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Wads   /wɑdz/   Listen
Wads

noun
1.
A large number or amount.  Synonyms: dozens, gobs, heaps, lashings, loads, lots, oodles, piles, rafts, scads, scores, slews, stacks, tons.  "She amassed stacks of newspapers"






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"Wads" Quotes from Famous Books



... one solid lump. I and a friend proceeded like this till the ice-walls were about four feet high, spaces being left for the door and windows. As the blocks became too heavy to lift, we used great wads of snow in their stead, melting them with cold water and kneading them into shape with thick woollen gloves, and so the walls rose. I wanted a snow roof; had we been mediaeval cathedral builders we might possibly have fashioned a groined and vaulted snow roof, with ice ribs, but being amateurs, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... At times their yard-arms interlocked; and still the heavy broadsides rang out, and the flying shot crashed through beam and stanchion, striking down the men at their guns, and covering the decks with blood. Twice the flying wads of heavy paper from the enemy's guns set the "Trumbull" a-fire, and once the British ship was endangered ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... the belt and knocking seven kinds of cold victuals out of him, God gives him a pointer on a silver mine, and the infidel rakes in a cool million, and laughs in his sleeve, while thousands of poor workers in the vineyard are depending for a livelihood on collections that pan out more gun wads and brass pants buttons to the ton of ore than they ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... I was seized, and had my locks tied up in wads of blotting- paper, and ordered to sit down and lick envelopes, and not dare to put my hand to my head till leave was accorded me ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... the wind. The table was filled with empty cans and tin plates and cracked, oven-stained bowls and iron-handled knives and forks, and the bunk in the corner was a tumble of gray blankets and unpleasant, red-flowered comforts—corner-wads, Charming Billy was used to calling them—and for pillows there were two square, calico-covered cushions, depressingly ugly in pattern ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... of the minor ironies of war that the great equestrian statue of George III, which had been erected in New York in days more peaceful, was melted into bullets for killing that monarch's soldiers. Another necessity was paper for cartridges and wads. The cartridge of that day was a paper envelope containing the charge of ball and powder. This served also as a wad, after being emptied of its contents, and was pushed home with a ramrod. A store of German Bibles ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... long over the stove rolling her hair into little wads about the length and thickness of her finger, then tightly wrapping each with a stout bit of cord to take out the kink. When Gordon Lee roused himself now and then to inquire suspiciously what she was doing, ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice

... not a post, and scarcely a rail, in all the out-buildings and fences, that was not full of shot-holes. This kind of shooting was a dangerous practice. I wondered, when I examined the premises, that the barn and sheds had not taken fire from the burning wads. It was dangerous also to the poultry and cattle. But he thought nothing of these things; from day to day it ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos

... done over again two or three times (with much seeming vexation). The little girls "showed off" in various ways, and the little boys "showed off" with such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads and the murmur of scufflings. And above it all the great man sat and beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the house, and warmed himself in the sun of his own grandeur—for he was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the Freshmen and Juniors in rectangular wads. It is such bread as convicts' tears have moistened many thousand years. In that ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... uproar, hats were tossed ceilingward, and great wads of money were passed out by the "trusted cashier" to indifferent millionaires. Felix wanted to rush in and bet at once on something—if he waited it might be too late. Was it necessary to be introduced to the cashier? No? Would he take the ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... the Plaza Euskara is a wonderful sight, with its thousands of spectators, all worked up to a pitch of intense excitement. The betting is tremendous, and fat wads of dollar bills are produced from the shabbiest of coats, whose owners one would hardly associate with such an amount of portable wealth. The three umpires sit together on a sort of rostrum, each ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... trap! I didn't bring you here to get rolled for your wads, or anythin' like that. I stopped here to get me telegraph messenger uniform. I can go anywhere in the city with that on, and not be molested. I don't know what this means, but there are ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... English arrogance; they were simple honest hearts of that class of continuous travellers with which England covers the globe. The father was long and thin, with a red face framed in white whiskers, and looking like a living sandwich, a piece of ham carved like a face between two wads of hair. The daughters, who had long legs like young storks, were also thin-except the oldest. All three were pretty, especially ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... wads. This never came from his gun. Now let us go back to the tree, Mr. Henderson, and see which way the man ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... nineteenth century. They were long-barrelled, ivory-handled, business-like weapons, provided with miniature ramrods. The velvet-lined interior of the case was divided into various compartments, two for the pistols, one for powder-flask, one for bullets, one for percussion-caps, and one for wads. In his dull, automatic way, his mind whirling madly in other spheres, he cleaned the pistols, shook the powder-flask to make certain that powder was still there—he loved to pour out a few grains into his hand and show the powder that had remained in the flask for generations, ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke

... with smut on nose, Furnace and carpet-sack in hand, With the journeyman he goes. Now grown a journeyman himself, In grimy hand he gripes A candle-end, and 'neath the sink Explores the frozen pipes. His furnace portable he lights With smoking wads of news- Papers, and smiles to see within The pot the solder fuse. He gives his fiat: "They are froze Down about sixteen feet; If you want water ere July You must dig up the street." "Practical Plumber" now is he, As witnesseth his sign, And ready now to undertake Repairs in any line. One ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... handkerchief into two parts, made wads, and pressing them close over the wounds he bound them there with ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... While only twenty-five or thirty were in position, hundreds of old ones lay on the bank to the left. Three small crosses of wood were placed near the wands; much white paper, clipped and cut into decorated designs, was lying about, as also wads of cotton, colored wools, long strings of yarn, and bits of half-beaten bark fibre. Near the front edge of the cave was a hole with large stones; here, with a little scratching, we found feathers and bits of bone of turkeys and hens, that had ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... depths, under pillow, quilt, and valance, until my hands encountered something hard; and I dragged out the pistol-case and snapped it open. The silver-chased weapons lay there in perfect order; under the drawer that held them was another drawer containing finest priming-powder, shaped wads, ball, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... out the April Fool idea as much as possible without spoiling the supper. Six nice brown doughnuts had wads of cotton concealed in their tempting rings. These were to be mixed with the good ones. Pickles just out of the brine, were to be put in the same dish with deliciously perfect ones. There was to be just enough of the false to keep the guests on ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... little girl, justified his action by explaining that "she persisted in flinging paper pellets at him when his back was turned." That is no excuse. Mr. Grile once taught school up in the mountains, and about every half hour had to remove his coat and scrape off the dried paper wads adhering to the nap. He never permitted a trifle like this to unsettle his patience; he just kept on wearing that gaberdine until it had no nap and the wads wouldn't stick. But when they took to dipping them in mucilage he made a complaint ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... of the action the mats with which the galleon had stuffed her netting took fire and burned violently, blazing up half as high as the mizzen top. This accident (supposed to be caused by the Centurion's wads) threw the enemy into great confusion, and at the same time alarmed the Commodore, for he feared lest the galleon should be burned, and lest he himself too might suffer by her driving on board him. But the Spaniards at last freed themselves ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter

... of common felt gun wads make a very good cleat for the wires. They are used in the manner illustrated in the accompanying sketch. The insulated wire is placed between two wads and fastened with two nails or screws. If one wad on the back is not thick enough to keep the wire away from ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... you ever in Langtry, Ohio? Well, never take a chance on it if there is anywhere else to go. It's a tank town with a community of seven hundred of the tightest wads that ever sunk a dollar into the toe of a sock. There was a fair going on in the place, and I blew in there one September day; my turn just then was taking orders for crayon portraits of rural gentlemen with horny hands and plenty of chin fringe. I figure it out that about sixty per cent. of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... provide you with little wads of cotton-wool. Do come and we'll have just a party of eight. I've asked no one yet and perhaps nobody will come. I want you and Peppino, and the rest may come or stop away. ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... jest like two dogs worritin' a bone you got me plumb beat," he said. Then he added with an air of outraged virtue: "I'd like to say right here she's jest playin' them fellers for their wads. Oh, she's a keen one, her eyes is right on to business. She'll sure have 'em shootin' each other right up. Seems to me a gal like that ain't no right in this yer city. She's a scandal to the place. An' a danger. Wot we fellers ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He was payin' the coolies fair an' easy, but he wud ask each man if he wud raffle that month, an' each man sez, "Yes," av course. Thin he wud deduct from their wages accordin'. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould cigar-box full av gun-wads an' scatthered ut among the coolies. They did not take much joy av that performince, an' small wondher. A man close to me picks up a black gunwad an' sings out, "I have ut."—"Good may ut do you," sez I. The coolie wint forward to this big, fine, red man, who threw a cloth off av the ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... tiers, whereon to carve the bodies of the maimed. The yards are slung in chains; fire-screens distributed here and there: hillocks of cannon-balls piled between the guns; shot-plugs suspended within easy reach from the beams; and solid masses of wads, big as Dutch cheeses, braced to the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... they blew them off by firing their cannon through them. The men on each ship in loading were forced to push their rammers into the ports of the other vessel. The Bonhomme Richard was set on fire by burning wads, but ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... queerly as he thanked the nester, then from his pockets he removed several crumpled wads of currency and a handful of silver. These he counted before saying: "What capital I have is entirely liquid—it's all in cash. There is eighty-seven dollars and forty-three cents. It is every dollar in ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... James Beekman, Rhinelander Stewart, Moses Grinnell, and a lot of just such worthies—men whose word was as good as their notes—and whose notes were often better than the Government's, presided over its destinies, and helped to stuff the old-fashioned vault with wads of gilt-edged securities—millions in value if you did but know it—and making it what it is to-day. If you don't believe the first part of my statement, you've only to fumble among the heap of dusty ledgers piled on top of the dusty shelves; and if you doubt ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... parents. Mr. Pawket trembled slightly; he stood high-collared and coattailed, upon the glittering steps. Mrs. Pawket, in black silk, clove to his arm. The twins, in the heated wretchedness of Sunday clothes, stepped forward, and in the interests of sentiment stuck forth two wads of tightly bound pink roses. The Rural, blushing in a costume of very bright blue, wearing elbow mitts, and carrying a pink feather fan, introduced a sweet-smelling young man ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... their wads of sticky congealed sap against the wall. Jason pressed the charges into them and they stuck, a roughly rectangular pattern as high as a man. While he did this the detonating wire was run out to its length and the raiders pressed back against the base of the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison

... to study trade winds, oceanic storm conditions, temperatures, inhabitants, topography, and so forth, and so forth," drawled Tom Meeks. "Say, fellows, I feel like kicking myself to think I didn't study my geography more and shoot paper-wads less, when I was a ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... was always covered with a large, spotlessly clean, blue gingham apron of small broken check, and she was very particular about having a certain-sized check. The apron had a patch pocket, which usually contained small twists or little wads of cord, which, like "The Old Ladies in Cranford," she picked up and saved ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... giving her brow a sunny crown. Ah! a pretty doll, as the Lorilleuxs say, a dirty nose that needed wiping, with fat shoulders, which were as fully rounded and as powerful as those of a full-grown woman. Nana no longer needed to stuff wads of paper into her bodice, her breasts were grown. She wished they were larger though, and dreamed of ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... wander with the gun when I was but a little over eight years old. The gun was a long, double-barrel, muzzle-loading derelict. Wads were not a commercial commodity in those days. I would put in some powder, guessing at the amount, then a wad of newspaper, and thoroughly ram it home, upon top of this the shot, quantity also guessed at, and more paper. But it was barely shoved to the shot, never rammed. ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves

... easy canter, the track across the veld being a very gentle downward slope all the way, I overtook the wagon at a distance of about six miles from the house; when, dismounting, I took my rifle from its slings under the wagon tent, loaded it, slung my powder horn over my shoulder, slipped a few wads and bullets into my pocket, and then, accompanied by the two dogs, walked on ahead of the wagon toward our first outspanning place, my horse Prince following me, as he had been trained to do, with the bridle hanging loose upon his neck. I had of course an ample supply of provisions in the wagon, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... incongruous assemblage, as most large and far-reaching entertainments at Monte Carlo must be; and odd things happened in corners behind tea-tables, such as young gamblers producing large wads of notes freshly won in the Rooms and flourishing them under the eyes of ladies who tabooed the name of the Casino. But there was no gossip, no scandal: for somehow in "St. George" Winter's house one felt ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... wounded fellow seems to have dragged himself to the balcony where he succeeded in firing off the cannon before he was thrown over the palisades, to be received on the hostiles' upturned spears. Meanwhile wads of burning birch bark and moss had been tossed into the fort on the powder magazines. A high wind fanned the flames. A terrific explosion shook the fort. The trap-door where the women huddled upstairs ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... teacher, who gives us all the good advice we need, and then lets us do as we please;" and then I have witnessed whispering, talking, chewing gum and throwing it about the house, passing from seat to seat, playing with tops and whirls, tossing wads of wet paper about the house and to the ceiling, cutting images upon the desks, imitating the practice of botanic physicians, exhibiting and passing from one to another roots and herbs, and discoursing upon their properties, chasing mice about the house, and in some instances ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... Rhine, and the Royal troops had also advanced as far as they were able, so that there were not five pikes'-lengths between the lines. Yet that short distance was so impassable that, save for the more deadly fire, a quarter of a mile might have divided us. So near were we that the burning wads from the enemy's muskets flew in flakes of fire over our heads, and we felt upon our faces the hot, quick flush of their discharges. Yet though the air was alive with bullets, the aim of the soldiers was too high for our ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... she rode at anchor trimly a few yards from the bank. "Now," he said, "we'll exercise great guns. Here (he produced a powder-horn) is the magazine; here (he produced a bag of bullets) is the shot-locker. Here's a bag of wads. Now, my sons, down to business. Cast loose your housings, take out tompions. Now bear a hand, my lads; we'll give your old ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... under high pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the very bones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of our dictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads of syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... What have you done with that?" In her excitement she thought of her money just as she hand handed it in-silver and little rolls and wads of bills. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... impossible. All he could do was to care the more for Siward without crossing the border line so suddenly made free; all he could do was to sit there rolling and unrolling his gloves into wads with his clumsy, highly coloured hands, and gaze consciously at everything ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... gun-boats under Admiral Porter were ordered to attempt to run the land batteries, and April 16, 1863, was selected as the date for their perilous mission. Each vessel had been carefully protected by cotton bales, and the crews stood ready with great wads of cotton to stop leaks, while all lights were extinguished except one in the stern of each ship to ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... occurs from the ears, it is not best to plug them with cotton wads. It only keeps in what should be got rid of. Do not go to sleep with the head on a window sill or in any position, with the ears exposed to draughts ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... powder may be tried with a shot gun. If the fulminating cap be large, the powder fine, the wads numerous and hard and the charge of shot heavy, all being well rammed down, and the paper case well spun over the last pasteboard wad, a charge of smokeless powder about equal in weight to one-half of what would be employed of black powder would ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... With one tap she forced out the old primer, inserted a new one, and drove it in. Next she plunged the rusty measuring-cup into the black powder and poured the glistening grains into the shell, three drams and a half. On this she drove in two wads. Now the shell was ready for an ounce and an eighth of number nine shot, and she measured it and poured it in with practised hand. Then came the last wad, a quick twirl of the crimper, and the first shell ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... rising over 4,000 feet within a few miles back. When running the guantlet of the storms along these forbidding shores we looked into the mouths of several dark caverns of unknown depth. Twice Indian Tom raised his paddle, placed four small wads of tobacco thereon, and, with a supplicating motion of his right hand toward these caverns, made an offering to the spirits which are supposed to inhabit them, praying that we might have a safe voyage. Here we found what I believe to be the grandest scenery ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... necessary preparations are made and precautions taken to avoid accidents. The guns, if loaded, are to be drawn, wormed, sponged and reloaded. They are, nevertheless, to be so laid as to prevent the possibility of mischief, even in the contingency of a shot or wad being left in any of them. Hard wads are not to be used in firing salutes, nor are port-fires. The guns are to be fired either with percussion or friction primers, as the Captain may prefer. These, when in good order, are not apt to fail if the lock-string ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... if you like we'll bind your eyes and put wads in your ears, and you can stay, so that you'll have been in the room all the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that, m'sieu'? It's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... sword-rack, or stand, holding six dozen naked cutlasses. The desk is covered over with a signal-flag, as well as the hassock for the chaplain to kneel upon, which is usually a grape or canister shot-box, surmounted by a cheese of great-gun wads, to make ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... distinguished had cork stoppers for heads, with faces marked on the sides, the rest, only wads of paper or cloth fastened on the ends of sticks that reached down into the bodies. A strip of cloth tied around each neck, below the bulge, served as make-believe arms, suitable for all ordinary purposes, and, with a little assistance, capable of saluting an officer or waving ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... sent ahead to arrange for lunch at the house of a rich Igorot named Acop, but when we arrived at this man's place, soaked, cold, and hungry, we found it shut up. He had not received the message and was away from home. Investigation showed that our only resource in the commissary line were some wads of sticky, unsalted, boiled rice which our Igorot carriers had inside their hats, in contact with their frowsy hair. We bolted as much of this as the Igorots could spare, killing its rather high ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... continued, "I know a trick that will do the business, if we see any more of these dragons." Saying which, he withdrew the cartridges from his gun, and with his hunting-knife cut the tough paper shell nearly through between the wads separating the powder from the shot, drawing his knife entirely around. "Now," said he, "when I fire those, the entire forward end of the cartridge will go out, keeping the fifteen buckshot together like a slug, and with such penetration that it will go through a two-inch plank. It is ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... the old woman who went to the cupboard to get a bone, and if he hadn't been her father—" he breathed a portentous and difficult self-repression. "Then he took a cowardly advantage of my having no money, just now; right after I explained how I was going to make wads—with Vigne." ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer

... to contact run, Both grappling, board to board and gun to gun; Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour, Rake the lower decks, the interior timbers bore, Drive into chinks the illumined wads unseen, Whose flames approach the unguarded magazine. Above, with shrouds afoul and gunwales mann'd, Thick halberds clash; and, closing hand to hand, The huddling troops, infuriate from despair, Tug at the toils of death, and perish there; Grenados, carcasses ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... They had baker's bread and gingercakes in the carriage. Since her adventure at the Susan house, Grandma Padgett had taken care to put provisions in the carriage pockets. Then aunt Corinne, assisted by her nephew, got potatoes from the sack, wrapped them in wet wads of paper, and roasted them in the ashes. A potato so roasted may be served up with a scorched and hardened shell, but its heart is perfumed by all the odors of the woods. It tastes better than any other potato, and while the butter melts through ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... you much of a Sunday-school picnic, does it?" commented the Prodigal. "It's fierce the way the girls are prying some of these crazy jays loose from their wads. They're all plumb batty. I'm tired trying to wise them up. 'Go and chase yourself,' they say; 'we're all right. Don't matter if we do loosen up a bit now, there's all kinds of easy money waiting for us up there.' Then they talk of what ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... spring campaign, which often lasts six or eight weeks. Decoys of wood, sheet-iron, and canvas, boats for decoy-shooting and stealthy approach, warm clothes, caps, and mittens of spotless white, powder by the keg, caps and wads by the thousand, and shot by the bag, boots and moccasons water and frost proof, and a vast variety of small stores for the inner man, are among the necessaries provided, sometimes weeks in advance of the coming of the few scattering flocks which form, as it were, the skirmish line ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... a sophomore dance a jig to the music of a dogwood sprout for throwing paper wads. I saw a junior compelled to stand on the dunce block, on one foot—(a la gander) for winking at his sweetheart in time of books, for failing to know his lessons, and for "various and sundry ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... that way," said the gunmaker. "It won't go off unless you pull the trigger." And he loaded the four barrels, measuring out the powder and shot carefully, and ramming in the wads. "You'll be wanting more powder and shot than ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... California mesa. For the vegetation of Lower California makes up in bristliness what it lacks in luxuriance. Bush cactuses, so prickly that it makes one's eyes smart to look at them, and bunch cactuses, in wads of thorns as large as a bushel-basket, swarm everywhere. Before the barefooted Padre had traveled far, so Miss Graham tells us in her charming little paper on the Spanish missions, he had made the acquaintance of many species of cactus. Horses in that country become lame sometimes, ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan

... school in Wales when I was four years old. By the time I was six I thought I knew more than my teachers. This shows about how bright I was. The teachers had forbidden me to throw paper wads, or spitballs. I thought I could go through the motion of throwing a spitball without letting it go. But it slipped and I threw the wad right in the teacher's eye. I told him it was an accident, that I had merely tried to play smart and had ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... the invader. Some of the illusion of the anxiety and mental tension which war brings, steals over the watching crowd, and they breathlessly await the outcome of the struggle. The attacking party is now seen under the walls—now on them—they throw wads of burning cotton, which are at first extinguished. They still gain—they fire the walls in several places; and the defenders, who can be seen in the flashes of light, run frantically to the danger spots; but they are ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose

... which remained from my school expenses. Taking off the railway and steamship fare, and other incidental expenses, I had still about 14 yen in my pocket. I could give them all I had;—what did I care, I was going to get a salary now. All country folk are tight-wads, and one 5-yen bill would hit them square. Now watch and see. Having washed myself, I returned to my room and waited, and the maid of the night before brought in my breakfast. Waiting on me with a tray, she looked at me with a sort of sulphuric smile. Rude! Is any ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri

... for the rigging sent up into the tops, or placed in different parts of the deck. The carpenter got ready his shot-plugs and top-maul; the armorer examined the locks of the fire-arms; the gunner paraded his wads, and opened the magazine beneath the cabin floor. Morton, to whom Captain Williams had deputed the charge of the two females, descended to the steerage, attended by two or three seamen, and hauled all the spare sails out of the sail-room, with which he formed a small hollow coil in the ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... it is for the purpose, Nat. A little poured into the barrel of the gun after the powder is made safe with a couple of wads, is driven out in a fine cutting spray, which has secured me many a lovely specimen ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... before our visit, a mass of soft white cotton more than six feet square and fully twelve inches deep. On opposite sides of this table the father and his son, of twelve years, each twanged the string of their heavy bamboo bows, snapping the lint from the wads of cotton and flinging it broadcast in an even layer over the surface of the growing mattress, the two strings the while emitting tones pitched far below the hum of the bumblebee. The heavy bow was steadied by a cord secured around the body of the operator, allowing ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... Coiffe, Nicholas Rolfo, and five or six other veterans, loading their cannon for the evening salute of twenty-one guns, while half of Pfalzbourg stand on the opposite bastion looking at the red light, and smoke, and watching the wads as they fall into the moat; then the illuminations at night and the crackers and rockets, I hear the children cry Vive l'Empereur, and then some days after, the death notices and the conscription. Under Louis XVIII. I see the altars and the peasants with their carts full of moss and broom and young ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... DIVINE: Wads of it. I should expect Ulsa to go down town in sections every morning—in two Rolls Royces. I have also a kiddy-car and a converted tank. I have ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... wishes you to eat with us," she said, and produced her flint bag. In this were some wads of fibrous material used for wicks. Rolling a piece of this in wood ashes, she held it between her thumb and a flint, struck her steel against the stone, and sparks flew out which lighted the fibre so that it burst into flame. This was thrown ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet

... no gent strugglin' in the coils of error,' says Cherokee, with a sneer a size larger than the Lizard's; 'I don't know what wads of wealth them pore old clothes of yours conceals, but jest the same I tells you what I'll do. Climb right onto the layout, body, soul, an' roll, an' put a figger on your worthless se'f, an' I'll turn you for the whole shootin'-match. You're in yere to make ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... know me better than to think it," replied Mrs. Carr, while the corners of her mouth drooped. She had laid her bag of grosgrain silk on the table at her elbow, and untying the strings of her bonnet, she neatly rolled them into two tight little wads which she ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... who comes once a week to give us a scripture lesson. He is only a curate and looks very shy. We had a most exciting time with him yesterday. We all shied paper wads, and he moved nearly every one up and sent one girl ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... goin' too fur—too fur. But," says I firmly, "I shall do Dorlesky's errents, and do 'em to the best of my ability; and you can't draw off my attention from her sufferin's and her suffragin's by talkin' about wads." ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... would alone fill a book. They were with the Battery in the early summer when the first gas attack swept over, and caught them at "Hell fire Corner" on the Ypres-Menin road. It was they who improvised temporary masks for the men from wads of cotton wool and lint soaked in carbolic. Luckily they were not near enough to be seriously gassed, but for months after they both felt the after effects. Even where we were, we noticed the funny sulphurous smell in the air which seemed to catch one with a tight sensation in the ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp



Words linked to "Wads" :   large indefinite quantity, large indefinite amount



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