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Worsted   /wˈərstɪd/   Listen
Worsted

noun
1.
A woolen fabric with a hard textured surface and no nap; woven of worsted yarns.
2.
A tightly twisted woolen yarn spun from long-staple wool.  Synonym: worsted yarn.






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"Worsted" Quotes from Famous Books



... not. My brain, heart, and soul have been absorbed by the world, and not by its best things either. Fifteen years ago, when scarcely more than a child, I was left alone in it. I have feared it inexpressibly, and with good reason. I have fought it, and have often been worsted. At times I have hated it; but as I began to succeed I learned to love it, and to serve it with an ambition that gave me so little respite that yesterday I thought that I was a broken and worn-out man. If ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... allow of their being used in the manufacture of brooches and other ornamental objects. Another use to which peat of some kinds has been put is in the manufacture of yarn, the result being a material which is said to resemble brown worsted. On digging a ditch to drain a part of a bog in Maine, U.S., in which peat to a depth of twenty feet had accumulated, a substance similar to cannel coal itself was found. As we shall see presently, cannel ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin

... thousand Mahratta horse, which Murari Reo had promised him. When these arrived, however, they proved unwilling to accompany him. Upon their way, they had fallen in with a portion of Riza Sahib's retreating force, and had been worsted in the attack; and as the chance of plunder seemed small, while the prospect of hard blows was certain, the free-booting horsemen refused, absolutely, to join in the pursuit of the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... were two friends, Junot and Marmont, who had clung to him through his recent troubles; the former was to be helped to wealth and fame by Buonaparte's friendship, the latter by his own brilliant gifts.[31] In this expedition their talent was of no avail. The French were worsted in an engagement with the British fleet, and fell back in confusion to the coast of France. Once again Buonaparte's Corsican enterprises were frustrated by the ubiquitous lords of the sea: against them he now stored up a double portion of hate, for in the meantime his inspectorship of coast ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... in maroon livery and a bright worsted waistcoat announced dinner from the foot of the terrace, and they moved slowly toward the house. There was a concerted interest in the faces they found already about the table. Howat took his seat at his mother's side, Gilbert Penny ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... had confided nothing definite to any one. Humiliation at having been worsted arms in hand, and an uneasy feeling of having been involved in a scrape by the injustice of fate, kept Lieut. Feraud savagely dumb. He mistrusted the sympathy of mankind. That would, of course, go to that dandified staff officer. Lying in bed, he raved aloud ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... intruder appeared, though singular, by no means formidable. He was a man slightly past the middle age, with a thin face, hollowed at the cheeks and temples as if by illness or asceticism, and a grayish beard that encircled his throat like a soiled worsted "comforter" below his clean-shaven chin and mouth. His manner was slow and methodical, and even when he shot the bolt of the door behind him, the act did not seem aggressive. Nevertheless Mr. Farendell half rose with his hand on his pistol-pocket, but the stranger merely ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... — O sovran Hrothgar, to seek thee here, for my nerve and my might they knew full well. Themselves had seen me from slaughter come blood-flecked from foes, where five I bound, and that wild brood worsted. I' the waves I slew nicors {6a} by night, in need and peril avenging the Weders, {6b} whose woe they sought, — crushing the grim ones. Grendel now, monster cruel, be mine to quell in single battle! So, from thee, ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous

... majority of the inhabitants of the town. The city had practically no organised industries. The retail trader and the purveyor of luxuries doubtless flourished; but, in the scanty manufactures which the capital still provided, the army of free labour must have been always worsted by the cruel competition of the cheaper and more skilful slave or freedman. But the poor of Rome did not form the cowed and shivering class that are seen on the streets of a northern capital. They were the merry and vivacious lazzaroni of the pavement and the portico, composite products ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... under Count d'Estaing, who reached the mouth of Delaware Bay on July 8, 1778, with twelve ships of the line and four frigates. He then went to New York, but the pilots thought his heavy draught ships could not cross the bar above Sandy Hook; and so he sailed off to Newport where a British fleet worsted him and he was obliged to put into Boston for repairs. Late in the autumn he took up his station in the West Indies for the winter. This first experiment of French naval cooeperation had not been crowned by victory as the ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... been worsted in the encounter. It is true, however, that he had not as yet ventured on any direct attack, nor had he made use of any of the weapons which Lecoq had forged for his use. Still he was none the less annoyed at his defeat, as it was easy to see by the sharp manner ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... he had hitherto admired with fear. To talk with her was exhausting to frail mortality, and he had avoided the pleasure except in moments of boisterous bodily and mental health. Now she was his one resource, and the unfortunate man, rashly entering into a contest of wit, found himself badly worsted by her ready tongue. He declared that she was worse than her mother, at which the unabashed young woman replied that the superiority of parents was the last retort of the vanquished. He registered an inward vow that Miss Afflint should be used on the morrow ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... few minutes his strong common sense returned, and his first act was to open Duncan's coat and stanch the wound. This he accomplished by means of a strip torn off the poor man's cotton shirt, and the long red worsted belt with which the hunter's capote was bound. Then he took from his pocket a small bottle of water, with which he had provided himself in case of need, and poured ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... afford to keep your force and Banks's and McDowell's engaged in keeping Jackson south of Strasburg and Front Royal. You fought Jackson alone and worsted him. He can have no substantial reinforcements so long as a battle is pending at Richmond. Surely you and Banks in supporting distance are capable of keeping him from returning to Winchester. But if Sigel be sent forward to you, and McDowell (as he must) be put to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... not wait for an answer, but left the baffled man to wrestle with the situation, which must have worsted him, for his hand did not appear in the game at Washington. Very smoothly the plans of Arthur worked to their climax. The friends of Vandervelt pressed his cause as urgently and politely as might be, and with increasing energy as the ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... with an order for fifty pounds for the orphans. I had said last Saturday to brother T. that it would be desirable to have fifty pounds, as the salaries of all my fellow-laborers are due, the three treacle casks empty, all the provision stores exhausted, several articles of clothing needed, and worsted for the boys to go ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... Polly bewitching. Her age must really have been quite thirty-five. I dislike dwelling on this topic, but she was short, dumpy, wore blue spectacles, a green umbrella, a red and black shawl, worsted mittens and uncompromising boots. She had also the ringlets and other attractions with which French ...
— HE • Andrew Lang

... Reliquiae conjuratorum, cum L. Sergio, tumultuantur in Hetruria. Fragm. Act. Diurn. The responsibility of watching these marauders was left to the proconsul Metellus Celer. After some petty encounters, in which the insurgents were generally worsted, Sergius, having collected his force at the foot of the Alps, attempted to penetrate into the country of the Allobroges, expecting to find them ready to take up arms; but Metellus, learning his intention, pre-occupied the passes, and then surrounded ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... King," said Guy, for of course it was he, "this hand has often held a sword, and never yet have I been worsted in fight." ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... like two curs over a bone, which neither can determine to quit; and the whelps in opposition are not strong enough to beat either way, though like the species, they will probably hunt the one that shall be worsted. The saddest dog of all, Wilkes, shows most spirit. The last North Briton is a masterpiece of mischief. He has written a dedication too to an old play, the Fall of Mortimer, that is wormwood; and he had the impudence t'other day to ask Dyson if he was going ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... of Bhrigu's race went to Mahadeva for acquiring the science of arms. While dwelling in Siva's retreat, he had a quarrel with Karttikeya or Kumara, the son of Siva's loins. Rama worsted his preceptor's son in battle, at which his preceptor, gratified with him, made him a present of his own battle-axe, wherewith the regenerate here exterminated the Kshatriyas for full one and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... owing the freedom from domestic harassment which Alma had always enjoyed—a most exceptional blessing, yet regarded, after all this time, as a matter of course. The departure of Ruth meant conflict with ordinary servants, in which Alma would assuredly be worsted. At this critical moment of their life, scarcely could anything more disastrous have happened. Seeing her master's consternation, Ruth was sore troubled, and hastened to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... and had been in Monterey a week; that the Californians had broken out into an insurrection; that the naval fleet under Commodore Stockton was all down the coast about San Diego; that General Kearney had reached the country, but had had a severe battle at San Pascual, and had been worsted, losing several officers and men, himself and others wounded; that war was then going on at Los Angeles; that the whole country was full of guerrillas, and that recently at Yerba Buena the alcalde, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... whole bush or tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gray of the sky and horizon. Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds and walls where none had ever been observed till brought out into visibility by the crystallizing atmosphere, hanging like loops of white worsted from salient points of the out-houses, posts, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... humblest and poorest of clothes, her skimpy shawl round her shoulders could scarce protect her against the cold of this cruel winter's morning; her hair was entirely hidden beneath a frilled and starched cap, and her feet were encased in coarse worsted stockings and sabots, but her hands were delicate and fine, and her face had that nobility of feature and look of patient resignation in the midst of overwhelming sorrow which proclaimed a lofty refinement both ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... a lot of things, especially cakes, and a worsted waistcoat, with a loving message on ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... old blue flannel blazer, no hat, and a pair of knickerbockers, not tweed breeches but tweed knickerbockers of a remarkable bagginess, and made of one of those virtuous socialistic homespun tweeds that drag out into woolly knots and strings wherever there is attrition. His stockings were worsted and wrinkled, and on his feet were those extraordinary slippers of bright-coloured bast-like interwoven material one buys in the north of France. These were purple with a touch of green. He had, in fact, thought of the necessity ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... while the great iron stirrups, shaped like shovels, dangle far below your feet. Aha! I thought so, one has fallen off. I try to pull up quickly to dismount and help you, and my bridle, which is made of worsted, like the toy reins children play with, breaks suddenly and my noble steed comes ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... feel an excruciating pain. Pedestrians were few, and they made no effort to obstruct the flight of the fugitive. Instead, they gave him a wide berth. From far in the rear came hoarse cries, but Quentin was uttering no shout. He was grinding his teeth because the fellow had worsted him in the rather vainglorious encounter on the porch, and was doing all in his power to catch him and make things even. To his dismay the fellow was gaining on him and he was losing his own strength. Cursing the frightened ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... Bacon began to desert the new general. In a few skirmishes that followed, they were worsted and broke ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... case is this: the Southern rebels, hot-blooded and revengeful, who were arriving daily by scores and hundreds, in the spirit world, finding their cause discomfited and worsted, became mutinous. They were too raw and new to fall into the harmony of the spirit life, and they threatened a second war in Heaven; a war which those young Lucifers would have waged with ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... never turned his back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... God." Korah made no answer to all these words, thinking that the best course for him to follow would be to avoid picking an argument with so great a sage as Moses, feeling sure that in such a dispute he should be worsted and, contrary to his own conviction, be forced ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... fiery; he loved a fight. He never was worsted, the nearest thing to it being a draw between himself and Terry Barr. After that Terry went to the States and became a professional pugilist of note. Bill's social record was not without blemish. He was known to have appropriated a rope, to the far end of which was attached another ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... is needless to tell how the contest was waged; how the thirty-seventh legion arrived as help, how the wind kept them off port exposed to the enemy, and how Caesar sailed out and succoured them, and worsted the Alexandrian ships. Then, again, Ganymed stirred the disheartened citizens to build another fleet, and, by tremendous exertions, a new flotilla arose to threaten to cut Caesar off; and there was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... riches wan Past telling, whose grandsons now are Great lords thereby in peace and war. And in their coat-of-arms they bear, Upon a field of azure fair, A castle and a falcon, set Below a chief of golden fret. And in our day a certain knight Prayed to be worsted in no fight, And so it happed to him: yet he Died none the less most wretchedly. And all his prowess was in vain, For by a losel was he slain, As on the highway side he slept One summer ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris

... persevering efforts, again and again renewed, to secure his footing. Thus, in December, 1832, there was a fierce struggle with other candidates, Messrs. Morrison, Dundas, and Rigby Wason, in which he was worsted—for the moment. But, in January, 1835, when he stood again, he was successful. This must have been the one in Pickwick, when the excesses there described may have taken place. There were four candidates: one of whom, Mr. Dundas—no doubt depicted as ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... the third were grappling with some ruffians who had rushed upon them. Few, however, were there as yet to take part against them, but their cries of alarm were bringing others up, and the Christians were in growing danger of being worsted and carried off, when suddenly the soldiers interfered. Under pretence of keeping the peace, they laid about them with their heavy maces; and so it was, the blows took effect on the heads and shoulders of the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... and her trembling ceased. She became aware, at that critical moment, that she was the stronger of the two; and Bressant probably felt it also. He had put forth all his power in a passionate and convulsive effort to prevail over the soul of this delicate girl, and he had been worsted in the brief, silent struggle. He did not need to look in her clear ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... worsted, and was disabled for weeks afterward. He accepted his fate without complaint and was effectually cured of his ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis

... forces were getting worsted, and on his right Douglas and Count Schomberg were inactive and powerless, he himself was leading his left wing across the river. The passage was a difficult one, and the king himself was only extricated, with much exertion, from a quicksand into ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty

... of the greatest qualities of the Indians, much less of the Chitimachas. They were therefore worsted, and the loss of their bravest warriors constrained them to sue for peace. This the Governor granted, on condition that they brought him the head of the assassin; which they accordingly did, and concluded a peace by the ceremony of ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... Kathleen. I should take it very kindly if you would. Here is worsted, and here is a needle. Will you sit by me and tell ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... him on or out, he resorted to without hesitation. At this time he was in full career, and was constantly employed, going into two or three counties, occasionally meeting members of the profession, who held him in detestation, and whom he was as likely to drive out of court as he was to be worsted ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... oak-parlour he could not but recollect the feelings of solemn awe with which, when a boy, he had been affected at his occasional and rare admission to an apartment which he then supposed had not its equal save in the halls of princes. It may be readily supposed that the worked-worsted chairs, with their short ebony legs and long upright backs, had lost much of their influence over his mind; that the large brass andirons seemed diminished in splendour; that the green worsted tapestry appeared no masterpiece of ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... a few rude shocks from buffaloes, or are worsted in a hand-to-hand encounter with some tough old bull, or savage old grey boar, more especially if they get an ugly rip or two from the sharp tusks of an infuriated fighting tusker, they begin to be less aggressive, they learn that discretion may be the better part of valour, and their cunning ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... Lagediak perfectly secure of the success of this undertaking, and expressed my fears that his countrymen might possibly be worsted, but he continued sanguine,—for the hatchets with which his brethren were armed, the sword, and dread-inspiring costume of Kadu, were sources of confidence ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... run; Wound follows wound; the black blood laves their limbs; Horns push and strive against opposing horns, With mighty groaning; all the forest-side And far Olympus bellow back the roar. Nor wont the champions in one stall to couch; But he that's worsted hies him to strange climes Far off, an exile, moaning much the shame, The blows of that proud conqueror, then love's loss Avenged not; with one glance toward the byre, His ancient royalties behind him lie. So with all heed his strength he practiseth, And nightlong makes the hard bare stones ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... being warned by the impatient little hammering of Fleda's worsted needle upon the marble, while her eye was no longer considering her work, and her face ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... so compactly built as the Southdowns; producing a heavy fleece of long wool, mostly used for combing, and making into worsted stuffs. They are scarcely so hardy, either, as the Southdowns; nor are they so prolific. Still, they have many excellent qualities; and although their mutton has not the fine grain, nor delicacy, of the other, it is of enormous weight, when well fattened, and a most profitable carcass. ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... said a deep voice in the doorway; and there entered a gloomy figure, with smoky, light hair, a curiously long countenance, and black worsted gloves. "SIMPSON!—old OCTAVIUS!—did you ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various

... Margaret Fuller who worsted Mrs. Greeley in a verbal encounter. The latter had a decided aversion to kid gloves, and on meeting Margaret shrank from her extended hand with a shudder, saying: "Ugh! Skin of a ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... ye to my words, chafe not nor moan: Ye are not worsted nor disgraced; behold, With balanced vote the cause had issue fair, Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee. But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth, And his own prophet-god avouched the same, Orestes slew: his slaying is atoned. ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... suspended to the wall by blue ribbons, and filled with small books neatly bound; there were flower-pots in all the window-sills; there was a small cottage piano; the walls were graced partly with engraved portraits of county magnates and prize oxen; partly with samplers in worsted-work, comprising verses of moral character and the names and birthdays of the farmer's grandmother, mother, wife, and daughters. Over the chimney-piece was a small mirror, and above that the trophy of a fox's brush; while niched into an angle in the room was a glazed cupboard, rich with specimens ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... representing the toil of some old French artisan of the seventeenth century. They probably had been brought across the Atlantic by the original emigrant, and carefully preserved ever since. They stood in diagonally opposite corners of the room, and upheld the hugest of feather beds, with gay, home-made worsted coverlets and valances that shamed the hues of the rainbow. They certainly tempted to rest in that climate and at that season, but would have seemed ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... third; 'but my gift is better than hers, for you shall never be worsted in any fight, and every one shall add ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... accepting my stockings. You have thereby saved yourself and me the time and toil of drawing on and drawing off. Since you have taught me to wonder, let me practise the lesson in wondering at your folly, in wearing worsted shoes and silk stockings at a season like this. Take my counsel, and turn your silk to worsted and your worsted to leather. Then may you hope for warm feet and dry. What! Leave the gate without a ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... the supreme power in Egypt was mainly the bone of contention between rival viziers, although El-Faiz, a boy of five, was nominally elected caliph on the death of Dhafir. El-Abbas was worsted by his rival, Tatae, and fled to Syria with a large sum of money; but he fell into the hands of the Crusaders, was returned ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... which the legions of Crassus were destroyed; and might pass for a narrative of the way in which Napoleon's European cavalry were cut to pieces by the Arab horse at the combat at Salahout, near the Red Sea; or Lord Lake's horse worsted in the first part of the battle of Laswaree in India, before the infantry came up, and, by storming the batteries, restored the combat. On the other hand, the final overthrow of the Saracens at Dorislaus was evidently owing to their imprudence in standing firm, and awaiting in that position the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... we have already seen, in disseminating their sentiments through many towns and villages in the jurisdiction of the Alpujarras: their efforts, however, were almost invariably unsuccessful. In most of their encounters, the Moors were either entirely worsted, or compelled to seek for safety in flight; yet they persevered in their designs. Defeats and repeated crosses, instead of subduing, tended only to increase their courage, by adding to ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... is all that is left," Grio rejoined in triumph. Once he had spoken out, he had put himself on a level with his master; he had worsted him, or he was much mistaken. "Perhaps, from the way you have played with the little prude below, it is a woman. But they are plenty, even in Geneva, and ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... them by oversetting an earthen vessel in the way, over which he sacrificed birds, as done by the law in cleansing lepers, and thus he implied that the Jews were a leprous people. The more violent Jews, furious at the insult, attacked the Greeks, who were already in arms. The Jews were worsted, took up the books of the law, and fled to Narbata, about seven miles distant. John, the publican, and twelve men of eminence went to Samaria to Florus, implored his aid, and reminded him of the eight talents he had received. He threw them into prison and demanded seventeen talents from the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... fought: too late, it may be, and without unity or purpose; and they were worsted by an enemy who had both unity and purpose; whom superstition, greed, and feudal discipline kept together, at least in England, in one compact body of ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... were, she evidently liked them; and a quarrel with her on that score was more than Elsley dared face. He was not a man of strong moral courage; he hated a scene of any kind; and he was afraid of being worsted in any really serious quarrel, not merely by Campbell, but by Lucia. It may seem strange that he should be afraid of her, though not so that he should be afraid of Campbell. But the truth is, that the man who bullies his wife very often does so—as Elsley had done more than once—simply to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... days in terror and suffering and their nights in plotting revenge. They threw away no opportunity to do the master a mischief. But he kept ahead all the time. The retribution that followed every vengeful success was so sweeping and majestic that the boys always retired from the field badly worsted. At last they conspired together and hit upon a plan that promised a dazzling victory. They swore in the sign-painter's boy, told him the scheme, and asked his help. He had his own reasons for being delighted, for the master boarded in his father's family and had given ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... indeed his end, he achieved it, for negotiations were now zealously pushed. The important question of the western boundaries and the navigation of the Mississippi was the especial concern of Jay. Spain covertly wished to see the States worsted upon these demands, and confined between the Alleghanies and the sea; and the Bourbon family compact influenced France to concur with the Spanish plans. But in the secret treating Jay prevailed. The fisheries were the peculiar affair of Adams, as the representative of New England. France ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.

... to take off, and prudently to pocket, a pair of scrupulously clean white leather gloves which smartened up his appearance prodigiously in passing through the towns in their route. His breeches were of yellow buckskin, and ineffably tight; his stockings were of grey worsted, and a pair of laced boots, that reached the ascent of a very mountainous calf, but declined any ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... So far from wishing Fred out of the army, she importuned him day after day until he got out his best uniform, with its resplendent chevrons and stripes of vivid yellow, and the yellow helmet-cords, though they were but humble worsted, and when he came forth in that dress, with the bronze medal on his left breast and the sharpshooter's silver cross, his tall athletic figure showing to such advantage, his dark, Southern, manly features so enhanced by contrast with his yellow facings, ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... saw that in some ways the dolls improved upon the manners and customs of human beings, and she watched eagerly to learn why they did these things. A fine Paris doll driving in her carriage took up a black worsted Dinah who was hobbling along with a basket of clean clothes, and carried her to her journey's end, as if it were the proper thing to do. Another interesting china lady took off her comfortable red cloak and put it round a poor wooden creature done up in a paper shift, and so ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... with an air of much indifference, rose from his seat and, walking into the next room, became greatly interested in Mrs. Stanhope's worsted work. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... and his son were shown into a low room used as a drawing-room, but more like a convent parlor. Polished panels of dark walnut made it gloomy enough, and around it some old-fashioned chairs covered with worsted work and stiff armchairs were symmetrically arranged. The stone chimney-shelf had no ornament but a discolored mirror, and on each side of it were the twisted branches of a pair of candle-brackets, such as were made at the time of the Peace of Utrecht. Against a panel ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... the very cleverest proposition that ever lived. He has means to handle practically anything in the way of resistance." Jerome knew how the fellow had worsted Harry and me. "I shouldn't wonder if he can read the mind to some extent; he might be able to foresee that I was going to draw a gun, and beat me to it with some new ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. The rotation is performed just as if a rigid axis passed through the centre of the earth; or, to use the old and homely illustration, the earth rotates just as a ball of worsted may be made to rotate around a knitting-needle thrust through ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... democratical institutions of Athens, such as the constant and numerous dicasts for judicial trials and revision of laws. The genuine and forward democratical movement of Athens begins only with Clisthenes, from the moment when that distinguished Alcmaeonid, either spontaneously, or from finding himself worsted in his party strife with Isagoras, purchased by large popular concessions the hearty cooeperation of the multitude under very dangerous circumstances. While Solon, in his own statement as well as in that of Aristotle, gave to the people as much power ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... Molly. But I do not like to have you wear cotton in the winter. I am afraid you might catch fire. Haven't you a worsted frock that you can put on to-morrow, Lucy? It would be safer while you children are up here so ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... was called the death song of the warriors. When the Mush-co-desh heard them they said to one another, "Hark, the Ottawas are crying. They have been marauding among some tribes in the west; but this time they have been worsted— good enough for them. See, they are coming ashore. Let us not permit them to land." So instead of preparing to join in their mourning, as would have been proper, they rashly determined to express their disapproval of the marauding ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird

... cheerfully that I began to feel better, too, and I flew around and did just as he told me. First I pulled his bed right close up to where Fee lay,—it's very light,—then I made a rope of his worsted afghan, and passing it round the farthest bedpost, gave the ends to him; then, as he pulled himself up, I pushed him with all my might, and by and by he got on the bed. It was awfully hard to do, though, for the bed was on casters, and would slip away from us; but ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus

... clothed so grotesquely in a worn-out goatskin that if it had not been for a dirty yellow petticoat, a distinctive mark of sex, Hulot would hardly have known the gender she belonged to; for the meshes of her long black hair were twisted up and hidden by a red worsted cap. The tatters of the little boy did not cover him, but ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... exquisitely than any toilette perfumes. Molly laid out her white gown (of last year's date and size) upon the bed, ready for the (to her new) operation of dressing for dinner, and having arranged her hair and dress, and taken out her company worsted-work,' she opened the door softly, and saw Mrs. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... wore leather-breeches and aprons, sagathy coats, osnaburg shirts and hair-shag jackets, coarse shoes, and worsted or jean ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats: it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted with magnificent red clocks, or perhaps to display a well-turned ankle and a neat, though serviceable foot, set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe with a large and splendid silver buckle. Thus we find that the gentle sex in all ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... hastily, For-bled, spent with bleeding, Force (no), no concern, Fordeal, advantage, Fordo, destroy,; fordid, Forecast, preconcerted plot, For-fared, worsted, Forfend, forbid, Forfoughten, weary with fighting, Forhewn, hewn to pieces, Forjousted, tired with jousting, Forthinketh, repents, Fortuned, happened, Forward, vanguard, Forwowmded, sorely wounded, Free, noble, Freshed, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... wall-pocket decorated with purple roses, a hanging bookshelf composed of three thin boards strung together with maroon picture cord, a violently colored picture-card of "Moses in the Bulrushes" framed in straws and red worsted, and bright-blue paper shades at the windows. That was ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... over this,"—and with the word he slipped a loose frock, shaped much like a wagoner's smock, or a Flemish blouse, over his head, with large full sleeves, reaching almost to his knees, and belted round his waist, by a broad worsted sash. This excellent garment was composed of a thick coarse homespun woollen, bottle-green in color, with a fringe and bindings of dingy red, to match the sash about his waist. From the sash was suspended an otter skin pouch, containing bullets and patches, nipple wrench and turn-screw, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... a vast difference in the skill manifested by different boys. Some seem to have a natural aptitude for dainty work while others have fingers that are "all thumbs." One man, now a father, cherishes a tiny cushion of worsted cross-stitch made by himself when a child but five years of age. He is deft with his fingers, and, as the saying is, "can turn his hand to anything." May it not be that the manipulation then acquired still ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... flag was hoisted, she promptly hauled it down and substituted the Union Jack. Not content with this, she tore down the proclamation of the Boers annexing the district, and put in its place the Governor's proclamation against treason. Pluck carried the day; the Boers were worsted, and the post-mistress remained mistress of the situation. What became of this heroine of the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... thou countenance divine! Wild flowers of the glen, Caves swoll'n with shadow, where sunshine Has pierced not, far from men; Ye sacred hills and antique rocks, Ye oaks that worsted time, Ye limpid lakes which snow-slide shocks Hurl up in storms sublime; And sky above, unruflfed blue, Chaste rills that alway ran From stainless source a course still true, What think ye ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... Among Huxley's messmates there was only one, the ship's clerk, whoever made himself actively disagreeable, and a quarrel with him only served to bring into relief the young surgeon's integrity and directness of action. After some dispute, in which he had been worsted, this gentleman sought to avenge himself by dropping mysterious hints as to Huxley's conduct before joining the ship. He had been treasurer of his mess; there had been trouble about the accounts, and a scandal had barely been averted. This ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... and jerked off a worsted jacket, took his coat down from a peg, transferred a snowy handkerchief from the breast-pocket of the jacket to that of the coat, felt in his pantaloons to be sure that he had his match-case and cigarettes, changed his shoes, got his hat from a high nail ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... quiet game to play alone is "Spanish Cup and Ball." A long stick has fastened to it a loop of wire standing out at right angles, thus. To this is attached by a long string a worsted, or a very light rubber ball. The game is to see how many times you can throw the ball up to the ceiling and catch it in the loop of wire as ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... bight being regular and equal, sails stowed in a cloth, and yards laid perfectly square, the sailors then proceeded to arrange themselves in spotless white fustian trousers and blue jerseys adorned in front with their names or initials worked in red or white worsted. The latter article of apparel was usually knit by their wives if they were married, or their intended wives if they were not, and in either case there was great competition in producing the very best work both of art and serviceableness. They then packed their clothes in canvas bags and carried ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... a good many of the things in the house. She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats, and china ornaments. She had done it gaily and with a sense ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... he wore a rough jerkin of russet hue; small clothes of leather, which had probably once belonged to a soldier, but with which pipe-clay did not seem to have come in contact for many a year, protected his lower man as far as the knee; his legs were cased in long stockings of blue worsted, and on his shoes he ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... in time to witness this incident: the one was Captain Lee, the other Edwin Gurwood. They both carried bags and rugs, and were evidently going by that train. The captain, who happened to have a bad cold at the time, was muffled up to the eyes in a white worsted comforter, and had a fur travelling-cap pulled well down on his forehead, so that little of him, save the point ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... Douglass's forte was in oratory; in exposing the hideousness of slavery and the wrongs of his race. Mr. Ward—a protege of Gerrit Smith's—was scholarly, thoughtful, logical, and eloquent. Mr. Douglass was generally worsted in debate, but always triumphant in oratory. A careful study of Mr. Douglass's speeches from the time he began his career as a public speaker down to the present time reveals wonderful progress in their grammatical and synthetical structure. He grew all the time. On ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... Just choose one yourself," said Aunt Charlotte, as she dived after an errant ball of worsted. "What day will ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... thorny as circumstances would admit, and Miss Wharton was obliged to put aside all else, including the judgment she intended to pass upon Grace, in a powerful contention for supremacy over those who had worsted her in sundry ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... generally meaning any school that seems never to have been young—and wears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One peculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they silk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive to any glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses when not professionaly consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless but quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country houses ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... their individualities, or choose between slavery and divorce. With him handicapped by awe of her, by almost groveling respect for her ideas and feelings in all man and woman matters, domestic and social, it seemed to her that she could be worsted only by a miracle of stupidity ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... generally exhibited considerable hostility, and headed by some chiefs, showed an inclination to attack a watering party. Thefts followed, and the capture of a canoe as a reprisal caused a scuffle on the beach, in which the Englishmen were worsted by the crowd, though a ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... six, two of whom, Kilroi and Montgomery, had been worsted at the ropewalk, formed, with a corporal in front and Preston following. With bayonets fixed, they "rushed through the people" upon the trot, cursing them, and pushing them as they went along. They found about ten persons round the sentry, while about fifty or sixty came ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... good cavalier," she said to me. "I find you not so fat as Mr. Pakenham, nor so thin as Mr. Calhoun. My faith, could you have seen that gentleman this morning in a wrapper—and in a red worsted nightcap!" ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... was married to a lovely young lady who once worked an entire piano cover with worsted. They had commenced housekeeping but a few months, when one morning the husband informed his wife that he should invite a friend to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... "You make a worsted hole of it then, Moll, and it'll be all right. Besides, you don't speak truth, for I once made a worse ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... horrified a party of aristocratic visitors at a country-house by replying to a lady who pressed him to take some grapes, "Grapes, madam, grapes! Did not I say a minute ago that I had the gripes!" Once this ungentle lawyer was fairly worsted in a verbal conflict by an Irish pavier. On crossing the threshold of his Ormond Street house one morning, the Chancellor was incensed at seeing a load of paving-stones placed before his door. Singling out the tallest of a score of Irish workmen who were ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... generally an object of ambition, and flatters the vanity of young and old; but with me it was far otherwise. Encumbered with my novel apparel, I experienced at once feelings of restraint and sorrow. My shoes hurt me, my worsted stockings irritated the skin, and as I had been accustomed to hereditarily succeed to my father's cast-off skins, which were a world too wide for my shanks, having but few ideas, it appeared to me as if I had swelled out to the size of the clothes which I had been accustomed to wear, not ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... committed one of those acts of horror on Trebonius, an adverse governor, in which the Romans of the day would revel when liberated from control. Cassius came to avenge his friend Trebonius, and Dolabella, finding himself worsted, destroyed himself. He had not progressed so far in corruption as Verres, because time had not permitted it—but that was the direction in which he was travelling. At the present moment, however, no praise was too fervid to be bestowed ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... or sixty degrees on either side of the direction in which he is looking, that is, two-thirds of the way to the side of his head, his angle of vision is sufficiently wide. If he can pick out from seven balls of worsted of the seven primary colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet—the ball that matches another of the same color, he is at least not color-blind and has a sufficient sense of color for the ordinary purposes of life. It ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright

... woman by purchasing little articles at various times at her store. I entered without any particular design, and exchanged a few commonplaces with her about the weather. Her husband stood talking with a man about worsted goods, and their conversation caught my ear. The merchant was complaining because the manufacturer did not supply him fast enough: upon which the man answered, that it was very difficult to get good hands to work; and that, besides, he had more orders than it was possible ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... stood together, triumphant. The battle was over. The brigands were worsted, almost the last man of them dead or dying. No more than ten or fifteen had been available for that final assault upon the camp buildings. Miko's last strategy. I think perhaps he had intended, with his few remaining men, to take the ship and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... or olive, or invisible green turned visible brown. Then another day he might be seen in old Mrs. Gadabout's sky-blue livery, with a tarnished, gold-laced hat, nodding over his nose; and on a third he would shine forth in Mrs. Major-General Flareup's cockaded one, with a worsted shoulder-knot, and a much over-daubed light drab livery coat, with crimson inexpressibles, so tight as to astonish a beholder how he ever got into them. Humiliation, however, has its limits as well as other things; and Peter having been invited ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... was a battle fought about the premises every hour in the day for at least a week. The antagonists would frequently grapple and fall to the ground, and keep their hold like two dogs. On one such occasion I came near covering them with my hat. I believe the intruder was finally worsted and withdrew from the place. One noticeable feature of the affair was the apparent utter indifference of the female, who went on with her nest-building as if all was peace and harmony. There can be little doubt that she would have applauded and accepted the other ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... consent of the Storthing, to the convocation of which a suspension of hostilities on the part of Sweden was the condition precedent. Sweden refusing Christian's conditions, a short campaign ensued, in which Christian was easily worsted by the superior skill and forces of the Swedish crown prince (Bernadotte). The brief war was finally concluded by the convention of Moss on the 14th of August 1814 (see NORWAY: History). Henceforth Christian's suspected democratic principles made him persona ingratissima at all the reactionary ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... advertising, and the reward, would eat out the full value of the silk stockings. But to this the Irishman replies, with a knowing air, that he is not so green as to have overlooked that; and that, to keep down the reward, he had advertised the stockings as worsted. Not at all less flagrant is the bull ascribed to Shakspeare, when he is made to punish a dead man by personalities meant for his exclusive ear, through his coat-of-arms, but at the same time, with the express purpose ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey



Words linked to "Worsted" :   thread, yarn, textile, cloth, worsted yarn, fabric, material



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