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Tightness   /tˈaɪtnəs/   Listen
Tightness

noun
1.
A state occasioned by scarcity of money and a shortage of credit.  Synonym: stringency.
2.
A tight feeling in some part of the body.  Synonym: constriction.  "She felt an alarming tightness in her chest" , "Emotion caused a constriction of his throat"
3.
The spatial property of being crowded together.  Synonyms: compactness, concentration, denseness, density.
5.
Lack of movement or room for movement.  Synonym: tautness.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tightness" Quotes from Famous Books



... excel the supremely good American tailor—whose clothes however are identical in every particular with those of London, and their right to be called "best" is for greater perfection of workmanship and fit. This last is a dangerous phrase; "fit" means perfect set and line, not plaster tightness. ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... recommends putting the seals under water, but I cannot think that this is a good plan, for if air can get in, why not water? which has its surface tension in its favour. The same reasoning prevents my recommending a layer of sulphuric acid above the mercury-a method used for securing air-tightness in "mercury joints" by Mr. ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... hind-quarters by bringing over a bit of the sky. Such a dress! white greatcoat, blue satin cravat, hair oiled and curling, hat of the primest curve, gloves scented with eau-de-Cologne, primrose in tint, skin in tightness. In this prime of dandyism, he took up a nasty, oily, dirty hog-tool, and immortalised Copenhagen by touching the sky. I thought after he was gone, "This won't do—a Frenchman touch Copenhagen!" So out I rubbed all he had touched, and modified his ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... was dying then, so desolate and so dreary the future looked to her. What was life worth without Guy, and why had she been thrown so much in his way; why permitted to love him as she knew she did, if she must lose him now? Maddy could not cry; there was a tightness about her eyes, and a keen, cutting pain about her heart as she tried to pray for strength to do what was right—strength to cast Guy Remington from her heart where it was a sin for him to be; and then she asked to be forgiven ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... Tom's fingers were stiff from the lack of circulation of blood. But finally he managed to free himself. When he stood up in the dim storeroom, that was now a prison for all save Koku, he found that he could not walk. He almost toppled over, so weak were his legs from the tightness of the ropes. He sat down and worked his muscles ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton

... cavalry and artillery, and the dragoons, hussars and lancers, the beautiful horses, the capital riders, the wonderful wagons and guns, seemed even more theatrical than military. This came, in a great measure, from the freshness and tidiness of their accessories—the brightness and tightness of uniforms, the polish of boots and buckles, the newness of leather and paint. None of these things were the worse for wear: they had the bloom of peace still upon them. As I looked at the show, and then afterward, in charming company, went winding back to camp, passing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... men and women, the endless groups, the landscape back-ground, the cloud and the rainbow, and enriches our imaginations and relieves one passion by another, and expands and lightens reflection, and takes away that tightness at the breast which arises from thinking or wishing to think that there is nothing in the world out of a man's self!—In this point of view, the Author of Waverley is one of the greatest teachers of morality that ever lived, by emancipating the mind from petty, narrow, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... she not by his side? The regeneration of Ireland and of Man? That could be done also; a little leisure and everything that can be thought can be done: even his good looks might be returned to him: he felt the sting and tightness of his bruises and was reassured, exultant. He was a man predestined to bruises; they would be his meat and drink and happiness, his refuge and sanctuary forever. Let us leave him, then, pacing volubly by the side of Mary, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... sailed to the front. She was dressed in a new black alpaca which rustled so very much like silk that nearsighted people might have been deceived by it. With her was a man, apparently suffering from strangulation because of the height and tightness of his collar. "It's Caleb Pratt, from Sandwich," whispered Didama. "Thankful Payne's relation, you know. Have you heard what folks are sayin'? I guess it's true, because—Look at Kyan! you'd think he was goin' to ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... other hand, the people were badly off, when the fishing or the harvest failed, when a tightness of money stopped supplies, so that bankruptcies, distress warrants, and forced sales by auction, with heavy law charges were frequent, then it was ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... and dipped, causing the unanchored ladder to sway and twist until with each convulsive jerk I expected to be thrown off. I bruised and burned my palms with the tightness of my grip, my knees twitched and my face and back and chest were wet. But in spite of all this, waves of thankfulness ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... stick that will form the outside of the curve; the top end is then fitted into a grooved iron shoulder which determines the size of the crook, the other end being brought round so as to point in the opposite direction; the metal band during this process binding with increasing tightness against the stretching fibers of the wood, so that they cannot snap or give way under the strain. The crook having been made, the next thing is to fix it, or remove from the fibers the reaction of elasticity, which would otherwise, on the cessation of the bending ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... insupportable was the recollection of my beloved Charmettes, of my garden, my trees, my fountain, my orchard, and above all of her for whom I felt myself born and who gave life to it all. As I thought of her, of our pleasures, our guileless days, I was seized by a tightness in my heart, a stopping of my breath, which robbed me of all spirit."[105] For years to come this was a kind of far-off accompaniment, thrumming melodiously in his ears under all the discords of a miserable life. He made another effort to quicken the dead. Throwing up his office with his usual ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... such a nice-looking page, and the good lady was flattered by their wonder. But she knew the world too well to be sure of him yet. She knew that it is difficult, in the human tree, to distinguish between blossom and fruit. Deeds of lovely impulse are the blossom; unvarying, determined Tightness is ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... extremely fond of this sister, and felt what he considered an unmanly tightness about his throat when she kissed him. The bridesmaids were decidedly tearful, and only the thought of the other wedding in prospect restored their cheerfulness. This last-mentioned affair took place ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... faces slobbered over with tears, as we stood marked for execution! Never was there a finer specimen of deprecation in eloquence than we then exhibited—the supplicating look right up into the master's face—the touching modulation of the whine—the additional tightness and caution with which we grasped the waistbands with one hand, when it was necessary to use the other in wiping our eyes and noses with the polished sleeve-cuff—the sincerity and vehemence with which we promised never to be guilty ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... curious pathological fact, that during the progress of Spermatorrhoea, difficulty of breathing, cough, and tightness of the chest, arising in many constitutions from the seminal disorder, have sometimes been actually mistaken for pulmonary consumption. The cough is often distressing, occasionally attended by an expectoration of an offensive kind. There is no doubt ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... MARKISS, stooping down a little stiffly (owing to the tightness of the hose), turned a clock-key. After a few rotations, the dog, being set in the right direction, moved out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various

... at the sight of her made a tightness round her heart. He did not look ill, only, in some unaccountable way, he seemed to have grown smaller. There was, too, even an extra pink flush ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... fail to see—the change that day by day came over our reserved companion. The stern line of her lips relaxed. In amazement one day we heard her laugh. Then her laughter began to break forth on all occasions; and we listened to her singing above in her room, and we smiled at each other. That tightness of her brow dissolved in a carefree radiance. At work, she mixed up her faultless card catalogues and laughed at her mistakes. Once, during our busy hours of distribution, we caught her blithely granting the request of fat Mere Copillet for a cook ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... is in it All its mystery and its magic, All the tightness of the birch-tree, All the toughness of the cedar, All the larch's supple sinews. And it floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... domestic life; and yet he thought Mrs. Glegg's household ways a model for her sex. It struck him as a pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their table-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did, if their pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damson cheese a less venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiar combination of grocery and druglike odors in Mrs. Glegg's private cupboard impressed him as the ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... bank they closed, after a desperate lunge parried by the unprotected arm of Michael. It was disabled—but he still clung to his enemy. Anthony strove to disengage himself; but the other, aware that life or death depended on the issue of that struggle, hung on him with a convulsive tightness that rendered the advantage he had gained of no avail. The sword was useless. Anthony threw it into the boiling gulf at his feet. Both hands being now free, whilst one arm of his opponent hung powerless ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... The tightness of the box in which the Dead Man was placed, produced no small inconvenience to that worthy, who during the passage was nearly suffocated; however, he consoled himself with the thought that in a short time he would be free. The box was ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... on its descent from the seventh rib to the sternum at the lower point and down to fourth lumbar vertebra. It is a continuous slanting floor, above bowels and abdominal organs, and below heart and lungs. It must, by all reason, be kept normal in tightness at all places, without a fold or wrinkle, that could press the aorta, nerves, oesophagus, or anything that contributes to the supply or circulation of any vital substance. Now can there be any move in spine or ribs ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... cases its tightness prevents the escape of the sebaceous matter that collects in the sulcus back of the corona, and the resulting irritation on the surface of the glans and the inner mucous fold of the prepuce ends in an inflammatory ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... feet from the ground. A pile of wood was collected and a fire lit and the brands made red-hot. Green-hide ropes were uncoiled to get the kinks out and coiled again ready for instant use, and every horseman saw to the tightness of his saddle-girth. Mick stood near the tree waiting to brand and cut, and with him were Fiddle-head and Jack Johnson for the front and back leg ropes, and Eagle to keep the brands hot and hand them when required. Poona and Uncle were each armed with a long pliant bull-hide lasso, ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman

... Nichols. I met his wife. She was a woman of twenty-eight, I should think, though of a type whose age is always doubtful; for she cannot have looked different when she was twenty, and at forty would look no older. She gave me an impression of extraordinary tightness. Her plain face with its narrow lips was tight, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her smile was tight, her hair was tight, her clothes were tight, and the white drill she wore had all the effect of black ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... against him as he went. He slid his arm round her waist. Feeling the strong motion of her body under his arm as she walked, the tightness in his chest because of Miriam relaxed, and the hot blood bathed him. He held her ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... taste; tightness and burning in the throat; pain in the back part of the mouth, stomach, and bowels; anxiety of countenance; nausea; and vomiting of bloody and bilious fluids; profuse purging, and difficulty of making water; pulse small, hard, and quick; skin clammy, icy coldness of the hands and feet; ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... was soon in a deplorable condition, with hands swollen terribly from the tightness of the ligature, and his feet gashed and bleeding, as he trudged along the trail beneath his enormous burden. He begged the savages to knock him on the head and end his sufferings; but he was soon to experience even more horrible ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... while at esophagoscopy the usual resistance at the hiatus esophageus is found not to be increased, and no other local lesion is found as the esophagoscope enters the stomach. It is the failure of the diaphragmatic pinchcock to open, as in the normal deglutitory cycle, rather than a spasmodic tightness, that obstructs the food. The presence of organic stenosis at the hiatus may remove the case altogether from the spasmodic class, or a cicatricial or infiltrated narrowing may be the result of static esophagitis. A compressive stenosis due to hepatic abnormality may simulate ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... out the old-fashioned bell-handle her face sickened as she stood and she was down the steps again, the tightness squeezing her throat, her gloved hands fumbling the gate latch, and her knee flung ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... bull. He selects from the suspicious herd some fine young three-year old, grazing somewhat apart from the main body, and creeps silently towards it. Suddenly the lasso flies in snaky coils over the head of the beast, and is drawn with strangulating tightness about its neck. At the first plunge, a brother hatero lassoes the animal's hind legs, and it is permitted to rear and kick as frantically as it can, until it drops to the ground exhausted and strangled. The Llanero immediately approaches ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... silent for some time, but the rigidity of her attitude, and the tightness with which she pressed her lips together, showed that her mind was deeply occupied. They both sat silent for some few moments, looking down toward the distant lights of the city. At the farther end of ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... not drawn a breath since he entered the room. Her life had been standing still, waiting till these few stupendous seconds were over. Now they were gone and she could take up life where it had left off. The tightness in her throat relaxed. The crisis was over, the turning point was behind her. He had failed her, and he would have to pay. He would have to pay with months, even years of waiting. For it had never occurred to Anne Tresslyn to doubt ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... sniffed at her hands, and smelt her dress. Maggie screamed when they approached her, but Polly patted their heads. She was not really afraid of them, neither was she greatly alarmed at the thought of the wife of Micah Jones. What oppressed her, and brought that feeling of tightness to her throat, and that smarting weight of tears to her eyes, were the great multitude of stars in the dark-blue heavens, and the infinite and grand solitude of ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... the pitch of sound depends on the rapidity of the vibrations. This depends on the length of cords and their tightness for the shorter and tighter a string is, the higher is the note which its vibration produces. The vocal cords of women are about one-third shorter than those of men, hence the higher pitch of the notes they produce. In children the vocal cords are shorter than in adults.[50] The cords ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... try on the breeches—the latter fitting him like a picture, and quite concealing any deficiencies in the matter of his thighs and calves (though, when buckled behind, they left his stomach projecting like a drum). True, the customer remarked that there appeared to be a slight tightness under the right armpit, but the smiling tailor only rejoined that that would cause the waist to fit all the better. "Sir," he said triumphantly, "you may rest assured that the work has been executed exactly ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... the kids were fed and sent to school by robots. It was just that—well today seemed sort of special. Downstairs Amelia, the roboservant, placed hot cereal on the table before him. After he had forced a few bites past the tightness in his throat, Amelia checked the temperature and his clothing and let him out the door. The newest school was only a few blocks from his home, and Johnny could ...
— There Will Be School Tomorrow • V. E. Thiessen

... laughter when I come to that line. I ken fine they're no laughin' at the wee joke sae much as at what they're thinkin' o' me and a' they've heard o' my tightness and closeness. Do they think any Scot wad care for the cost of a stamp? Maybe it would anger an Englishman did a postcard come tae him wi'oot a stamp. It wad but amuse a Scot; he'd no be carin' one ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... stone-miner in the same coal-pit, where gunpowder was used extensively in the operations. About six months after he commenced stone-mining, he became affected with a short tickling cough, expectoration of pearly tenacious phlegm, hurried breathing, tightness across the chest, frequent pulse (95), heat of skin during the night, and occasional throbbing in the head. Being young, and fearless of any danger from the occupation, although warned of the consequences, he continued to prosecute ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar

... into the shadow at all, and Mr. Middleton stepped back a bit when he threw his arms about her and pressed her to his bosom. Perfunctorily and coldly did she yield to his embrace, but whatever ardor was lacking on her part, was compensated for by Mr. Middleton, who clasped her with exceeding tightness and showered kisses upon her pouting lips until she pushed him from her, exclaiming ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... The burning tightness round the top of her head, due to fatigue and lack of sleep, seemed somehow to brace her audacity, and to make ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... the second story be upright. The recent fashion of a mansard or "French roof" is only making part of the wall of the house look like roof, at equal expense, at the sacrifice of space inside, and above all, of tightness. For, though shingles and even slates will generally keep out the rain, the innumerable cracks between the sides of them can never be made air-tight, and therefore admit heat and cold much more freely than any proper wall-covering. A covering of metal would be too good a conductor of external temperature,—while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... twilight. It was so pleasant to saunter through the young summer night. There were so many little things to catch the eyes, so many of the little things down near the earth; expressions on faces of the passers, the set of a collar, the quaint foreign tightness of waist of a good bourgeoise who walked arm in arm with her perspiring spouse. The gilding on the statue of Joan of Arc had a pleasant littleness of Philistinism, the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli broke up the grey light pleasantly too. I remembered ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... mechanically to his left and right, and grinned. At least he made a contortion with his facial muscles, which experience told him used to produce a grin. He did it to encourage the six. Whether he succeeded or not is immaterial: the intention was good, even if the peculiar tightness of his skin spoiled the result. Occasionally he spoke. No one could have heard what he said, but once again ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... of air at the sea level, and take it to the summit of Mount Blanc. As you ascend, the bladder becomes more and more distended; at the top of the mountain it is fully distended, and has evidently to bear a pressure from within. Returning to the sea level you find that the tightness disappears, the bladder finally appearing as flaccid ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... floor. I have found them co-operate to protect their cattle to the extent of their devoting the best land for the grazing of their cattle. And they have been found co-operating against a particular rapacious Mahajan. Doubts have been expressed as to the success of co-operation because of the tightness of the Mahajan's hold on the ryots. I do not share the fears. The mightiest Mahajan must, if he represent an evil force, bend before co-operation, conceived as an essentially moral movement. But my limited experience of the Mahajan of Champaran has made me revise the accepted opinion about ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi

... I feel at the hope of seeing all my beloved ones in England, I am so sorry to leave my dear little happy valley. We have done nothing but pay farewell visits lately; and I turn for a final look at each station or cottage as we ride away with a great tightness at my heart, and moisture in my eyes, to think I shall never see them again. You must not be jealous at the lingering regrets I feel, for unless you had been with me here you can never understand how kind and friendly all our neighbours, high and ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... complied. But here a new difficulty occurred. The Moors, accustomed to a loose and easy dress, could not reconcile themselves to the appearance of my NANKEEN BREECHES, which they said were not only inelegant, but, on account of their tightness, very indecent; and as this was a visit to ladies, Ali ordered my boy to bring out the loose cloak which I had always worn since my arrival at Benowm, and told me to wrap it close round me. We visited the tents ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park

... acquiescence in the wise ordering of the world. If the story of Joan was to yield a tragedy at all, it was necessary to have recourse to some bold invention which should bring her fate into harmony with the central tightness of things.[124] ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... turned, nearly precipitating all of us into the darkness beneath, and then continued its downward course with increased speed, until sparks flew from beneath us like flecks of fire from a blacksmith's forge, and in our breasts was a tightness that became more ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... allow me to be murdered or seriously maltreated. But I was incensed against Fate or Chance or whatever it is—on account of the ignominious details, the coarse sack, the mouldy flour, the stones of the tunnel that had barked my shins, the tightness of the ropes that bound my ankles together, and seemed to cut into my ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... H——. Hydrops Pectoris; legs and thighs prodigiously anasarcous; a very distressing sense of fulness and tightness across his stomach; urine in small quantity; pulse ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering

... alone," replied Josephson, slowly endeavoring to tell it exactly as he had seen it, "but that's the strange part of it. He seemed to be suffering from a convulsion. I think he complained at first of a feeling of tightness of his throat and a twitching of the muscles of his hands and feet. Anyhow, he called for help. I was up here and we rushed in. Dr. Gunther had just brought him and then had gone away, after introducing him, and showing him ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... slowly to the Old Man's face while he waited, his seamed hands gripping the padded arms of his chair. A tightness pulled at his lips behind the grizzled whiskers. It never occurred to him now that the Happy Family might be perpetrating one of their jokes. He had looked at their faces, you see. They meant to quit him—quit him cold just as spring work was beginning. They were ashamed of themselves, ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... everybody but Mr Madison Chalkley had left the room; and when the old gentleman, as was his wont on the first day of the month, had gone up to the desk, untied the bundle of uncalled-for letters, the outer ones permanently rounded by the tightness of the cord, and after carefully looking over them, one by one, had made his usual remark about the folly of people who wouldn't stay in a place until their letters could get to them, had tied up the bundle and taken his departure; then Miss Harriet put the empty mail bag under the desk, and went ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... swoon Zarah awoke with a sensation of indescribable horror. The cold drops stood on her brow, and there was a painful tightness at her heart. The poor girl could not at once recall what had happened, but knew that it was something dreadful. The first image that rose up in her mind was that of the expiring Abishai: Zarah shuddered, trembled, raised herself by an effort to a sitting posture, ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... dividing themselves into pairs, and taking hold of the slew-ropes in their hands, pulled them up as tight as they could. By this effort they caused the cylinder to turn round till its further revolutions were stopped by the increasing tightness of the hawser, which was wound on the cylinder as fast as the slew-ropes were wound off it. When all the ropes had been drawn equally tight, and the whole party of men had been ranged along the top in an erect ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... attraction drew him on, and he still advanced, when all suddenly he paused, trembling violently. His nerves began to throb acutely,—the blood in his veins was like fire,—there was a curious strangling tightness in his throat that interrupted and oppressed his breathing,—he stared straight before him with large, luminous, impassioned eyes. What—WHAT was that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and shone like glittering wheels of golden flame? ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... a growing feeling of suffocation and tightness about her throat and heart, for the droop of his ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... here and there uncut. But there was no variation in the gloom of the sky or the folding curtain of rain. She grew tired and hot, and a little breathless, and as again the dryness of her throat and tightness of her lips reminded her of the humiliation of her unsought and unaided errand, she saw before her about a quarter of a mile on the high road which led to Marwell, the new red brick house with stucco ornaments, built by the horse-breeder, Burton. ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... and down again very softly, when the door into the Bedchamber was noiselessly pulled open, and Mr. Chiffinch came down the stairs. That dreadful look of tightness and pain was gone from his face: he was almost smiling. He nodded ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... of recoil or back stroke, all that I had drunken must have come upon me. The clearness of vision went from me like a candle that is blown out. I know not what happened after, save that I found myself upon my truckle-bed, with my leathern money-pouch clasped in my hand with surprising tightness, as if I had been mortally afraid that some one would mistake my poor satchel for ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... about the dope and every other hell-conceived abuse with which you've tormented your body. Tell him about the infernal tightness in your head." ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... years old, and above six feet high, dressed in a gray suit; the coat, from its size, appeared to have been made for him some ten years before. He was remarkably narrow-chested and round-shouldered, owing, perhaps, as much to the tightness of his garment as to the hand of nature. His face was long, and his complexion swarthy relieved, however, by certain freckles, with which the skin was plentifully studded. He had strange wandering eyes, gray, and somewhat unequal in size; they seldom rested on the book, but were generally ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Mr Sargent's extreme "tightness" caused him to fall asleep on the box when we started again, but the more seasoned Judge ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... with the crowd, by and by, and Colonel Medad Moody. We had supper with them at the tavern and started away in the dark with the Senator on the seat with us. He and my uncle began to talk about the tightness of money and the banking laws and I remember a remark of my uncle, for there was that in his tone which I could ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... godchild, and the point arose how could it be so 'tied up' as that only she should have the benefit of it? His experience on the lock gave him such an acute perception of the enormous difficulty of 'tying up' money with any approach to tightness, and contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that through a series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to every new insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... Jakey she laid her head upon his arm and whispered to him, "Sing it again, Shaky. The tightness across the top of my head is giving way. It has ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... Tightness with money, a tendency to be too exacting and dictatorial, and to fail to show affection are the things that frequently prevent marriage for the Osseous and endanger ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... tingled spread over me; it was pleasant; I did not care to withdraw my eyes. Presently the tightness in my face relaxed, I moved my lips, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... water. Then with a comb the wet hair was parted accurately in the centre, and brushed to the ears till it had the air of being painted rather than real, so smooth and plastered was the effect. The ends, plaited with merciless tightness, were looped together with a fragment of a broken shoelace, so tightly that from the front no sign of their presence could be suspected. When all was finished and the dressing-jacket thrown aside the effect was positively startling to behold. It did not seem possible to believe that this prim, demure ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... 'if you place your hand in that of a somnambulist who, when awake, can press it only up to a certain average of tightness, you will see that in the somnambulistic state—as it is stupidly termed—his fingers can clutch like a vise screwed up by a blacksmith.'—Well, monsieur, I placed my hand in that of a woman, not asleep, for Bouvard ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... nock of an arrow, it should be filed so that it fits the string rather snugly, thus when in place it is not easily disturbed by the ordinary accidents of travel. Still this tightness should be at the entrance of the nock, while the bottom of the nock is made a trifle more roomy with a round file. I file all my nocks to fit a certain two-inch wire nail whose diameter is just that of ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope

... Testing Boilers.—The tightness of the joints of a boiler is best tested in the first instance by means of compressed air. Solder on an all-metal cycle valve, "inflate" the boiler to a considerable pressure, and submerge it in a tub of water. The slightest leak will be betrayed by a string of bubbles coming directly ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... and the scurry and strain of our two spirts of fighting, and more than all, the horror I had of some of my own share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my chest that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the two men I had shot sat upon me like a nightmare; and all upon a sudden, and before I had a guess of what was coming, I began to sob and cry ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... about towards what seemed the hard and knobby places that appeared among the mud. This exercise soon made me conscious of the knapsack, to which I was then not thoroughly accustomed. It was not so much the weight that I felt, but the tightness of the belt across the chest, which caused pain and impediment of breathing. Custom, however, caused the knapsack to become even an ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... handcuffs on, all of them hitched together. At various times they complained to their captors that the agony caused by the swelling of their wrists was unbearable—this agony, being the result of over-tightness of the handcuffs, might easily have been relieved by one of the plantons without loss of time or prestige. Their complaints were greeted by commands to keep their mouths shut or they'd get it ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... Spiritual Kurfurst, he has the privilege to do; nominates (1516) one Tetzel for Chief Salesman, a Priest whose hardness of face, and shiftiness of head and hand, were known to him; and—here is one Hohenzollern that has a place in History! Poor man, it was by accident, and from extreme tightness for money. He was by no means a violent Churchman; he had himself inclinations towards Luther, even of a practical sort, as the thing went on. But there ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... the island, and of the portable property found on board the wreck. A gourd full of water was placed to Gervaise's lips by one of the men of a kinder disposition than the rest. He drank it thankfully, for he was parched with thirst excited by the pain caused by the tightness with which he had ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... and dimly realized that the change in her appearance had something to do with the doctor's prediction of physical disability. She loathed and resented it immediately. Suddenly conscious of her bare legs she ran home, horrified at the tightness of her frock that showed the roundness of her figure. As she passed the Mactavish cottage the mother sat in the doorway, suckling the newest baby. Instead of staying to talk as usual Marcella flew by, her cheeks crimson. As soon as she reached home she ran up to ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... life left in them. Among various kinds of torture invented by him, one was, to induce people to drink a large quantity of wine, and then to tie up their members with harp-strings, thus tormenting them at once by the tightness of the ligature, and the stoppage of their urine. Had not death prevented him, and Thrasyllus, designedly, as some say, prevailed with him to defer some of his cruelties, in hopes of longer life, it is believed ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... for the dead; but I could see nothing, for I was now too weak to turn on my side. When I had been a week in this confined state, the agony arising from the swelling of my limbs, and from the increased tightness of the ligatures was so great, that I called for death to relieve me from my sufferings; and when I once more found myself raised upon the shoulders of men, I was as impatient for my approaching fate, as I should have been, under other circumstances, for my release. My senses were ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... into the irons and making me fast by padlocking the chain to a part of the room. In this situation I remained for about half an hour, the Postmaster preparing to accompany us, which he did taking me with him in his car as a prisoner. On a remonstrance from Walrond on the tightness of the screws from which I suffered dreadfully, he took off the irons before getting into the car, ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury

... most ridiculous notions concerning its origin. Some say "All the waters here have puna;" others that "where there is snow there is puna;"—and this no doubt is true. The only sensation I experienced was a slight tightness across the head and chest, like that felt on leaving a warm room and running quickly in frosty weather. There was some imagination even in this; for upon finding fossil shells on the highest ridge, I entirely forgot the puna in my delight. Certainly the exertion ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... 1825 the Independents planted a chapel in Cannon-street. Places of worship like everything else, good or evil, grow in these latter days, and so has Cannon-street chapel. In 1852 its supporters set at naught the laws of Banting, and made the place bigger. It was approaching a state of solemn tightness, and for the consolation of the saints, the ease of the fidgety, and the general blissfulness of the neighbourhood it was expanded. Cannon-street Chapel has neither a bell, nor a steeple, nor an outside clock, and it has never yet said that it was any worse off for their absence. But it may do, for ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... engineer of the East London Water Company, having stated to me the inconvenience which had been experienced from the defects in respect of water-tightness, as well as the difficulty of opening and closing the valves of the main water-pipes in the streets, I turned my attention to the subject. The result was my contrivance of a double-faced wedge-shaped sluice-valve, ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... of the aristocracy would fall from the effeminate hands of the supersubtle and cultivated Mr. Balfour into the firm and tight grip of the rugged, uncultured country gentleman who sits remote and neglected close to him. There are the tightness and firmness of a death-trap in the large, strong mouth, a dangerous gleam in the steady eyes, infinite powers of firmness, inflexibility, and of even cruelty in the whole expression, not in the least softened, but rather heightened and exalted by ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... reached him he could scarcely speak; his wheezing chest strained his coat to exceeding tightness, his face was purple, he swung his cane with spasmodic jerks. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... her, especially Lionel, coming all this distance in silence and darkness. She hastened to the carriage, and saw him leaning forward, listening for her. His face lighted up at her, "Well, Lionel," and he fairly hurt her, by the tightness of his grasp, when once he had met her hand. "So, you're come! What a time it has been since you went! Now you ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... down again, however, and now holds a good railroad position in the Northwest, where he is living with his family. His was about the quickest case of "loosening up from extreme tightness" that I have ever ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... but the tears flowed from her eyes with a violence that shook her, and sobs, hurried, devouring sobs, filled the room. I felt a tightness at my heart.... I was utterly stupefied. I had seen Susanna only twice; I had conjectured that she had a hard life, but I had regarded her as a proud girl, of strong character, and all at once these violent, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... go from beneath his shaggy, scowling eyebrows, and his thin lips relaxed their usual tightness to curve in a contemptuous ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... chaos made Mrs. Wade's heart beat tumultuously, and once when Martin came upon the little girl seated solemnly in the midst of a circle of corncob dolls, his throat contracted with an extraordinary tightness. ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... had devised a machine that crumpled the paper around the wire, instead of winding it tightly. This was the finishing touch. For a time these paper-wound cables were soaked in oil, but in 1890 Engineer F. A. Pickernell dared to trust to the tightness of the lead sheathing, and laid a "dry core" cable, the first of the modern type, in one of the streets of Philadelphia. This cable was the event of the year. It was not only cheaper. It was the best-talking cable that had ever been ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... closed vessel of metal in which liquids can be heated above their boiling points under pressure. Etymologically the word indicates a self-closing vessel ([Greek: autos], self, and clavis, key, or clavus, nail), in which the tightness of the joints is maintained by the internal pressure, but this characteristic is frequently wanting in the actual apparatus to which the name is applied. The prototype of the autoclave was the digester of Denis Papin, invented in 1681, which is still ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... occurring in youth, such deception is perhaps entirely normal, and in certain suggestible and inflammable types of people it is peculiarly apt to occur. This kind of deception, although far more frequent and conspicuous in matters of love—and more serious because of the tightness of the marriage bond—is liable to occur in any relation of life. For most people, however, and those not the least sane or the least wise, the memory of the exaltation of love, even when the period of that exaltation is over, still remains as, at the least, the memory of one of the most real ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... is progressive, and ultimately ends in complete paraplegia. The pain is not confined to the region supplied by any one nerve root, but affects a diffuse area, and the patient complains also of a sensation of tightness in the limbs. There is never absolute anaesthesia, but there is relative anaesthesia for all forms of sensation, which extends as a rule as far as the sixth ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... well that when he filled the two water-bottles for the use of the sergeant Edgar had taken a long drink, for no one came near him until after dark, and he suffered a good deal from thirst, and from the pain caused by the tightness with which he was bound. He began to think that he had been altogether forgotten, when the door of the outhouse opened and two Arabs came in, and seizing him as if he had been a package dragged him out into the court-yard. Then he received ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... two bells and an excellent time to make a landing, preparations for which were forthwith set in motion. Now, if ever, we had occasion to bless the tightness of the Kawa, for in the confusion below, somewhat ameliorated by the labors of William Henry Thomas, we found most of our duffle in good order, an occasional stethoscope broken or a cork loose, but nothing to amount to much. Our rifles, side-arms, cartridges, ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... enveloped her like a nimbus, as she went down. In the pent heat her face seemed cold. She had the appearance of being older. The fine vertical line at the corner of her mouth, which Tisdale had not noticed before, brought a tightness to his throat when he ventured to look at her. How could Weatherbee have been so blind? How could he have missed the finer, spiritual loveliness of this woman? Weatherbee, who himself had been so sensitive; whose ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... stood ankle deep in the turgid little rivulet, a tightness clutching at his chest, and with his head whirling. At his feet his antagonist lay motionless. He stepped out of the water, putting his foot into a tiny grove of trees that bent and crackled like twigs under his tread. He wondered if he would faint; he knew he must not. Away to the left he ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... feelings. Still no message. Why did he delay? Her heart ached now worse than ever, the choking feeling in her throat returned, and her eyes grew moist. She steadied herself by holding to the door. Her fingers grew white at the tightness of her grasp; eyes and ears were strained in their intent ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... exceedingly moderate price. So attired (and bidding Herr Moses a cordial farewell), young Otto was a gorgeous, a noble, a soul-inspiring boy to gaze on. A coat and breeches of the most brilliant pea-green, ornamented with a profusion of brass buttons, and fitting him with exquisite tightness, showed off a figure unrivalled for slim symmetry. His feet were covered with peaked buskins of buff leather, and a belt round his slender waist, of the same material, held his knife, his tobacco-pipe ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she arranged so complacently had been washed until the colors had run madly into each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with a relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cozy look; the masses of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a certain reference to the glow of color, Margaret noticed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... poles, Sarpent, if Sarpent you be," said Hurry, amid the groans that the tightness of the ligatures was beginning to extort from him—"run out one of the poles, and shove the head of the scow off, and you'll drift clear of us—and, when you've done that good turn for yourself just finish this gagging blackguard ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... talking to catch at his breath. His arm twisted into Raut's with benumbing tightness. He had come striding down the black path towards the railway as though he was possessed. Raut had not spoken a word, had simply hung back against Horrocks' pull ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... even more crimson countenance Valentine tendered her manuscript, which consisted of last week's essay on Comets. Miss Gibbs, with a growing tightness round her lips, inspected Raymonde's extracts from Chaucer, and Katherine's translation of Virgil, before Aveline had the presence of mind to hand up Maudie Heywood's copy. It is unwise for a mistress to show temper before ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... her fault. Something had gone wrong that day, as Brian had surmised; the eyes grew brighter, the carnation flush deepened as she hurried along, the delicate lips closed with a curiously hard expression, the hands were clasped with unnecessary tightness round the umbrella. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... bad one, and Mr. Cox had been even more troublesome than usual owing to tightness in the money market and the avowed preference of local publicans for cash transactions to assets in chalk and slate. In Mr. Cox's memory there never had been such a drought, and his crop of patience was ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... Donal, as he took the chair; "ye're verra condescendin'." Then turning to Ginevra, and trying to cross one knee over the other, but failing from the tightness of certain garments, which, like David with Saul's not similarly faulty armour, he had not hitherto proved, "Weel, mem," he said, "ye ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... I was early at the cave. Yes, there it was, the same wonder-chest that I had dreamed of all night long. It was absurd how the tightness ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... greatly beloved in Ohio, and several anecdotes are told of his kindness in enforcing the claims of the United States, when he was Receiver of the District Land Office, for lands sold on credit, as was the custom in those days. Upon one occasion there had been a time of general tightness in money matters, and many farms in the region northeast of Cincinnati but partly paid for were forfeited to the Government. In the discharge of his official duty General Findlay attended at the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... really model theatre audience. No effect, halfway good, passes me by. So, as I turned back at the garden gate to watch the long grey line winding slowly into the forest, I found that I had the same chill down my back and the same tightness over my eyes and in my throat, which, in the real theatre-goers, announce that ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... swiftly round across the stream, and brought the gallant captain so near the bank that, with a sudden jerk, he caught the end of a branch that stretched far over the water, and, spite of the confounded tightness of his toilet, with the energy of sheer terror, climbed a good way; but, reaching a point where the branch forked, he could get no further, though he tugged like a brick. But what was a fat fellow of fifty, laced, and buckled, and buttoned up, like poor Cluffe—with his legs higher ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... background; and, as for the chin—talk of the upper lip being long indeed!—the chin would have made two of it; such a chin! so long, so broad, so massive, had it been put on a dish might have passed, without discredit, for a round of beef! it looked yet larger than it was from the exceeding tightness of the stiff black-leather stock below, which forced forth all the flesh it encountered into another chin,—a remove to the round. The hat, being somewhat too small for the Corporal, and being cocked ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... remarkable man. If he had not been so, he would hardly have been tolerated at the chateau, since he was not particularly beautiful, and not especially refined. He was in holy orders, as his tonsured head and clerical costume bore witness—a costume which, from its tightness and simplicity, only served to exaggerate the unusual proportions of his person. Monsieur the Preceptor had English blood in his veins, and his northern origin betrayed itself in his towering height and corresponding breadth, as well as by his fair hair and light blue eyes. ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Chowles; "only I feel a little uncomfortable. What if we should not be able to breathe here? The very idea gives me a tightness across the chest." ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... there, in spite of me, pulled out my cock, threw me down, held me, and each one spat upon it, and that initiated me into their society. They had what they called cocks-all-round: anyone admitted to the set, was entitled to feel the others' cocks. I felt theirs, but again to my mortification, the tightness of my prepuce caused jeering at me; I was glad to hear that there was another boy at the school in the same predicament, though I never saw his. This confirmed me in avoiding my companions, when they were playing at cocks-all-round; being a day scholar only, I was not forced at ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... not let herself hope too much, and now a sudden rush of repressed tears threatened a flood like the one which had come outdoors from the broken tightness of ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... them together, are iron T-bars that give this ship the utmost rigidity. In fact, thanks to this cellular arrangement, it has the resistance of a stone block, as if it were completely solid. Its plating can't give way; it's self-adhering and not dependent on the tightness of its rivets; and due to the perfect union of its materials, the solidarity of its construction allows it to defy the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... certain experiments. Ligatures are either very tight or of middling tightness. A ligature I designate as tight, or perfect, when it is drawn so close about an extremity that no vessel can be felt pulsating beyond it. Such ligatures are employed in the removal of tumours; and in these cases, all afflux of nutriment and heat being prevented by the ligature, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... is, becomes vulgar and prosaic. Peace has no charm about him, no gaiety, but he has the virtues of his defects. He, unlike Sheppard, shuns company; he works alone, never depending on accomplices; a "tight cock," as Sheppard would have phrased it, and not relying on a like quality of tightness in his fellows. Sheppard is a slave to his women, Edgeworth Bess and Mrs. Maggot; Mrs. Peace and Sue Thompson are the slaves of Peace. Sheppard loves to stroll openly about the London streets in his fine suit of black, his ruffled shirt and his silver-hilted sword. Peace lies concealed ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... intensely irritating, and may give rise to laryngitis, bronchitis, and even pneumonia. Nitric acid fumes sometimes produce no serious symptoms for an hour or more, but there may then be coughing, difficulty of breathing, and tightness in the lower part of the throat, followed by capillary bronchitis (see ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... door, besides the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand, the others had muskets and bayonets. I was hauled out of bed, and forced on deck in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness with which they had tied my hands.... The boatswain was now ordered to hoist the launch out. The boat being hoisted out, Mr. Hayward and Mr. Hallet, midshipmen, were ordered into it; upon which I demanded the cause of such an order, and endeavoured to persuade some one to a sense ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... we take a quantity of it into the lungs, which brushes over the surface of the mucous membrane that lines the nostrils and trachea, and thus, robbing them of their heat, allows the excitability to accumulate. But we feel no fever, no sense of tightness or stuffing, nor any other symptom of catarrh, so long as we continue in the cold. If however we afterwards go into a warm room, and particularly near a fire, we receive by the act of respiration the ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... harpoons glided over the soft flesh. After several fruitless attempts the crew tried to pass a slip-knot round the body of the mollusc. The noose slipped as far as the tail fins and there stopped. They tried then to haul it on board, but its weight was so considerable that the tightness of the cord separated the tail from the body, and, deprived of this ornament, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... that are formed between the hollowed-out parts of the tap do not affect its tightness; and, besides, the turns of the tap have for their principal positions 90 and 180 degrees, instead of 45 and 90 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... cease obeying for the sake of study, nor must we establish the laws before we begin to obey. In obedience we are to establish its Tightness and wrongness."[BA] ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... as though he divined that he was to be called upon for some signal service. The bridle was first scrutinised. The great bit—a Mameluke—was carefully examined, lest there might be some flaw or crack in the steel. The head-strap was buckled to its proper tightness, and then the reins were minutely scanned. These were of the hair of wild horses' tails closely and neatly plaited. Leather might snap, there was no fear of breaking such ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... obtained with difficulty; the cost of his very education, which he had received at a school near Turlock, had, he knew, been grudged; his father had often grumbled that it was money thrown away, for, "Look at me," said he; "I taught myself." There was always, in short, a tightness in the Coe money market that augured any thing ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... was careful to turn her head a little as they whirled by the front door. But when, for the second time, the dance carried them to the end of the room where Pollard and Broderick were, she was so sure of herself that she sent a quick, laughing glance at her uncle. And a little of the tightness about her heart was gone as she saw the look of ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... is better to tie the end to the next warp string and allow the fringe to cover the knot; or, as in the case of silkoline, the woof strips can be caught over the warp strings with silk of the same color in order to hide them. Only experience can teach the tightness with which a warp should be strung. Worsted, carpet thread and twine will stretch as the work progresses, and raffia will not. If the warp be too loose the work will be uneven and the strings will slip out of the notches. If it be too tight it will be difficult to finish the ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd

... timber, called the "strong-back," was broken. He had had to run, or founder. Before our decks were swept again I could make out the carpenter's emergency repairs. With fresh timbers he was bolting, lashing, and wedging Number Three hatch into some sort of tightness. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... four or six inches in the water, few places are too shallow to float it. The birch bark of which it is made is about a quarter of an inch thick; and the inside is lined with extremely thin flakes of wood, over which a number of light timbers are driven, to give strength and tightness to the machine. In this frail bark, which measures from twelve, fifteen, thirty, to forty feet long, and from two to four feet broad in the middle, a whole Indian family of eight or ten souls will travel hundreds of miles, over rivers and lakes innumerable; now floating swiftly down a foaming ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... utter stupefaction. The mayor, though dressed as a bourgeois, always looked like a servant. Each gazed with a bewildered eye at the gendarmes, in whose clutches Gothard was still sobbing, his hands purple and swollen from the tightness of the cord that bound them. Catherine maintained her attitude of artless simplicity, which was quite impenetrable. The corporal, who, according to Corentin, had committed a great blunder in arresting these smaller fry, did not know whether to stay where he was or to depart. ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... at the beginning of February, she begged me to take charge of some shares of hers and to sell them for her. They amounted in value to sixty thousand francs, but she could not dispose of them on the Paris Exchange owing to the tightness in the money market. In addition, she could not obtain the interest due to her, which had mounted up considerably, as she had not had a dividend ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... decked in its chief finery, a blue quilted cloak. The mother came along to hold her cherub in her lap. She was a long, raw-boned woman, immature in face under all her crust of care and tan, evidently distressed in her free waist by the tightness of her calico dress and in her unfenced ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... fingers took it in, limp and blotted, so his soul took in the mean temptation, lapped it in fancied rights, in dreams of improved existences, drifting and endless as the cloud-seas of color. Clutching it, as if the tightness of his hold would strengthen his sense of possession, he went aimlessly down the street. It was his watch at the mill. He need not go, need never go again, thank God!—shaking off the thought ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis



Words linked to "Tightness" :   smallness, stinginess, miserliness, immovableness, distribution, constriction, tight, spatial arrangement, littleness, deficiency, lack, immovability, want, looseness, pettiness, feeling, density, spacing



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