water-rate was overdue, was scarcely an unfair parody of some of Blenkinthrope's wilder efforts. And then ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... in the natural order of things my stories went into the magazine, and were paid for. Strange were the ways of this office; Shakespeare might have sent in prose and poetry, but he would have gone into the wastepaper basket had he not previously straddled. For those who were in the swim this was a matter of congratulation; straddling, we would cry, "We want no blooming outsiders coming along interfering with our magazine. And you, Smith, you devil, you had a twenty-page story in last month and cut me out. O'Flanagan, do you mind if I send you in a couple of poems as well ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... utmost caution—a caution which he redoubled as he drew near to the riverside. He would have thought little of going over the quay wall when the water was up, for that would only mean a ducking, and he could swim like a fish. But in some places patches of deep mud were laid bare at low tide, spots in which the finest swimmer would flounder, sink, and perish. Chippy sought for a mooring-post, and was full of delight when his hands came against ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... weeks. He brought the dog a little ahead time, and roared his appreciation of the relief it to get the responsibility off his hands. And he related many strange things, most striking of which was how Moze had broken his chain and plunged into the raging Colorado River, and tried to swim it just above the terrible Sockdolager Rapids. Rust and his fellow-workmen watched the dog disappear in the yellow, wrestling, turbulent whirl of waters, and had heard his knell in the booming roar of the falls. Nothing but a fish could live in that current; nothing ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... after, there stood a knight over the other side, and said, Sir knight, come not over after this hart but if thou wilt joust with me. I will not fail as for that, said Sir Gawaine, to follow the quest that I am in, and so made his horse to swim over the water. And anon they gat their spears and ran together full hard; but Sir Gawaine smote him off his horse, and then he turned his horse and bade him yield him. Nay, said the knight, not so, though thou have ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... that there was no bridge across the Big Black; that it was swimming-deep; and that there was a rebel force on the opposite side, intrenched. He had ordered a detachment of the Thirteenth United States Regulars, under Captain Charles Ewing, to strip some artillery-horses, mount the men, and swim the river above the ferry, to attack and drive away the party on the opposite bank. I did not approve of this risky attempt, but crept down close to the brink of the river-bank, behind a corn-crib belonging to a plantation house near ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... nearly the same as mine, that I might fairly have claimed it; and, moreover, the approval of several of his fellow-workmen, to whom he had spoken. I was a little "riled," I confess, by his manner, and thought of throwing the whole thing overboard to sink or swim. But it seemed childish to relinquish a plan which I had once thought wise and well-laid, just because I myself did not receive all the honour and consequence due to the originator. So I coolly took the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the boy in the water brought the melancholy news that he could not swim! His boat drifted off as quickly as it was freed from his weight, and the girls were not quite near enough ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... rapid stream and was now low enough to ford. One of the Government teams set out to make the crossing at a point where it looked shallow enough, but before the lead mules reached the opposite shore, they lost their footing and were forced to swim. Of course the wagon stopped and the team swung round and tangled up in a bad shape. They were unhitched and the wagon pulled back, the load was somewhat dampened, for the water came into the wagon box about a foot. We camped here and laid by one ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... I don't wish to have it so, you yellow-skinned nigger. If I will have it that you have to swim to China." ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... daughter of a sea captain, and she has been with him on many voyages. There was every reason to suppose that she could swim quite as well as I—or better. No, Frank, you made your choice between us that day. It's all right," and she forced a laugh that was not very musical. "I don't deny that, at one time, I did think more ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... down on the riverbank and ate and drank; after which the Lady Shamsah, having a mind to bathe, put off her clothes and plunged into the water. Her women did likewise and they swam about awhile, whilst I walked on along the bank of the stream leaving them to swim about and play with one another. And behold, a huge shark of the monsters of the deep seized the Princess by the leg, without touching any of the girls; and she cried out and died forthright, whilst the damsels ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... board were urgently required at Mooltan; and, worse than all, the lady began to pout! This was the climax of his misfortune; and the skipper, growing desperate, swore a mighty oath that if the obstinate little craft would not swim through the water, she should walk over the land, and we should see who would get tired of it first. Accordingly, an anchor was carried forward to a spot some forty yards off, where the water was deeper; the greater part of the passengers were made to jump overboard, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various

... little splash, a sudden vision of something black. A moment or two he sat breathlessly gazing; and then—was he asleep, or was he waking, and really saw it?—he saw above the water a black cat's head. Black head, black paws put out to swim, black ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... minutes later they were all revelling in the warm, refreshing water. Bessie declared that in all her large bathing experience on the north shore she had never enjoyed anything like this. Miss Ray felt that here in this warm, still water was her opportunity to learn to swim; so she accepted the kind teaching of a friend; but, alas, her efforts savored more of hard work to plough up the Atlantic ocean than of an easy, delightful pleasure bottling up knowledge for some possible future use. While Miss Ray was thus straggling with the ocean, and Bessie ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... new conditions. Oh, for the love of heaven, let us be frank, and confess that we have not met them as things practical go. We hadn't the training for it. A man who has not been taught to swim may rationally be excused for preferring to sit upon the bank; and should he elect to ornament his idleness with protestations that he is self-evidently an excellent swimmer, because once upon a time his progenitors were the only people in the world who had the slightest conception ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... "come on, let's go for a swim. The Smiths and the Enfields just went down towards the bath-houses, and there'll be a jolly ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells

... sleep With knowledge that he lacked on lying down: And I, lapped in a trance of reverie, doubt Some spore of episodes Anterior far beyond this body's birth, Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable, Wind-carried round this globe for centuries, May, breathed with common air, yet swim the blood, And striking root in this or that brain, raise Imaginations unaccountable; One such seems half-implied in all I am, And many times re-pondered ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... of wine has penetrated us, a heaviness of the limbs follows, the legs of the tottering person are impeded; the tongue grows torpid, the mind is dimmed, the eyes swim; noise, hiccup, and quarrels ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... chaparral undergrowth of the grove made the use of horses impracticable. The Cimarron River, which surrounds this horseshoe on all sides but the entrance, was probably two hundred yards wide at an average winter stage, deep enough to swim a horse, and cold ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... world to roam in, what a sea to swim in is this God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is eternal, which means that He antedates time and is wholly independent of it. Time began in Him and will end in Him. To it He pays no ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer

... utterly failed to mark the rapid incoming of the tide, and when at last he did notice it, he found to his dismay that he was completely cut off from the land. There was but one chance of life, for he could not swim. A large fragment of rock rose above the waves a few yards behind him; on to this he clambered, and placing his gun between his feet, awaited the rising of the water. In a short time the waves had risen nearly to his feet, then they covered them; and still ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... been cut adrift at a tender age, an age Mr. Twist, as a disciplined American son and brother, was unable to regard unmoved, and packed off over the sea indifferent to what might happen to them so long as Uncle Arthur knew nothing about it. Having flung these kittens into the water to swim or drown, so long as he didn't have to listen to their cries while they were doing it, Uncle Arthur ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... Excitedly; the men, with eyes agloom Looked darkly on them with a look of doom; And one cried out: "We are immortal now— How need we these?" And a dread figure stalked, Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow, And all men cried: "Decapitate the women, Or soon there'll be no room to stand or swim in!" ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... one may indeed swim in an ocean of opportunities, provided with heads of hair like Absalom himself, and he will be unable to seize a single hair, and often determines himself the causes which make him fail; whilst he, who has the idea of success in himself, often gives birth, in an unconscious fashion, ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... had been planned and executed by a reasoning mind. The finishing stroke is the transporting of the mud and laying it. In this labor, they show themselves to be excellent masons. They now act in concert. A large gang marches in a line to the bank where they load each other's tails and swim with their cargoes elevated above and free from the water. When they arrive at an unfinished point of the dam they dump the mud and mould it in place. Their houses they have previously built in the river ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... of us that Sunday. "Bish" and I always went for an afternoon swim unless police or mess duties forbade. Then there was Bridgley, who had also once displayed his svelte form in a Z. P. uniform to admiring tourists, but was now a pursuer of "soldiering" Hindus on Naos Island. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And,—when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening,—nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... insects out of the pond and put them in his aquarium, but he called it his "acquair." His "acquair" was a glass bell stood on its end and filled at the bottom with sand, and on top with water for the things to swim about in. Minnows, and sometimes sticklebats (but not generally sticklebats, because, though they looked nice they used to eat up the other things so), and of course tadpoles (when they were "in") and water-snails with pointed shells and ...
— Humpty Dumpty's Little Son • Helen Reid Cross

... discontented that for no other reason, he turned his back upon it, and was in so great a hurry to return that he declared that if a vessel were not given him immediately in which to leave, he would swim away. He went away speaking ill of this place, and has caused great annoyance and wrong to these poor soldiers. If a religious who ought to be happy with a hard life, and who ought to seek hardships ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... darkness; reached the plains, and forded Big Goose Creek where snow-water ran breast high. Sergeant Cornwell and Private Collins could not swim, would not try wading, and had to be left in the bushes. The lieutenant promised to send back for them. He dared not delay. Camp was still a dozen miles ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... "I'd swim that far, or drown, even in this sea," muttered Dawson, vengefully, "if I had any idea that our ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... swept the chief from the highest tower, where "he was down an his hard-hearted knees, sayin' his baids as fast as he cud, an' bawlin' at all the saints aither to bring him a boat or taiche him how to swim quick." Regard for the unfortunate tenants, however, prevented any interference by the saints thus vigorously and practically supplicated, so the chief was drowned and went, as the story-teller concluded, to a locality where he "naded ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.



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