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Taper   /tˈeɪpər/   Listen
Taper

verb
(past & past part. tapered; pres. part. tapering)
1.
Diminish gradually.
2.
Give a point to.  Synonyms: point, sharpen.



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"Taper" Quotes from Famous Books



... his wrist. It had not been there before. Of course the spirits had slipped it on. He let this pass then. He had not the discourtesy to explain that a very pretty girl at his side had gently manoeuvred it into its place. Her taper fingers were very soft and ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... watched our pursuers, first one raised a mast and a long taper yard, then another, and they were soon under all sail standing after us. The breeze increased; we gave a cheer, hoping soon to get well ahead of them. Still on they came, and it seemed very doubtful whether we should succeed. I believe that some of the crew would rather have had a fight ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston

... all those natural powers which shape the mould of races, —that you may look in vain for verification of ethnological assertions.... No: the heel does not protrude;—the foot is not flat, but finely arched;—the extremities are not large;—all the limbs taper, all the muscles are developed; and prognathism has become so rare that months of research may not yield a single striking case of it.... No: this is a special race, peculiar to the island as are the shapes of its peaks,—a mountain race; and mountain ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... commonly grows the Piemento, or All-Spice-Tree, whose Berries differ in shape from those in the West-Indies, being Taper or Conick, yet not inferiour, to any of that sort. This Tree grows much like the Hurts, and is of the same Bigness. I have known it transplanted to high ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson

... Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value; they were tall and taper-like firs, but standing near together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... sleeves, which were large, Twenty-four packs of cards, And—On his nails, which were taper, What's common in ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... extraordinarily popular, as, indeed, were all the plays Mrs. Behn marshalls forth in this preface. The scene particularly referred to is Act ii, I: 'Oedipus enters, walking asleep in his Shirt, with a Dagger in his Right-Hand and a Taper in his Left.' A little after 'Enter Jocasta, attended with Lights, in ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... taper-light Shows you how much is spent of night. See, see the bridegroom's torch Half wasted in the porch. And now those tapers five, That show the womb shall thrive, Their silv'ry flames advance, To tell all prosp'rous ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... a drawing of a lathe centre shaded by lines, the lines on the taper parts meeting those on the parallel part A, and becoming more nearly parallel to the axis of the piece as the centre of the piece is approached. The same is the case where a piece having a curved outline is drawn, which is shown in Figure 107, where the set of the bow-pen is gradually increased ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... viz., the Judaic idea of God, the great radiation through which the Deity kept open His communication with man, apparently must more than once have approached an awful struggle for life. This solitary taper of truth, struggling across a howling wilderness of darkness, had it been ever totally extinguished, could probably never have been reillumined. It may seem an easy thing for a mere human philosophy to recover, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... of the day, gave her the demure look of a young woman who might shriek at the sight of a man in his shirt-sleeves. Which shows that it is exceedingly unsafe to judge by appearances,—of a woman, especially. The slender figure showed that the physical indications in the delicately rounded arm, the taper fingers, and shapely feet were justified by the proportionate development of the rest of her anatomy. Nature had been gentle rather than generous. Mlle. Fouchette was in demand for angels ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... story: I will put it into rough English for you.—"I couldn't help laughing to hear one fellow bawling out, so that he might be sure to be heard, a promise to Saint Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... leave it to physiologists and psychologists to account for these sudden exertions of the reluming powers of the mind in the very lowest state of the dying faculties. We see something of the same kind in the physical economy—moments of strength in the most exhausted weakness—bright glows of the taper of life in the socket of death—a collected unity of power in moments of dissolution, as if the spirit made a last struggle to assert its lost authority over the great archangel. I can speak at least to their effects—a wretched boon of nature to miserable man, where he can say no more ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... something in the dark, triumph when the bringing in of a candle discovers the vanity of their fears. For this exposure of supernatural agents upon a stage is truly bringing in a candle to expose their own delusiveness. It is the solitary taper and the book that generates a faith in these terrors: a ghost by chandelier light, and in good company, deceives no spectators,—a ghost that can be measured by the eye, and his human dimensions made out at leisure. The sight of a well-lighted house, and a well-dressed audience, shall arm ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... knowledge, or, as he terms it, wisdom, which is the source of the highest good within the reach of man. The only light which we have to guide us through the murky mazes of existence, is at best but a miserable taper which serves only to render the eternal darkness painfully visible. "I set my heart to learn wisdom and understanding. And my heart discerned much wisdom and knowledge.... I realised that this also is but a grasping of wind."[121] The scenes it reveals in the moral as well as the ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... known by their dissolving with effervescence in any acid, and breaking easily under the needle); these are the 3/2000ths of an inch in their larger external diameter; they are rather deeply imbedded in the outer integument, and taper a little downwards ending in a concave terminal point, into which a minute tubulus enters, like those passing into and through the valves of ordinary Cirripedia: along the axis of imbedment, they are often ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... building. Vinicius sprang to the interior. The little atrium was empty, and dark with smoke. Feeling for the door which led to the sleeping-rooms, he saw the gleaming flame of a small lamp, and approaching it saw the lararium in which was a cross instead of lares. Under the cross a taper was burning. Through the head of the young catechumen, the thought passed with lightning speed that that cross sent him the taper with which he could find Lygia; hence he took the taper and searched for the sleeping-rooms. He found one, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... a melancholy silence, Scholastique left her old wooden chair, fixed a taper on the end of a candlestick, lit it, and placed it near a small waxen Virgin, sheltered in her niche of stone. It was the family custom to kneel before this protecting Madonna of the domestic hearth, and to beg her kindly ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... pronounced, or rather produced, by closing the lips and sending the sound through the nose, either forcibly and suddenly with a quick taper, or the reverse with a quick, short swell; or beginning gently, no bigger than a knitting-needle, and slowly swelling to a certain degree, then suddenly flaring, like the mouth of a dinner-horn. In short, varying according to the feeling or thought to be expressed. Perhaps ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... was one young girl in a hat as wide as a barrel-head standing up where others sat, and blotting out the prospect of half the church with her flaring brim and flaunting feathers. The worshippers came and went, and while the monk preached and reposed a man crept dizzyingly round the cornice with a taper at the end of a long pole lighting the chandeliers, while two other men on the floor kindled the candles before the altars. As soon as their work was completed, the monk, as if he had been preaching against time, sat definitely down and left ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... dark in the coach I didn't know how you looked, and I didn't care; I was so glad to get hold of you. But when your cloak slipped from your shoulders and you—Oh!—you darling Kate!" His eye caught the round of her throat and the taper of her lovely arm—"I am going to kiss you right here—I ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... changed less than the character of the forms they rendered; the conception of the design as a whole had advanced more rapidly than the skill and sleight of hand which expressed it. The engraver has by 1511 become capable of expressing a greater variety of speed in the stroke, makes it taper more finely, and can follow the tongue-like lap and flicker as the pen rises and dips again before leaving the surface of the block (as in the outer ends of the strokes that represent the radiance of the Virgin's glory). Holbein, later on, was to obtain a yet more wonderful ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... wish a brother's love to share"— I did not read thy features dreamingly, And peer into thine eye's deep azure, there Searching another's depths, in revery! I did not press, all passionless, thy hand Or idly dally with thy taper finger, Or coldly gaze, for I could not withstand The high and holy hope which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... previously studied lesson I know not, but it was ill-calculated to raise my failing spirits. "My child, my beloved child!" exclaimed the weeping mother, "fear not, God is merciful and will accept your sincere abhorrence of your fault. I have this day offered in your name a fine wax taper to your patroness, St. Anne, who will, no doubt, intercede for you." "No, no!" replied the unhappy girl, "there is no longer any hope for me; and the torments I now suffer are but the preludes to those which I am doomed to endure everlastingly." This ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... guard-house to taste the soldier's soup; the guard-house is notified and the soup seasoned for the royal palate. Have you seen those pictures in religious books, where a little communicant, with his bow on his arm and his taper in his hand, all combed and curled, goes to assist a poor old man lying on his wretched pallet with the whites of his eyes turned up to the sky? These charitable visits had the same conventional stage-setting and accent. The machine-like gestures ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... the Doric column. Its derivations from the Minoan and Mycenaean columns seems most improbable. There are two essential parts in the Doric column, the shaft and the capital (the Greeks did not use any base for this order). The Minoan columns taper downwards instead of upwards, an utterly unconstructional form, and though in the palace of Knossos and at Tiryns columns of this shape appear to have been used to carry lintels, the stone columns ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... receive the caulking. The bolt holes were cored in the flanges, and the bosses facing the holes were not machined. The customary grout hole was tapped in the center of each plate for a standard 1-1/4-in. pipe. In this work, experience indicated that the standard pipe thread was too fine, and that the taper was objectionable. Each segment weighed, approximately, 2,020 lb., and the key weighed 520 lb., the total weight being 9,102 lb. per lin. ft. of tunnel. Fig. 1 shows the details of the standard ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace, Francis Mason and S. H. Woodard

... better, some one will say. Alas! alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple of Mr. Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at noon- day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming taper. It is making them abandon their ancient literature, their "Mischna," their "Gemara," their "Zohar," for gentility novels, "The Young Duke," the most unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... from the sacristy and lighted two candles on the altar. Then he turned with the taper in his hand and beckoned to Marcos and Juanita to come forward to the rails where two stools had been placed in readiness. The cura went back to the sacristy and returned, followed by the bishop ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... you are, madam. You have had a most fatiguing day. Permit me!" said Mr. Force, and he lighted a wax taper and put ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... London, telling the story of the flight of his brother and the lady. This letter still exists, and its appearance indicates the terror into which it threw the earl. It reached him at midnight. With it came a summons to attend the privy council. He read it apparently by the light of a taper, and with such agitation that the sheet caught fire. The scorched letter still exists, and is burnt through at the most critical part of its story. The poor old earl learned enough to double his terror, and lost the section that would have alleviated ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... placed along the walls, and make very comfortable, easy couches. These pleasant little abodes, in which the greatest cleanliness is everywhere observable, are all surrounded by cultivated gardens. In the evening, they are lighted by the oily nuts of the taper-tree, fastened ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... brotherhood of which he was about to become a member. The same prelate then performed a solemn high mass, and when he had terminated the reading of the gospel, Alexandre-Monsieur knelt before him with a taper of white wax in his hand, to solicit admission into the Order. He had no sooner bent his knee than the King rose, descended the steps of the throne, and placed himself by his side, saying aloud that he put off for awhile his sovereign dignity ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... which I visited the craft every morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie's in time for their six o'clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher's hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... robe, a tartan sheen, 'Till half a leg was scrimply seen: And such a leg! my bonnie Jean Could only peer it; Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean, Nane ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... advancing was hardly more than ten inches broad. Both it and the wall were slimy with dampness, giving no secure hold to hand or foot. The pathway mounted steadily, and apparently pursued a straight course, but no opening showed itself in the distance, and the light of his taper penetrated but a little way into the blackness. As he glanced backward his shadow loomed in a gigantic and almost unrecognisable form, following him waveringly like a malevolent spirit. His footsteps woke hollow reverberations; the water gurgled and sobbed, and an odor suggestive ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... found his way from the hall to his lodging. Neither he nor Rex spoke during the quarter of an hour they employed in reaching the street door, but Rex's arm was aching with the effort of sustaining and directing his companion. He lit a taper and prepared to help him up the stairs. But the sight of the familiar entrance recalled Greif to himself and dissipated the first stupor of his grief. He ascended the steps firmly, though he went like a man overcome with fatigue, to whom every movement is difficult. Still ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... upturned, especially in age, when they begin to loosen and "peel" from the surface of the cap. They are lighter in color than the pileus and I have never observed the yellow tint in them. The gills are white, broad at the middle, about 1 cm., and taper gradually toward each end. The spores are usually inequilaterally oval, 8—10 x 6—7 mu, granular when young, when mature with a large ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... of is just above us," said the Princess then, addressing herself to the Doctor; "would you like to examine it? One of the servants shall bring you a lighted taper, and by passing it in front of the sculpture you will be able to see the design better. Ah, Mr. Murray!" and she smiled as she greeted Denzil, who just then approached. "You are in time to give us your opinion. I want Dr. Dean to see that very old piece of stone carving on the ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... slightest hesitation, she blew out the taper he held in his hand. But, for one instant, he had seen in her face the expression of the dead nun, distinct in the clear light, and close to ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... figure, huddled back among her draperies, and I guessed her to be about of medium height. A fourth lamp showed me her hands, small, firm, white; also I could catch a glimpse of her arm, as it lay outstretched, her fingers clasping a fan. So I knew her arms were round and taper, hence all her limbs and figure finely molded, because nature does not do such things by halves, and makes no bungles in her symmetry of contour when she plans a noble specimen of humanity. Here was a noble specimen of what woman ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... When every one receyved hath this odour, great and small, Then one takes up the pan with Coales, and Franckensence, and all, Another takes the loafe, whom all the rest do follow here, And round about the house they go, with torch or taper clere, That neither bread nor meat do want, nor witch with dreadful charme Have powre to hurt their children, or to do their cattell harme. There are, that three nightes onely do perfourme this foolish geare, To this intent, and thinke themselves in safetie all the yeare. ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going unassoiled to his God, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, "It is a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone out, and presently the grave will extinguish that." She sat quiet and sombre in the growing darkness ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... 'twas a vision! his hour was not yet, And waking, he turn'd on his pallet of straw, And a form by his side he could never forget, By the pale misty light of a taper he saw. "'Tis I! 'tis thy Winifred!"—softly she said, "Arouse thee, and follow—be bold, never fear! There was danger abroad, but my errand has sped, I promised to save ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... exquisite a collection. Pure, thin, rain-water Madeira, full threescore years in bottle! Pale, limpid Port, whose color had long since gone with age, and left only the musk-like odor; flasks of Johannisberg of pearly light; bottles of Tokay for lips of cardinals; tall, slim stems of the taper flasks of the Rhine; while the ruby hues of wine from the Rhone stood clustering about amid pyramids of pine-apples, oranges, and bananas, and all loading the air of the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... was seen, And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of green. His only pastime was to hunt the boar Through tangled thickets of the forest hoar, Or with his jingling mules to hurry down To some grand bull-fight in the neighboring town, Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand, When Jews were burned, or banished from the land. Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy; The demon whose delight is to destroy Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet tone, "Kill! kill! and let the Lord find ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... fine lines are used; but we each have a heavy line for flathead, for these fish are caught in the tidal rivers on a sandy bottom up to three feet and four feet in length. They are in colour, both on back and belly, much like a sole, of great width across the shoulders, and then taper away to a very fine tail. The head is perfectly flat, very thin, and armed on each side with very sharp bones pointing tailward. A stab from one of these causes intense inflammation. The fins are small—so small as to appear almost rudimentary—yet ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... middle finger in ourselves, what has become of the four other fingers or digits? We find in the places of the second and fourth digits only two slender splint-like bones, about two-thirds as long as the cannon-bone, which gradually taper to their lower ends and bear no finger joints, or, as they are termed, phalanges. Sometimes, small bony or gristly nodules are to be found at the bases of these two metacarpal splints, and it is probable that these represent rudiments of the first and fifth toes. Thus, the part of the horse's ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... a cigarette by touch, and opening his match-box, Sam struck a little wax taper, began to light his cigarette, and naturally held the flame so near his face that, as he knelt there, it was well illumined for the benefit of the prowler, who crouched close and stared hard, expecting moment by ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... benefactor. Her motto was:—Let us through simple means seek the elevation of a class of beings whose degradation has distracted the political wisdom of our happy country, from its conquest to the present day. "There's something in it," again mutters Mr. Scranton, as he enters his room, lights his taper, and with his elbow resting on the table, his head supported in his hand, sits ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... 156 a self-wedging mortise and tenon joint used by wheelwrights is shown. The dotted line (left-hand diagram) will indicate the amount of taper given to the mortise. ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... becom'st thy bed! Fresh lily, And whiter than the sheets I That I might touch— But kiss, one kiss—Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus: the flame o' th' taper Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids, To see th' enclosed lights now canopied Under the windows, white and azure, laced With blue of Heav'ns own tinct—on her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... you Taper into a point the ruffled ends Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. My hair is fallen now: knot it ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... passion which had at first view of her possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered taper, glowed an adoration which made him yearn, in defiance of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this beautiful and gracious comrade; though very often pity for her loneliness and knowledge that she dared trust no one save him would ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... Marguerite said: "Mother?" then she dropped as if choking; but the mother, occupied with her last thoughts, did not ask the meaning of the interrogation. At last, Madame Claes wished to seal the letter; Marguerite held the taper, turning aside her head that she ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... appearance of the case regarding that alone, as they then will is fatal to our imperial hopes. The primordial clay claims its own from the disanimated frame; and the vanished life, like the flame of an outburnt taper, has ceased to be. Men are like bubbles or foam flakes on the world's streaming surface: glittering in a momentary ray, they break and are gone, and only the dark flood remains still flowing forward. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... assiduous care he bestowed on his handsome person. His slightly curly, black hair was worn long, so that he might often have occasion to push it back from his forehead, with a hand as white and delicate as a woman's, upon one of whose taper fingers sparkled an enormous diamond—a great deal too big to be real. He was rather fancifully dressed, and always falling into such graceful, languishing attitudes as he thought would be admired by the fair sex, whose devoted slave he was. This Adonis never for one moment laid aside ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... you have by scores in flesh-coloured tights, spangles, and paucity of petticoats; gnomes of every description, from the gigantic glittering diamond beetle, to the grotesque and dusky tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs and swelling busts are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass—dragons vomiting at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains in Trafalgar Square—Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesian owl—and the Seven Champions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... dressing-rooms, libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, oratories, all crowded into the space of a hearthrug. The first night, I remember, with my books and maps about me, I wanted light; they brought me a taper, and immediately from out of the silent Desert there rushed in a flood of life unseen before. Monsters of moths, of all shapes and hues, that never before perhaps had looked upon the shining of a flame, now madly ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... sudden conversion. I never was quite so easy in my mind over it as I pretended to be. I intended to taper off when I got home from the army. And I did, smoked less in three weeks than I used to in one. But one summer I went off on some business for our company, which kept me up in the mountains, among the charcoal-burners, three days longer than I expected. I got out ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... you know. They are not like your wax taper at all; they are little wax matches, that burn just long enough to seal one or two letters; Miss Allen showed me how she used them. Hers were in a nice little box just like the inkstand on the outside; ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... in its parts as to refraction: this hollow Cylinder K is to contain the Sand, and by being drove round very quick to and fro by means of a small Wheel, which may be mov'd with ones foot, serves to grind the Glass: The other Mandril is shap'd like this, but it has an even neck instead of a taper one, and runs in a Collar, that by the help of a Screw and a joynt made like M in the Figure, it can be still adjustned to the wearing or wasting neck: into the end of this Mandril is screwed a Chock N on which with Cement or Glew is ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... church-square. There she joined the little girls of her school; and, arm in arm, they walked along past the dark houses and the silent trees, each whispering her own tale: about her new dress, her veil, her white shoes, her long taper with golden bows; about flowers and ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels

... exclaimed. "Anything the matter, Nat?" and getting up quickly he struck a match and lit a little wax taper that he always carried in the brass match-box, part ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly superfluous seer in the denoument make up the whole sum so far as the Pastor fido is concerned, while the Aminta cannot even show as much as this. In the Faithful Shepherdess we find not only the potent herbs, holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[265]. Alike in its positive and negative aspects ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... came in a little later. As soon as he saw Alice he frowned and began to shake his head; but she only laughed, and imitating his hypocritical scowl, yet fringing it with a twinkle of merry lines and dimples, pointed a taper ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... patrol towards Vieda, and set out early in the morning with his party. It seemed that they succeeded perfectly, and were returning to the lines, when poor Sparks, always susceptible where the sex are concerned, saw, or thought he saw, a lattice gently open as he rode from the village, and a very taper finger make a signal to him. Dropping a little behind the rest, he waited till his men had debouched upon the road, when riding quietly up, he coughed a couple of times to attract the fair unknown; a handkerchief waved from the lattice in reply, which was speedily closed, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... was for $1,000. After all, it was more than I had ever before held in my hand at once. But what was a paltry thousand, aye a paltry ten thousand, to a man's pride? I bit off the end of my cigar, creased the check into a taper, and struck a match. I watched it burn and burn. I struck another. I held it within an inch of the check, but for the life of me I ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... saw the notary look over the will, while Schmucke lighted a taper (Pons watching her reflection all the while in a mirror). She saw the envelope sealed, saw Pons give it to Schmucke, and heard him say that it must be put away in a secret drawer in his bureau. Then the testator asked for the key, tied it to the corner of his handkerchief, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... At first she felt a little shy, and all her surroundings were so strange, the piano was so big; she touched it with her small, taper fingers, and it seemed to her that the deep, soft notes were going to overpower her. Then she looked at Miss Goring and felt uncomfortable; but she touched the notes again, and she began to forget the room, and Miss Goring, and the grand piano; ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... I beg pardon! Have you been long here?" said the most soft and insinuating voice, while the speaker passed his taper fingers across his brow, as if to dissipate the traces of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... Thy anchor heave, And close upon my thunder-pulsing breast, O ship, Thou would'st tremble, nor repine, That being mine, Thy spars, Like long pale lights of falling stars, Plunged in the Stygian blackness of the sea, And to billowy ruin cast Thy tall and taper mast, Rushed shrieking headlong down to an abyss. O ship! O love! if Death Were such sure portion, thou could'st not refuse But thou would'st choose As mine to die, and call such choosing bliss; For thou for me ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... sixty is the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses. The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a mile in five minutes; but when one comes to the fractions below, they taper down until somewhere about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of masses have been studied more than averages of maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar-General's Reports, that a certain number of children—say from one to two dozen—die every year in England from drinking hot water out of ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... the pink of venerable sweetness. Age, probably in consequence of inordinate precautions, had left no mark upon his hands; and the Maletroit hand was famous. It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in design; the taper, sensual fingers were like those of one of Leonardo's women; the fork of the thumb made a dimple protuberance when closed; the nails were perfectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It rendered his aspect tenfold ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... candle which was lit on Easter Eve and burnt until Ascension Day. The kindling of this light was carried out in a very ceremonious manner as enjoined in Lanfranc's statutes. A fire was made in the cloister and duly consecrated, and the monks, having lit a taper at this fire carried it on the end of a staff in solemn procession, singing psalms and hymns and burning incense, and lit the paschal candle in the choir ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... eyes whose living lustre shed the heat Of bright meridian day; the heavenly mould Of that angelic form; the hands, the feet, The taper arms, the crisped locks of gold; Charms that the sweets of paradise enfold; The radiant lightning of her angel-smile, And every grace that could the sense beguile Are now a pile of ashes, deadly cold! And yet I bear to drag this cumbrous chain, That weighs my soul ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... above. Claudius Ptolemaeus, an excellent describer of the world, has made mention of it in the second book of his work, saying: "There is a great island situated in the surge of the northern Ocean, Scandza by name, in the shape of a juniper leaf with bulging sides that taper down to a point at a long end." Pomponius Mela also makes mention of it as situated in the Codan Gulf of the sea, with ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes

... men and women,—have taken up and borne aloft, as if on hands and shoulders, the one chance human body that is brought in to land, and the long spur, from which man's dancing cordage wastes by degrees, find yields its place to long, green streamers, much like those that clung to this tall, taper tree when it stood in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... himself represents him in a dark doublet having wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided slightly ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... one spark Of pity in that steel-grey glance which gleamed At the poor hoof's protesting as it stamped Idly the granite? Let me glide unseen From thy proud presence: well may'st thou be queen Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped So oft Love's torch and Hymen's taper lit For happy marriage till the maidens paled And perished on the temple-step, assailed By—what except to envy must man's wit Impute that sure implacable release Of life from warmth and ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... performed, and the body was conveyed to the tomb. A large procession, headed by the Czar, the Czarina, and all the chief nobility of the court, followed in the funeral train. The Czar and all the other mourners carried in their hands a small wax taper burning. The ladies were all dressed in black silks. It was said by those who were near enough in the procession to observe the Czar that he went weeping ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... might have nobody with him; but in no wise Sir Bors would unarm him, but so he laid him down upon the bed. And right so he saw come in a light, that he might well see a spear great and long that came straight upon him pointling, and to Sir Bors seemed that the head of the spear brent like a taper. And anon, or Sir Bors wist, the spear head smote him into the shoulder an hand-breadth in deepness, and that wound grieved Sir Bors passing sore. And then he laid him down again for pain; and anon therewithal there came a knight armed with his shield on his shoulder and his ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... And clogging harrows with augmented toil Dive deep: and clinging mixes with the mould A fat'ning treasure from the nightly fold, And all the cow-yard's highly valu'd store, That late bestrew'd the blacken'd surface o'er. No idling hours are here, when Fancy trims Her dancing taper over outstretch'd limbs, And in her thousand thousand colours drest, Plays round the grassy couch of noontide rest: Here GILES for hours of indolence atones With strong exertion, and with weary bones, And knows no leisure; till the distant chime Of Sabbath bells he hears at sermon time, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield

... precipitous morass to the river's brink. A slender pine-tree spanned the screaming foam and bent midway to touch the water. The surge beat upon the taper trunk and gave it a rhythmical swaying motion, while the feet of the packers had worn smooth its wave-washed surface. Eighty feet it stretched in ticklish insecurity. Frona stepped upon it, felt it move beneath her, heard the bellowing of the water, saw the mad rush—and ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... heavy wain, Reels with the happy harvest grain. While with many-colored leaves, Glitters the garland on the sheaves; For the mower's work is done, And the young folks' dance begun! Desert street, and quiet mart;— Silence is in the city's heart; And the social taper lighteth; Each dear face that home uniteth; While the gate the town before Heavily swings ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... in its smartly buckled shoe—not slightly to her discomfort, as she was unaccustomed to be shod in walking far; only as Philip had accompanied them home, neither she nor Molly had liked to go barefoot. Her round mottled arm and ruddy taper hand drew out the flax with nimble, agile motion, keeping time to the movement of the wheel. All this Philip could see; the greater part of her face was lost to him as she half averted it, with a ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... a great Writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a Person of an ordinary Genius. For there is as much Difference in apprehending a Thought cloathed in Cicero's Language, and that of a common Author, as in seeing an Object by the Light of a Taper, or by the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... off," cried the boy, drawing a deep long breath, as he eagerly looked round the deck and up at the rigging of the smart schooner, whose raking taper masts and white canvas gave her quite the look of ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... the child had no doubt contrived to make her way into the great gloomy cavern of the grim Doctor's heart, and stole constantly further and further in, carrying a ray of sunshine in her hand as a taper to light her way, and illuminate the rude dark pit into which she ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... remember anything about her. She died when I was a young slip—a mere child, I believe. Still," she proceeded, rather slowly, musing and putting her beautiful and taper fingers to her chin—"I think that I do remember—it's like a dhrame to me though, an' I dunna but it is one—still it's like a dhrame to me, that I was wanst in her arms, that I was cryin', an' that she kissed me—that she kissed me! If she had lived, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... had done all the growth for both himself and Felix, and was doing his best to be a light of the Church by resembling nothing but an altar-taper. When they all repaired to the back of the cupboard door in Mr. Audley's room to be measured, his head was found far above Edgar's mark at fourteen, and therewith he was lank and thin, not yet accustomed to the length of his own legs and arms, and seeming as if ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... luminous instantly as he met her gaze, while he captured her small hand and toyed with the rosy, taper fingers. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... dip the taper wing— The pilgrim there his thirst assuage, The wandering minstrel sit and sing, Or muse upon ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham

... bears also the name of Hedge Taper, and used to be called Torch, because the stalks were dipped in suet, and burnt for giving light at funerals and other gatherings. "It is a plant," says the Grete Herball, "whereof is made a manner of lynke if ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... deciduous, ovate to lance-oblong, 3 to 5 in. long, taper-pointed, thin, smooth, sharply serrate. Fruit red, on short stems, with the seeds many-ribbed on the back. Usually a shrub but sometimes tree-like; damp woods in the Catskills and in ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... the usual growth to which they attained, though at the back of the run they were much larger. Spaniards grow in clusters, or patches, among the tussocks on the plains, and constitute a most unpleasant feature of the vegetation of the country. Their leaves are as firm as bayonets, and taper at the point to the fineness of a needle, but are not nearly so easily broken as a needle would be. No horse will face them, preferring a jump at the cost of any exertion, to the risk of a stab from the cruel points. The least touch of this green bayonet draws ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... gentlemen who have nothing to do but think for slaves, to enjoy the chase and the race-ground, to extol their pedigree, and traduce labor, and lead retainers to war—would be a government for the few over the many, an aristocracy of blood and privilege, of curled moustache and taper fingers; but not a republic of patriots, of self-made men, of equal privilege and just laws. It would be a return to semi-barbarism, to the age of Louis XIV., or ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams

... should never be ground to a long, tapering point, like a wood chisel. The proper taper for a wood chisel is 15 degrees, whereas a cold chisel should be 45 degrees. A drifting chisel may have a longer taper than one ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... love these many years?" He heard no echo calling faintly: "Lo, she lieth cold and pale, And her smile so calm and saintly Heeds not grieving sob or wail— Heeds not the lilies strewn upon her, Pure as she is, and as white, Or the solemn chanting voices, Or the taper's ghastly light." But silent still was the ancient forest, Silent were the gloomy trees, He only heard the wailing sound Of the summer breeze, That sadly played around ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... and showed us the hole in the rock of Calvary, where the cross was planted. Close beside it was the fissure produced by the earthquake which followed the Crucifixion. But, to my eyes, aided by the light of the dim wax taper, it was no violent rupture, such as an earthquake would produce, and the rock did not appear to be the same as that of which Jerusalem is built. As we turned to leave, a monk appeared with a bowl of sacred rose-water, which he sprinkled on our hands, bestowing ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... above the middle height of women, both exquisitely formed, with figures delicate and slender, yet full withal, and voluptuously rounded, with the long taper hands, the small and shapely feet and ankles, the swan-like necks, and classic heads gracefully set on, which are held to denote, in all countries, the predominance of gentle blood; when seen at a distance, and judged by the person only, it would have been almost impossible ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... the taper Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids, To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied Under these windows, white and azure, lac'd With blue of ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... his heart As I had, when the wind did part The jasmine-leaves, and there within The new-lit taper glimmered thin? ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... artificial helps are summed up by the Jesuit And. Schottus. I remember that Monsieur Huygens (author of the pendulum), who brought up the learned father of that incomparable youth Monsieur de Zulichem, who used to prescribe to me the benefit of his little wax taper (a type whereof is, with the history of it, in some of our Registers) for night elucubrations, preferable to all other candle or lamp light whatsoever. And because it explodes all glaring of the flame, which by no means ought to dart upon the eyes, it seems ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... is placed in a bell-jar, filled with water, held over a basin containing water; the volume of the water decreases, and the air in the bell-jar takes fire when a lighted taper is brought into it. ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... away an hour before dawn, and by broad sun-up had made eight or ten miles, and were in the midst of a sparsely settled country. I had a pretty heavy knapsack; it was laden with provisions—provisions for the king to taper down on, till he could take to the coarse fare of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... therefore be more reliant on export markets at the same time they are being squeezed by the strong franc. Consequently, growth in machinery and equipment investment, for example, is expected to taper off. On the other side, import growth in 1997 also is likely to be lower than the 1995 rate of 6.6%, but ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... a lot of Archer," Beamish remarked, "but I never thought so much of him as that night we drew lots for who should put Coburn out of the way. When he drew the long taper he never as much as turned a hair. That's the last time we had a full meeting, and we never reckoned that ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... in gold, was sitting on a still higher throne, with three golden crowns upon her head, and she was surrounded with priestly state. On each side of her were two rows of candles, the biggest as thick as a tower, down to the tiniest little taper. Kings and emperors were on their knees ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... eyes, or lamps are burning, side chapels pass unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The mairie, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more interesting. Beside the mairie a medieval square tower, which may have been a donjon, was occupied ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons

... together and melts them into one glowing and glorious conception of the God of power, wisdom and love. But even then the heart whispers: "He is that, and infinitely more than that, even as the sun is more than the little taper man has made." But if the reason and memory, through misuse, furnish but few of the truths about God, and if the imagination has been weakened in its power, then how poor the picture the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... 40 cubic inches, which contain a little less than 10 cubic inches of oxygen; and of those 10 inches, one-eighth is converted into carbonic acid gas on passing once through the lungs*, a change which is sufficient to prevent air which has only been breathed once from suffering a taper to burn ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... their wings; while beyond rose a range of smooth downs, the intermediate space being sprinkled over with neat farmhouses and labourers' cottages; and rising above the trees appeared the grey, ivy-covered tower of the parish church, with the taper spire pointing upwards to the clear blue sky—not more clear or bright, though, than his Mary's eyes; so True Blue thought, whether ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... conducive to health. Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace undertook the office for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these to remain in their dwellings ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and, at the same time, gently pressed the girl's taper fingers. They were soft and velvety to his touch. A delightful thrill shot through him at the contact. The flower-girl evinced no displeasure. Clearly she was accustomed to such advances. The Viscount slipped a gold coin of considerable ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg

... together; 'Tis strange as to a deaf man's eye, While trees uprooted splinter by, The dumb turmoil of stormy weather; Less of iconoclast than shaper, His spirit, safe behind the reach Of the tornado of his speech, Burns calmly as a glowworm's taper. 90 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... back entrance from the portico. One of these men, a tall fellow with an ugly scowl, came forward, holding a pair of keys in his hand, and after a moment's parley with the kavass unlocked a heavily ironed door, lighting a taper at the lantern. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... frame. It was nearly dark, but the great windows smouldered with deep fiery stains, and showed here and there a pale face, or the outline of a mysterious form, or an intricacy of twined tabernacle-work. Only a taper or two were lit in the shadowy choir; and a light in the organ-loft sent strange shadows, a waving hand or a gigantic arm, across the roof, while the quiet movements of the player were heard from time to time, the passage of his feet across the gallery, ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... into the room at their left showed signs of recent occupancy. His quick survey marked an oil lamp in the corner, which, upon investigation, proved to be in working order, so he lit it with the end of his expiring taper. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... was the lady's name, Miss Wilmot and I made attempts to entertain each other. Her person was tall, her shape taper, her complexion delicate, and her demeanour easy. Her remarks were not profound, but they were delivered without pretension. She was more inclined to let the conversation die away than to sustain it by that flux of tongue, which afflicted the ear at the house of the Ellis's. Her countenance was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... the brilliant figures swimming in the glow of wax candles. Face after face could be singled out as beautiful, and the scant dresses revealed taper forms. Madame de Ferrier's garments may have been white or blue or yellow; I remember only her satin arms and neck, the rosy color of her face, and the powder on her hair making it white as down. Where this assembly was collected from I did not know, but it acted ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... sucking sound which about this time began to be heard from the bottom, appeared to be giving notice that it would soon require replenishment from a certain canister which, together with a lighted taper, stood ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt

... king, and she joined him in acts of witchcraft in order to bring this about. She was condemned (October, 1441) to do penance by walking three successive days in a white sheet and carrying a lighted taper, starting each day from St. Paul's and visiting certain churches. Her husband, says the chronicler Grafton, "took all patiently and said little." Still retaining some power in the Council, he lived until 1447, when he died and was buried at ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham

... with details with little taper-finger touches of nicety, but she could not judge as well as he of generalities and the final scope of combinations. It was doubtful if Abigail ever fairly appreciated ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... converted into carbonic acid gas and water. It is not difficult to prove these statements to be facts. A candle will not burn in atmospheric air which has been deprived of its oxygen, because there is no substance present with which the elements of the taper can combine, consequently the process of combustion cannot go on. Now, a man may in one respect be compared with this taper. He is partly made up of fat; that fat is consumed by the oxygen of the air, and the heat developed thereby keeps the body warm. In the process of ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... her desk, and lighting a taper, tied and sealed the packet; then she opened the wardrobe, drew out a despatch-box, and deposited the letters within it. As she did so, it struck her with a flash of irony that she was indebted to Gus Trenor for the means ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... out," said Miriam with a smile, remarking the bewilderment of her guest—who in truth forgot to smoke—and taking up a thousand pound note from a bundle on the piano, she lighted it at the taper and proceeded to re-illumine the extinguished chibouk ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her composition a strong vein of the superstitious, and was pleased, among other fancies, to read alone in her chamber by a taper fixed in a candlestick which she had formed out of a human skull. One night, this strange piece of furniture acquired suddenly the power of locomotion, and, after performing some odd circles on her chimneypiece, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... when a small party of idle boys and ragamuffins happened to come that way intent on mischief, if they could possibly achieve it. One of them with a grave air walked up to the old woman's table, and, taking a taper in one hand and a saint in the other, inquired the price of the articles. A loud ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... enthusiasm of the morning was quite died out, or she chose to be in a different mood. She fell to joking about the dowdy appearance of Lady Betty, and mimicked the vulgarity of Mrs. Steele; and then she put up her little hand to her mouth and yawned, lighted a taper, and shrugged her shoulders, and dropping Mr. Esmond a saucy curtsy, sailed ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "The more the natives progress the more nearly they'll equal our abilities. I wouldn't want anything to happen to our overall plans. As it is now, their abilities taper off at sixty and they reach senility at seventy or eighty. I think until the end we should ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... man of simple mind, Gamaliel Nibbs by name, Whose early faith in human kind Burned like a Vestal flame; No wind of doubt that stirs the dust Fluttered that bright and constant taper; But oh, he had his dearest trust Pinned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various

... metallic rod terminating in a point be attached to the conductor of an electrical machine, electricity escapes in large quantities from the point. A continuous current is thus kept up and the flame of a taper, if placed in front of the current, is blown in a horizontal direction. Wind is thus manufactured on a ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... middle hour of night She sought no soft relief, But, by her taper's misty light, Sate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... touched the painted windows; The yellow dawn creeps down the storied panes; Already, in the early solemn twilight, The sanctuary's taper softly wanes. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... obviously been so placed there that his eye might rest on them every morning before he began his tasks. These were the old-fashioned boxes that had garnished his mother's toilette, when he, a sickly child, slept in her dressing-room,—the silver taper-stand, which the young advocate had bought for her with his first five-guinea fee,—a row of small packets inscribed with her hand, and containing the hair of those of her offspring that had died before her,—his father's snuff-box, and etui-case,—and ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... petitions, watched the farther door with quivering lips, or sighed when it opened, and emitted merely a councillor or a marquis. Several times a masked lady flitted through the crowd, with a bow here and the honour of her taper fingers there. The windows were open, the summer air entered; and the murmur of the throng without, mingling with the stir of talk within, seemed to add to the light ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... dignity, sitting upright and stiff like a pagan idol, dressed in a magnificent and fantastic purple robe, with a great double ruff, like a huge collar, behind her head; a long taper waist, voluminous skirts spread all over the cushions, embroidered with curious figures and creatures. Over her shoulders, but opened in front so as to show the ropes of pearls and the blaze of jewels on the stomacher, was a purple velvet mantle lined with ermine, with pearls sewn ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... who, in his gold-laced robe, and bare head crowned with a golden wreath, ascended the steps of the altar with pale and sober mien, bowing low as the music swelled, and folding his small white hands upon his breast. The squire's Barbara, who carried a burning taper wreathed with rosemary, had gone before him and took her stand at the side of the altar. The mass began; and at the tinkling of the bell all fell upon their faces, and not a sound would have been heard, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... and Miriam clung to her affrighted, Ithiel struck iron and flint together. Catching the spark upon tinder he blew it to a flame and lighted a taper which burnt up slowly, causing his white beard and face to appear by degrees out of the darkness, like that of a ghost ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... the heath and o'er the moorland Blows the wild gust high and higher, Suddenly the maiden pauses Spinning at the cabin fire, And quick from her taper fingers Falls away the flaxen thread, As some neighbor entering, whispers, "Jessie Carol lieth dead." Then, as pressing close her forehead To the window-pane, she sees Two stout men together digging Underneath ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading. And he could not get ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... of moulds for casting inter-cell connectors, terminals, terminal screws, taper lugs, plate straps and ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte

... did not know,—a new arrival. Just then Miss Stanley looked round, saw her, and signalled smilingly to her to come and join them. Slowly she walked towards the little party, still twirling the card in her taper fingers. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... a woman is not perpetually tyrannized over, she reduces the man to the condition of a slave. Under this aspect du Bousquier was again the antithesis of the chevalier. When he made his final remark, he flung his night-cap to the foot of the bed, as Pope Gregory did the taper when he fulminated an excommunication; Suzanne then learned for the first time that du Bousquier wore a toupet ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... the winter gales that wreck the hardwood trees leave them untouched. This is the more strange as pines rarely root deeply. The roots, even of old trees seventy to one hundred feet in height, rarely go into the earth more than two or three feet, taper rapidly and extend not usually over twenty feet on every side. In young trees twenty or twenty-five feet tall the roots do not penetrate more than fifteen or eighteen inches, yet great old trees stand alone in pasture and on hilltop, exposed to all the fury of the fiercest gales, rarely ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard

... their possession five spiked helmets which they had taken as trophies from the heads of dead Germans. It was suggested that since all ordinary means of lighting had been destroyed by these same Germans, their casques might fittingly be used as candlesticks, and each bear a taper upon its point. This suggestion was about to be put into effect when M. Guyot, whose business had been so recently ruined and whose house had been ruthlessly pillaged by these invaders, quietly made objection and said that it was not fitting or proper that the headgear of fallen soldiers should ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... newly-disgorged wine are going on. Another flight of steps leads to the second tier of cellars, where the moisture trickles down the dank dingy walls, and save the dim light thrown out by the candles we carried, and by some other far-off flickering taper stuck in a cleft stick to direct the workmen, who with dexterous turns of their wrists give a twist to the bottles, all is darkness. On every side bottles are reposing in various attitudes, the majority in huge square piles on their sides, others in racks slightly tilted, others, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly



Words linked to "Taper" :   change shape, convexity, vigil candle, lessen, kerosene lamp, wick, rush candle, chandlery, diminish, unpointedness, candlewick, sharpen, rushlight, tapering, pointedness, cord, kerosine lamp, dip, change form, fall, deform, vigil light, candle, convex shape, taper file, lamp, decrease, narrowing, oil lamp, acuminate, taper off



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