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Vitriol   /vˈɪtriəl/   Listen
Vitriol

noun
1.
(H2SO4) a highly corrosive acid made from sulfur dioxide; widely used in the chemical industry.  Synonyms: oil of vitriol, sulfuric acid, sulphuric acid.
2.
Abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will.  Synonyms: invective, vituperation.



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"Vitriol" Quotes from Famous Books



... and so needs renewing much oftener. Electric lighting and the telephone are everywhere, even on the summits of mountains and in mines a mile below the earth's surface. Electric power, if a waterfall furnishes the electricity, is the cheapest power known. The common blue vitriol is one form of copper, and to this we owe many of our electric conveniences. It is used in all wet batteries, and so it rings our doorbells for us. It also sprays our apple and peach trees, and is a very valuable article. Indeed, copper in all its forms, pure and alloyed, is one of ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan

... and regular, not unlike those of a clumsy bear. When he stood up, his comrades shouted to him excitedly; they would come and tear him into little pieces; they would slit his belly so that he could see his own bowels; they would slash him with their knives and rub his wounds with vitriol if he didn't at once lay down his weapons and let them come ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... the effects of other destructive by-products formed during the digestion of starches and proteins. Sulphurous acid and sulphuric acid (vitriol), as well as phosphorus and phosphoric acids actually burn up the tissues of the body. They destroy the cellulose membranes which form the protecting skins or envelopes of the cells, dissolve the protoplasm and allow the latter to escape into the circulation. This accounts ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... to consist of diamond dust, powdered exceedingly fine; and at another time, to contain sugar of lead as the principal ingredient. Haller was of this last opinion. In the casket of St. Croix were found sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal ingredients of which the physicians were not able to detect. Garelli, physician to Charles VI, King of the Two Sicilies, at the time when Tofania was arrested, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... a pint of vitriol with a quart of water, pour it into the barrel, and roll it about; next day add one pound of chalk, and roll again. Bung down for three or four days, then ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... go for a little walk," he said; "but I must first make a note of what you say, for, when I wish to remember something important, the devil makes confusion in my head. These, then, are means of dissolving gold—oil of vitriol, salts of ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... demanded a constitution. That was the day before yesterday, and just what will come of it we don't as yet know, because Washington and Cromwell and Caesar have not been seen since, but we have great fears for them, because seventeen car-loads of vitriol and a thousand extra tons of coal were ordered by the Lord High Steward of the palace to be delivered to the Minister ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... linseed oil boiled with litharge (PbO) and white vitriol, which removes much of the fatty ingredient and gives ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... also came out in 1658, and several editions followed it in England, France and Germany. But Nathaniel Highmore in his History of Generation (1651) referred to the concoction as "Talbot's Powder" some years before Digby took it up. The basis seems to have been vitriol, and it was claimed that it would heal a wound by simply being applied to a bandage taken ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... the horrible barbarities of Southern soldiers cause no comment? Why is the sympathy of the British Parliament reserved for the poor women of New Orleans, deprived of their elegant amusement of throwing vitriol into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies inconceivable in any other state of society? Why is all expression of sympathy on the Southern side? There is a class of women in New Orleans whom Butler protects from horrible barbarities, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... hand, mix water and sulphuric acid, (oil of vitriol,) of the temperature of 60 deg., and the mixture will become quite warm, and will freely impart its heat to surrounding and ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... added, "pray do: Although you don't love me no more, I love you. Sit down while I spray you with vitriol now— Sing tooral iooral ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... Colour, for the credit of the Experiment, lest otherwise the Darkness of the liquor might make it be objected, that 'twas already almost Ink; Into this Infusion shake a convenient quantity of a Cleer, but very strong Solution of Vitriol, and you shall immediately see the mixture turn Black almost like Ink, and such a way of producing Blackness is vulgar enough; but if presently after you doe upon this mixture drop a small quantity of good oyl of Vitriol, and, by shaking the Vial disperse it nimbly through the two other liquors, ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... It was a case of vitriol-throwing. A wife, in order to avenge herself on her husband's mistress, had burned her face and eyes. She had left the Assize Court acquitted, declared to be innocent, amid the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... be destroyed by strong brine, applied when hot. Or mix 1/2 lb. of oil of vitriol with 6 gallons of water, and apply, taking care not to get the vitriol ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... and then, passing the decoction through a filter, divided it into five equal parts, which were put into as many glasses—into one glass I poured a few drops of spirit of sal ammoniac, into another some of the lixivium of tartar, into the third some strong spirit of vitriol, into the fourth some spirit of salt, and into the last some syrup of violets. The spirit of sal ammoniac threw down a few particles of pale sediment. The lixivium of tartar gave a white cloud, which hung a little above the middle of the glass. The spirits of vitriol and ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... Argonauts, where Medea concocts a magic brew. She put divers herbs in it, herbs yielding coloured juices such as safflower and alkanet, and soapwort and fleawort to give consistency or 'body' to the lye; she put in alum and blue vitriol (or sulphate of copper), and she put in blood. The magic brew was no more and no less than a dye, a red or purple dye, and a prodigious deal of chemistry had gone to the making of it. For the copper was there to produce a 'lake' or copper-salt of the vegetable alkaloids, which copper-lakes ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... Alexander VI? He is largely to blame for the flagrant exaggeration of many of the charges brought against the Borgias; that he hated them we know, and that when he wrote of them he dipped his golden Tuscan pen in vitriol and set down what he desired the world to believe rather than what contemporary documents would have revealed to him, we can prove here and now from that one statement of his ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... would please the Parliament that they may yet have the whipping, fleecing, and flaying of us in their diabolical courts, to tear the flesh from our bones, and into our wide wounds, instead of balm, to pour in the oil of tartar, vitriol, and mercury. Surely a right, reasonable, innocent, and soft-hearted petition! O the relenting bowels ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the heart of the people he reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, the throne itself. He whom the "Times" attacks, he whom "Punch" caricatures, is a power in the land. We may be very sure, that, if an American is the aim of their pensioned garroters and hired vitriol-throwers, he is an object of fear as well as of hatred, and that the assault proves his ability as well as his love of freedom and zeal for the nation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... oil of vitriol, may be concentrated or diluted. It is frequently thrown over the person to disfigure the features or destroy the clothes. Parts of the body touched by it are stained, first white, and then dark brown or black. The presence ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... turn has come. The troops are in readiness; we are drilling the unemployed in event of civil war, and you had better look out. "Obey me,"' added the General, insensibly sliding into a popular quotation, '"and my nature's ile: disobey me, and it's still ile, but it's ile of vitriol."' ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... 'Lear's self-supportless leaning for all pleasure on another's breast.' If a man desires not to go mad or not to be soured into oil of vitriol, let him watch the doors of his heart; let him never solicit any expression ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... one of his bitterest and most terrible poetical satires—"The Legion Club"—a satire so bitter and so scathing that reading it now, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, one shudders at its invective—"a blasting flood of filth and vitriol, out of some hellish fountain," Mr. Churton Collins calls it. We are told that its composition brought on a violent attack of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... operator from one half to the entire width of the silver is placed on each side of the wood. This is set into a glass vessel, P,—the extreme ends of the wood resting upon its edge—on which the acid with which it is charged has no effect. The jar is charged with sulphuric acid, (common oil of vitriol) diluted in eight parts its bulk of water. The zinc plates of the battery have been amalgamated with quicksilver, and when the battery is set into the jar of acid there should be no action percieved upon them ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... when the prettily tinted liquid is ejected from all the little cones. After a pause, during which it seems to concentrate its energies, there is another and another twitch, each the means of sprinkling broadcast what is said to be a corrosive liquid, almost as virulent as vitriol. From almost any part of the body this liquid exudes ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... lodging-house, beside a wine shop. She ran to the door, looked into the hall and could see nothing. Thereupon all her blood rushed to her head, with one thought, a single thought that her lips kept repeating like an idiot: "Vitriol! vitriol! vitriol!" And as her thoughts were instantly transformed into the act of which she thought, and her delirium transported her abruptly to the crime she contemplated, she said to herself that she would go up the stairs with the bottle well hidden ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... the threadbare cuff of his coat, which was corroded away in one part, as by a powerful acid. "I give ye my word I done that by wiping my lips wi' it two or three times after drinkin' at this bar. That was afore I found out that the whisky was solid vitriol. If thread and cotton can't stand it, how's the linin' of a poor cove's stomach, I'd ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... standard fungicide material, consists of a solution of 6 pounds of copper sulphate (blue vitriol) with 4 pounds of slaked lime in 50 gallons of water. It may be purchased in prepared form in the open market, and when properly made, has a brilliant sky-blue color. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture should be done in the fall, early spring, or early summer, but never during the ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison

... Huish, the cockney, in it richly illustrative and grand. "There never was a more magnificent cad in literature, and never a more foul-hearted little ruffian. His picture glitters (!) with life, and when he curls up on the island beach with the bullet in his body, amid the flames of the vitriol he had intended for another, the reader's shudder conveys something also, even ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... was in the Bay of Rosas, as he had thrown a mixture of lime, sand, &c., upon the Frenchmen who attempted to board his ship, and found it effectual." Another zealous organ of the Government added that he had also provided himself with a bottle of vitriol, to be used ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... generally made with ivory black, treacle, linseed, or sweet oil, and oil of vitriol. The proportions vary in the different directions, and a variable quantity of water is added, as paste or liquid blacking is required; the mode of making being otherwise precisely ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... rub the yolk of an egg upon them, on the wrong side; let it dry. Lay it upon a clean cloth, and wash upon each side with a sponge; press on the wrong side. If very much soiled, wash in bran-water; add to the water in which it is rinsed a little muriate of tin to set red, oil of vitriol for green, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... even from interest, but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from the case. To understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose yourself walking down the street with a man who continues to sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of vitriol. You would be much diverted with the grimaces and contortions of his victims; and at the same time you would fear to leave his arm until his bottle was empty, knowing that, when once among the crowd, you would run a good chance yourself of baptism with his biting liquor. Now my companion's ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that the body submitted to the trial has no colour at all, but must first try how it will turn out with the addition of saline substances. It ought, therefore, to be boiled with pot-ash, common salt, sal ammoniac, tartar, vinegar, alum, or vitriol, and then tried upon the stuff: if it then exhibit no colour, it may safely be pronounced to be unfit for dyeing with. But if it yields a dye or colour, the nature of this dye must then be more closely examined, which may be done in the ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury

... life, that he could allow her to destroy the peace of mind he needed to enable him to carry out his calling in the spirit of his friend Rufinus. He knew his house-mate well and felt that he would only pour vitriol into his wounds, but it was best so. The old man had already often tried to bring down Paula's image from its high pedestal in his soul, but always in vain; and even now he should not succeed. He would mar nothing, scatter nothing to the winds, tread nothing in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... a lion, and an angel's resignation, She always said to me, in her low, faint voice, broken by a dry and frequent cough: 'I have not long to live, breathing, as I do, lime and vitriol all day long. I spit blood, and have ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... silk bedroom, Aaron grimaced to himself and stood in the middle of the room grimacing. His hostess' admonitions were like vitriol in his ears. He looked out of the window. Through the darkness of trees, the lights of a city below. Italy! The air was cold with snow. He came back into his soft, warm room. Luxurious it was. And luxurious ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... general, successfully treated by our author, with a decoction of "Chaerephyllum, Quinquefolium, Myrrhis, Rosae et Salvia;" in which was dissolved a "sat magna copia" of white vitriol.—A combination about as precise as some of the prescriptions which have been recommended to me, for the present disease, in this country. With this mixture, he touched the ulcers several times a day; and then washed them with a liniment of acetate ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... incident is connected with this mine. In the year 1719, while some miners were exploring an abandoned passage, they discovered a human body, preserved from corruption by the blue vitriol or sulphate of copper produced in the mine under the influence of the atmosphere and water. It was that of a handsome young man. On being brought to the surface, people from all directions flocked to see it, but nobody could recognise in its features a lost kinsman ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston

... of fire. Robert Dickson told me that he had seen several of them strip themselves of their garments, and jump into a bonfire. Voltaire says, in his Essay on History, that rubbing the hand for a long time with spirit of vitriol and alum, with the juice of an onion, is stated to render it capable of enduring hot ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... protection is five shillings—I'm willing to go that length. Unless indeed she has a bottle of vitriol. But they only throw vitriol on the men who have deceived them, and I never deceived her—I told her the first time I saw her that it wouldn't do. Oh, if she's there we'll walk a little way together and talk it over and, as I say, I'll go as far as ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... trusted friend and companion of Frank Merriwell! Ah! through him I will strike Merriwell, even as I promised to strike him. I told him I would ruin his beauty. Through this friend of his I will accomplish the deed. Here I have a vial of vitriol. I always carry several vials of poison with me. This one I will place in this chap's pocket, and with it he shall do ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... abstinence from stimulants, and a low, poor diet, accompanied with the horizontal position, and bottles of boiling water to the feet. At the same time the patient should suck through a quill, every hour, half a wine-glass of water in which 10 or 15 drops of the elixir of vitriol has been mixed, and, till further advice has been procured, keep a towel wrung out of cold water on the chest or stomach, according to the seat ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... mind th' ould Earl o' Bellarmine, that owned Castle Cannick, up yonder, in my growin' days. 'Ould Wounds' he was nick-named—a cribbage-faced, what-the-blazes kind o' varmint, wi' a gossan wig an' a tongue like oil o' vitriol. He'd a-led the fore-half o' his life, I b'lieve, in London church-town, by reason that he an' his father couldn' be left in a room together wi'out comin' to fisticuffs: an' by all accounts was fashion's ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... were, adherent to that unknown common subject, which inheres not in anything else. Though, in the meantime, it be manifest, and every one, upon inquiry into his own thoughts, will find, that he has no other idea of any substance, v.g. let it be gold, horse, iron, man, vitriol, bread, but what he has barely of those sensible qualities, which he supposes to inhere; with a supposition of such a substratum as gives, as it were, a support to those qualities or simple ideas, which he has observed to exist united together. Thus, the ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... generated, I would convey it into the fluid immediately as it arises from the proper materials, I keep the same bladder in connection with a phial c fig. 10, containing the same materials (as chalk, salt of tartar, or pearl ashes in diluted oil of vitriol, for the generation of fixed air) and taking care, lest, in the act of effervescence, any of the materials in the phial c should get into the vessel a, to place this phial on a stand lower than that on which the bason was placed, I press out the newly generated air, and make ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... our double-barrelled guns kept the three scoundrels in check. They insisted on our tasting some of their barbarous liquor, however, and horrible stuff it was,—distiller's "high-wines," strongly dashed with vitriol or something worse. No wonder that men become fiends incarnate on such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... savage snarl. I can see his malignant expression as he is forced to divide his unearned increment of fame with some of those Mitmenschen whom he, like a bad Samaritan, loved to lash with his tongue before pouring in oil of vitriol and the sour wine of sadness. And how like red-ragged turkey-cocks Lord Byron and Nietzsche and Napoleon will puff out when required to stand and deliver some of their ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... you!" The angry scorn in Miller's voice burned like vitriol. "God help you! you selfish villain and coward! You pursued her! You hounded her. You made your own temptation—and hers. And afterward you left her to bear a lifetime of shame—to kill herself if she couldn't stand it. When I think of you, smug liar and hell hound, ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... facilitated by the addition of a like quantity of common table salt. If the mustard is not at hand, give two or three teaspoonfuls of powdered alum in syrup or molasses, and give freely of warm water to drink; or give ten to twenty grains of sulphate of zinc (white vitriol), or twenty to thirty grains of ipecac, with one or two grains of tartar emetic, in a large cup of warm water, and repeat every ten minutes until three or four doses are given, unless free vomiting is sooner produced. After vomiting has taken place, large draughts of warm water should ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... minus vitriol would be like a goose minus sage and onions. I prefer to be a goose with those alleviations of the goose nature. My enemy married for money the first time, now she is going in for celebrity. The chief drawback to celebrity is that it is ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... the elderly gentlemen on both sides who exude vitriol. It is a pity that they are so much in evidence. But even some of them retain their sanity. The following is from the Cambridge Magazine ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite first medicine. And he made himself a jug of wormwood tea. He had hanging in the attic great bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound, elder flowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop, dandelion, and centaury. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... pretended to reduce flints into salt; nor archaeus or spiritus rector of that visionary Van Helmont, his simple, elementary water, his gas, ferments, and transmutations; nor shall I enlarge upon the salt, sulphur, and oil, the acidum vagum, the mercury of metals, and the volatilised vitriol of other modern chemists, a pack of ignorant, conceited, knavish rascals, that puzzle your weak heads with such jargon, just as a Germanised m——r throws dust in your eyes, by lugging in and ringing the ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... new ones devised. Glauber showed how to prepare hydrochloric acid, spiritus salis, by heating rock-salt with sulphuric acid, the method in common use to-day; and also nitric acid from saltpetre and arsenic trioxide. Libavius obtained sulphuric acid from many substances, e.g. alum, vitriol, sulphur and nitric acid, by distillation. The action of these acids on many metals was also studied; Glauber obtained zinc, stannic, arsenious and cuprous chlorides by dissolving the metals in hydrochloric acid, compounds hitherto obtained by heating ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... Zouave? Just as nothing is sacred to a sapper, so is nothing hurtful to a Zouave. They have hides like hippopotamuses, those fellows. You could dip them in vitriol ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... Imagination's power) See yon demi-mondaine there, Idly toying with a flower, Smiling with a pensive air . . . Well, her smile is but a mask, For I saw within her muff Such a wicked little flask: Vitriol—ugh! the beastly stuff. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... shade is got by first dipping the wool in a strong solution of Crotal, a darker shade by boiling for half-an-hour, and a dark brown by boiling for two hours or so. It is better, however, to get the shade by altering the quantity of Crotal used. The addition of sufficient oil of vitriol or acetic acid to make the bath slightly acid will be an improvement (a very small ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet

... so agitated that he could not reply. Self-restrained men are not ready with language. Their thoughts may be fiery as bottled vitriol, but they keep the cork in. The barrister allowed for this drawback. His sympathies were aroused, and ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy

... chained to this couch," she said between her teeth, "I should go after her and throw vitriol in her face. I would give her cause to repent having lured you from me with her miserable doll's face. ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume

... Princesses, saying at the same time: 'I wish that you become the most ugly person that it would be possible to find.' Then she turned to the other little Princess; but, before she could do anything further, the other fairies interfered, and taking a great pan full of vitriol, threw it over the wicked Magotine. But not a drop touched her, for, before it splashed upon the floor, she had ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac

... Bug taps would often overwhelm it in an instant, either by the burning acidity of its composition, or the rubber coating of death into which it hardens in the air. Yet with this current of lava or vitriol, our Bug does three wonderful things, it distills sweet water for its present protective cell of bubbles, it draws purest nourishment for continual energy to run its bellows and pump, and simultaneously it fills its blood and tissues with a pungent flavor, which in the future will be a safeguard ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... distressful tail. When with my pencil once I tried to draw one, (I dare not show it here) Mayhap it is because I never saw one, The picture looked so queer. I vision him half feline and half fishy, A paradox in twins, Unmixable as vitriol and vichy— A thing of fur and fins. A feline Tantalus, forever chasing His fishy self to rend; His finny self forever self-effacing In circles without end. This tale may have a Moral running through it As AEsop had in his; If so, dear reader, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... Suffragette!" wailed Mrs. Rossiter, imagining vitriol was about to be thrown over the surviving pug and damage done generally to the furniture—But at this moment the butler announced: "Captain Frank ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... "Give our love, honest, downright love to Bessy," they write. Rogers called her Psyche, had the pair to stay with him, stayed with them in his turn, and gave Bessy handsome sums for the charities in which she abounded all her life. Rogers knew simplicity when he saw it, and had no vitriol on hand when she was in the way. I don't think Tom ever took her to Ireland with him, or that, consequently, she ever met his parents in the flesh; but no doubt that they accepted ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... with turnip-juice, And let us swindled be; Except in England's cloudy clime Such trash you may not see. With marble-dust and vitriol, 'Twill sparkle bright and foam,— Who will not pledge me in a cup Of ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... the legs, generally in the klawes, washed the sores with cold water, that you mixed 1 once white vitriol, and 1 once burned allumn of a pint of water, 3—4 times to day, and keepet the cattle everry time day's and night's in the open air of meadows or lots. Everry cattle become's in the first time that it is driven out the stables to the green feeding of meadow's, &c. a little sickness, generally ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various

... striking confidence out of his very despair, like fire from flint, sees there his Kinsman-Redeemer. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.' Men may mock him, friends may turn against him, the wife of his bosom may tempt him, comforters may pour vitriol instead of oil into his wounds, yet he, sitting on his dunghill there, poverty-stricken and desolate, knows that God is of kin to him, and will do the kinsman's part by him. The very metaphor implies that the divine intervention which he expects is to take ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... the shop of Thomas Hall, at 19 Bromfield Street, and looked in the window. I went in from time to time, not to make large purchases, but mostly to make inquiries and to buy some blue vitriol, wire, or something of the kind. It was a store where apparatus was sold for experimentation in schools, and on Saturdays a number of Harvard and Institute of Technology professors could be found there. It was quite a rendezvous for the scientific men ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers

... a more disturbing mob, Whose crop is filled with discord and contempt, On which they daily feed, I ne'er have sized. 'Twere well to laws enact to hold in curb These brainless cubs who wield a pricking quill And words indite with vitriol for an ink, Which burns the meaning into quiv'ring brain And leaveth scars which time can ne'er efface. A son of Erin in official place Did eulogize my effort at the club; And I, elated, loaned it to the press For publication if the writer willed; But scruples seemed ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... ways. I might have smallpox and be pitted for life, or be scalded in the face as poor people's babies often are, or have vitriol thrown over me as lots of women do in Paris, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... he relates, when, at the primary school of Avignon, a retort had just burst, "spurting in all directions its contents of vitriol," right in the midst of the suddenly interrupted chemistry lesson, and when, thanks to his prompt action, he saved the sight of one of his comrades, does honour to his initiative and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... that small fiend only sat there leering at me with joy and contempt, and placidly chuckling. Presently he began to speak again. Every sentence was an accusation, and every accusation a truth. Every clause was freighted with sarcasm and derision, every slow-dropping word burned like vitriol. The dwarf reminded me of times when I had flown at my children in anger and punished them for faults which a little inquiry would have taught me that others, and not they, had committed. He reminded me of how I had disloyally allowed old friends to be traduced ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... If vitriol had been thrown on my poor master's quivering frame, the effect could not have been more instantaneous, his ignorance of the language spoken doubtless exaggerating his impression of being ridiculed. Suddenly he turned very white, ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... there are too many fools at large, he knows, because he has travelled half the world, what he can not put up with, is their royal cant, religious bosh, Toorak small-beer, and first and foremost, their money-grubbing expertness. Hence, now and then, his ink turns sour, and thereby its vitriol burns stronger. 'The Times', of which he is the founder, is the Overseer of Ballaarat, and the 'Dolce far niente' ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... embarrassment was Jim's. He rose to the occasion, however, went through the routine of the closing day, and dismissed the flock, not omitting making an engagement with a group of boys for that evening to come back and work on the formalin treatment for smut in seed grains, and the blue-vitriol treatment ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... a circumstance which exposed him to a certain amount of baiting not unlike that which the village idiot receives at the hands of rustic boors—until Marcel learned to defend himself with a tongue which could distil vitriol from the vernacular, and with fists and feet as well. Thereafter he was left severely to himself and glad of it, since it furnished him with just so much more time for reading and dreaming over what ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... both ground and crushed, and always to advantage at ten to twelve bushels per acre; bought from manufacturers here, and agents of houses in New York; but I am using the crushed dissolved by oil of vitriol, as prepared by myself on my farm in Calvert in the following way: The bones, (which we buy in the neighborhood at 50 cents per 112 lbs.) after breaking them with a small sledge hammer on an old anvil, we put at the rate of three bushels in half a hogshead, and apply to that quantity ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... VOLTAMETER.—The second, or copper voltameter, is shown in Fig. 42. The glass jar (A) contains a solution of copper sulphate, known in commerce as blue vitriol. A pair of copper plates (B, B') are placed in this solution, each being provided with a connecting wire (C). When a current passes through the wires (C), one copper plate (B) is eaten away and deposited on the other plate (B'). It is then an easy matter to take out the plates and find out ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... very hard mineral of a pale brass color, found in scattered crystals in many rocks, and is composed of iron and sulphur (iron sulphide). Under the attack of the weather it takes up oxygen, forming iron sulphate (green vitriol), a soluble compound, and insoluble hydrated iron oxide, which as a mineral is known as limonite. Several large masses of iron sulphide were placed some years ago on the lawn in front of the National Museum at Washington. ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... going to strike again, suddenly, sharply, sensationally, and in a way that will produce effects upon prices and upon markets, so much more destructive, that the effects and the destruction of last week will appear by comparison as milk to vitriol. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... recollect that we have in our cargo several cases of vitriol in bottles," interrupted Philip. "In the gale, they must have been disturbed and broken. I kept them above all, in case of accident: this rolling, gunwale under, for so long a time must have occasioned one of them to ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... required to dye it of those beautiful Colours! How widely are the Drugs and other Ingredients dispers'd through the Universe, that are to meet in one Kettle. Allom, indeed, we have of our own; Argol we might have from the Rhine, and Vitriol from Hungary; all this is in Europe; but then for Saltpetre in Quantity, we are forc'd to go as far as the East-Indies: Cochenille, unknown to the Ancients, is not much nearer to us, tho' in a quite different Part of the Earth; we buy it, 'tis true, from the Spaniards; ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville

... counsel, and that from a man of action. I am aware, worthy Colonel, that you and your worthy father have ever borne yourselves in these turmoils like men of a truly Christian and moderate spirit, striving to pour oil into the wounds of the land, which some would rub with vitriol and pepper: and we know you are faithful children of that church which we have reformed from its papistical ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... or subacetate, and the blue vitriol of sulphate of copper, are now comparatively rarely used. They are employed either in the form of a fine powder, or mixed with an equal quantity of the acetate of lead in order to destroy proud ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... comment, and if he thinks that the comments lie within the range of criticism he should decide the case in favour of the defendant, and not let it go to the jury. Then the critics breathed again, and the story goes that Fleet Street laid in a large stock of vitriol. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... over with oil before it is dried, and it is then very flexible, pliable, and durable; but if you take a piece of dry leather, and try to rub it over with oil or grease, you cannot make it enter the pores of the leather; the black colour is produced by rubbing it over with a solution of green vitriol, the sulphate of iron. Russian leather is tanned in an infusion of birch bark, and is said to be afterwards mixed with a quantity of birch tar, to give it that odour for which it is peculiar, which renders it valuable for book-binding, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various

... knock me down from behind, or spoil my beauty with vitriol as coolly as he would toss off a pint of beer, if he had the opportunity, and chanced to feel vicious enough at the time," said Derrick, "But his mood has not quite come to that yet. Just now he feels that he would like to have ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the impression of ink from paper, and of rendering it as new. Wives of emigrants forbid to marry foreigners. Eight thousand men sent to La Vendee. The revolutionary army is disbanded. Means discovered to expel foul air, by burning common salt moistened with oil of vitriol. 30. The brother of Abbe (now Cardinal) Maury guillotined at Avignon. 31. Jourdan appointed commander in chief of the army of the Moselle. Barrere exclaims against atheism and irreligious principles. April 5. Danton, Camille des Moulins, Fabre d'Eglantine, De l'Aulnay, Chabot, La Croix, Philippeau, ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz

... splendid shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, but she is a widow now for the second time. Remonencq, in fact, by the terms of the marriage contract, settled the property upon the survivor, and left a little glass of vitriol about for his wife to drink by mistake; but his wife, with the very best intentions, put the glass elsewhere, and Remonencq swallowed the draught himself. The rascal's appropriate end vindicates Providence, as well as the chronicler of manners, who ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... malevolence, and 'the rebukes of the righteous, which are like excellent oil [footnote: Our friend Edmund Burke, who by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from Dr Johnson, on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my repeating this passage to him, exclaimed, 'Oil of vitriol!'], and break not the head'. Offer my best compliments to him, and assure him that I shall be happy to have the satisfaction of seeing him under ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... vineyards of Bordeaux, France. It seems that workmen on the way to their places of employment were in the habit of foraging on the vineyards of the farmers along the way. To prevent that some of the fruit growers conceived the idea it would be a good thing in order to scare them to get blue vitriol and mix it with water and spray it on the fruit along the roadside. Later in the season, very much to their surprise, they found that the grapes that were treated in that way were not affected with the brown rot. So they tried it again to see ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... the house round the corner. There were sausages there frizzling in a metal-pan with a little row of blue gas-jets below it. There was brandy there; there was beer. There was tobacco of a sort, and there was an admirable whisky, not the diluted vitriol common to the outlying London house before the passing of the Adulteration Act, but honest whisky, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... a cloth dipped in oil, then rubbed over with a clean cloth till it appears dry and polished. White spots on varnished furniture may be removed by rubbing them with a warm flannel, dipped in spirits of turpentine. Ink spots may be removed by rubbing them with a woollen cloth, dipped in oil of vitriol and water mixed, being careful not to touch any part of the furniture that is not spotted. As soon as the ink is extracted, rinse the spot with pearl-ash water, and then with fair water. It is said that blotting paper alone will ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous

... same way is poured out the semi-liquid paste. This is called a torta, and contains about 45,000 lbs. Upon this liquid mass four and a half cargas of 300 lbs. of salt is spread, and then a coating of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) is laid over the whole, and the tramping by mules commences. If the mass is found to be too hot for the advantageous working of the process, then lime in sufficient quantities is added to cool it; and if too cool, then iron pyrites (sulphate of iron) ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... call'd Metborn, which has three streams, two wherof are not above one foot and a half distant from one another, and yet of so differing qualities, that whereas one of them is limpid, blewish, lukewarm, bubling, and holding Sal-armoniack, Ochra, Iron, Vitriol, {134} Allum, Sulphur, Niter, Orpiment, used against Epilepsie, bad Spleens, and the Wormes; the other is Ice-cold, turbid and whitish, much stronger in tast, and heavier than the former, holding much Orpiment, Salt, Iron, Niter, and some Sal-Armoniack, Allum and Vitriol; ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... nothing but a gale would drive it away, and that lasted for hours and even for days. And then there was mustard gas, that penetrated everywhere through the clothing, through the skin, and that burned and ate up the living tissues like so much vitriol. ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... poison me." Then handing the glass to his secretary, he added, "Look at it, Couste: what is this stuff?" The secretary put a few drops into a coffee-spoon, lifting it to his nose and then to his mouth: the drink had the smell and taste of vitriol. Meanwhile Lachaussee went up to the secretary and told him he knew what it must be: one of the councillor's valets had taken a dose of medicine that morning, and without noticing he must have brought the very glass his companion had used. Saying this, he ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... faded from Jim's eye and the blaze of wrath dulled to a gray contempt. She was afraid that he might call her what she had once overheard Pet Bettany call her—"A common little mucker." That sort of contempt seared like a splash of vitriol. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... wood over several times with a hot decoction of logwood; take 1/4 lb. of powdered galls, and set in the sun or other gentle heat in 2 quarts of water for three or four days; brush the wood over with it three or four times, and, while wet, with a solution of green vitriol in water, 2 oz. to a quart; or use a solution of copper in aqua fortis, then the solution of logwood, and repeat until black enough." A German receipt says:—"Take half a measure of iron filings and a pennyweight of sal ammoniac, and put into a pot of vinegar; let ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... than the bad woman, whose name was La Chouette (Screech-Owl), cried, 'I have got some vitriol; I am going to wash the face of La Goualeuse, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... with the last lodgers,' says the younger flea. 'They drank vile spirits, their blood was turpentine with, I fear, a dash of vitriol. How they lived at all, I know not. I always had the headache in the morning. Here however,' and the juvenile looked steadfastly down upon the plain of flesh, the wide champaign beneath him—'here we have promise of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... of Roman vitriol in a quart of boiling water, to which is added one ounce of pearlash; the mixture should then be forcibly agitated, and a small quantity of pulverised yellow arsenic stirred in. A green is also the result of successive ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead

... cures," he said. "Paring and clipping, and dipping the hoof in blue vitriol and vinegar, or rubbing it on, as the English shepherds do. It destroys the diseased part, ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... abundance, but never occurs in the pure metallic state, but in combination with other substances, chiefly as sulphide in zinc blende, as carbonate in calamine, and as the silicate in the kieselzinc ore; also, with sulphuric acid, the "vitriol of zinc." ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous

... come back you ought to have done so; therefore it comes to the same thing in the end. You must not think too ill of Mr. Drake. I call him the milk of human kindness, and his friend Lord Robert the oil thereof—I mean the oil of vitriol. But his temper is like the Caspian Sea, having neither ebb nor flow, while yours is like the Bay of Biscay—oh, so I can't expect you to agree. As for poor me, I may be guilty of all the seven deadly sins, but I can't see why I should be boycotted on that account. There ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... him then for any thing that had the blood upon it: so he presently sent for his garter, wherewith his hand was first bound; and as I called for a basin of water, as if I would wash my hands, I took a handful of powder of vitriol, which I had in my study, and presently dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it in the basin, observing, in the interim, what Mr. Howell did, who stood talking with a gentleman in a corner of my chamber, not regarding ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... phenomenon in hypocrisy. He put forward a fact which he had neglected to mention in his deposition. It might throw light on the character of the accused. Francoise had a dress hanging up to dry in the mansard. Helene went up to the garret above this, made a hole in the ceiling, and dropped oil of vitriol on her ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure

... is a music-hall artiste," replied Marie. "At least, that is what the people say. I have not heard yet what hall she appears in. They say she is very pretty. Are you going to throw vitriol ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy

... conceived to be ruinous to his country, or perhaps prejudicial to his own prospect of a sinecure. The journals printed their columns in gall; the satirists dipped their pens in concentrated acid; the popular haranguers dashed the oil of vitriol of contempt in each other's faces. The confusion, the collision, the uproar, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... were the most valuable things he had. I was witness to such a battle as you have never seen in your European climates. The northern nations have not that heat in their blood, nor that raging lust for women, so common in Africa. It seems that you Europeans have only milk in your veins; but it is vitriol, it is fire which runs in those of the inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighbouring countries. They fought with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of the country, to see who should have us. ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... criticism or ridicule had incurred the displeasure of various individuals whose cause naturally enough had been espoused by a rival paper, the Chronicle. Very soon the original grievance, whatever it was, was lost sight of in the fireworks and vitriol-throwing of personal recrimination between Mark Twain and the Chronicle editor, then a ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... capture the coal-yards," he said, taking in the situation at a glance. "Caesar, let the coal-yards be your care. Alcibiades will take the Three Musketeers, and by night will make a detour to the other side of the palace and open the sluices of the vitriol reservoir, which I understand run into the Styx. Pompey will surprise the stokers in the national engine-room with a force of ten thousand, put out the fires, and await further orders. Charlemagne will accompany me with the army to the ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... goes unfortunately a long way. It is like gin made of vitriol when mingled with water. A small modicum of gin, though it does not add much spirit to the water, will damnably defile a large quantity. And this gin has in it a something of flavour which will altogether deceive an uneducated palate. ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... find that lemon-juice, vinegar, oil of vitriol and other sharp corrosives, stain dyed garments. Sometimes, by adding a little pearlash to a soap-lather and passing the silks through these, the faded color will be restored. Pearlash and warm water will sometimes do alone, but it is the most ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... it began to snow heavily. The cold came on, the wind blue sharp, as if there were vitriol in it to wash the people's faces. Mother Soren did not let that disturb her; she threw her cloak around her, and drew her hood over her head. Early in the afternoon—it was already dark in the house—she laid wood and turf on the hearth, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... four hundred to five hundred tons of lead, one hundred and forty tons of tin, about thirty tons of copper, from three thousand five hundred to four thousand tons of iron, and six hundred tons of cobalt. They are rich also in arsenic, brimstone, and vitriol, and contain, in no inconsiderable quantities, quicksilver, antimony, calamites, bismuth, and manganese. Even precious stones are not wanting; garnets, topazes, tourmalines, amethysts, beryls, jaspers, and ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... don't you think that rose leaves and vitriol is a good gargle?" said little Miss Emily; "I always thought that you liked rose leaves ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... known it a long time by that name, but had no idea that it was the same fluid as sulphuric acid. What resemblance or connection can there be between oil of vitriol and this acid? ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... certain wild berry; you think you're swallowing fire! Well now, one evening I drank more than a liter of it, and it didn't hurt me one bit. Better than that, another time when we were on the coast of Coromandel some savages gave us I don't know what sort of a mixture of pepper and vitriol, and that didn't hurt me one bit. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... who by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from Dr. Johnson, on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my repeating this passage to him, exclaimed 'Oil of vitriol !' BOSWELL. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... when combined produce an effect always "give" something of which when uncombined they show no trace. There is no trace; of sweetness in the constituents of sugar of lead, or of blueness in the constituents of blue vitriol. In not a single case, if we are to follow the logic of the theist, is there a cause adequate to produce an effect, if we are to follow the reasoning of some theists; in each case we should have to assume some occult agent as responsible for the result. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... of Cujo there are mines of gold and copper, but they are not worked owing to the indolence of the inhabitants. It has also rich mines of lead, sulphur, vitriol, salt, gypsum, and talc or asbestos. The mountains near the city of Juan are entirely composed of white marble, in stratified slabs of five or six feet long by six or seven inches thick, all regularly cut and polished by nature. From this the inhabitants prepare ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... and with my last penny I'm goin' to buy vitriol—I don' care who it hits! An' I'll throw it in the face o' the wench that he goes with ... I don' care who it hits ... right in the middle o' the mug. I don' care! It c'n burn up his fine-lookin' phiz! I don' care! It c'n burn off his ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Duncan to help you. He's a queer fellow, but he knows how to use vitriol instead of ink, and it's ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... felt ill, and fortunately was able to vomit what he had swallowed. Furious, and accusing me of a criminal intention, he returned to my quarters to demand an explanation. I examined the substance taken from the banana, and found that it was blue vitriol and corrosive sublimate. The presence of such substances in a banana was far from natural. I took other bunches of my supply, and found in several bananas the same poisons, which had been skillfully introduced under the skin. After some ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff



Words linked to "Vitriol" :   abuse, insult, sulfur, round, vituperation, revilement, contumely, battery acid, electrolyte acid, assault, sulphur, snipe, sulphuric acid, lash out, sulfuric acid, invective, attack, vilification, subject, atomic number 16, acid, vitriolic, s, assail



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