"Avoirdupois" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as the entire party addressed him, "Brother Avoirdupois;" and the lawyer retorted by christening the surgeon "Brother Adipose Tissue." The conductor of the party in Egypt had called them both "cupids;" and this term became very popular for the time. The other gentleman who had been saved from an untimely grave in the bay was a learned ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... be other matrons who hang so uncertainly about that borderland of beauty that they somehow manage to convey the hint that only by an unwinking watchfulness do they succeed in foiling the onslaughts of his ogreship of avoirdupois. In their eye lurks terror and in their lines one spells their secret of rebellious hunger; of Delsarte, gymnastics and massage. Sometimes the matron is an improvement on the maid. But this is not always true. For those who turn coarse and harsh with years, we recommend Christian ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... looked much stronger in the way of beef and brawn. It was undoubtedly true that, taken as a whole, the home players did outweigh the visitors. This might prove of advantage to them in certain mass plays, where their machine could mow down all opposition through sheer avoirdupois. But, on the other hand, it is not always given to the heaviest team to win. Speed counts for more than heft in many of the fiercest struggles that take place on the gridiron; and a fellow who can run like the wind, and dodge all interference, ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... was a poet, and perhaps idealized his friends. He saw them, probably, in a state of pure intellect. I am not a poet; I look at people in the concrete. The most obvious thing about my friends is their avoirdupois; and I prefer that they should wear their own cloaks and suffer me to wear mine. There is no neck in the world that I want my collar to span except my own. It is very exasperating to me to go to my bookcase and miss a book of which I am in immediate and pressing need, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... beeves, while the boys quietly rode round, silently moving them together as instructed. Siringo drove to their lead, and halting, we allowed the cattle to loiter past us on either side of the conveyance. It was an easy herd to show, for the pounds avoirdupois were there. Numerous big steers, out of pure curiosity, came up near the vehicle and innocently looked at us as if expecting a dole or sweetmeat. A snap of the finger would turn them, showing their rounded buttocks, and ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... mouthed bottle, with solid glass stopper; fill with water and insert the stopper; let the exterior be well dried. In one pan of accurate scales, place the bottle; counterpoise by shot, sand or gravel. Pour out two thirds of the water, and put in four ounces avoirdupois of guano. Agitate the bottle, add more water; let it rest a couple of minutes, and fill with water, so the froth all escapes; insert the stopper, wipe dry, and replace the bottle in the scale. Add now to the counterpoised scale, one and a half ounces ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... the monopoly of the article. And what with the time they lose in adjusting their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum,—considering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English measure or Flemish,—and, finally, the hullabuloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets for his money, I don't wonder, for my part, how one loses temper and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Stoneleigh was a generous eater; his foods were truly simple in variety but luxurious in their quality and richness. Prime roast-beef, fried potatoes, waffles and griddle-cakes supplied him with heat, energy and avoirdupois. He suddenly quit eating at fifty-eight—there was a cerebral hemorrhage one night. His remains weighed ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... computing from other known weights he determined that "when a column of quicksilver thirty inches high is sustained in the barometer, as it frequently happens, a column of air that presses upon an inch square near the surface of the earth must weigh about fifteen avoirdupois pounds."(4) As the pressure of air at the sea-level is now estimated at 14.7304 pounds to the square inch, it will be seen that Boyle's ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... unspeakably successful attempts of those who were already thinnest dust, yet whose names have so much personality in them that a sovereign presence fills the place where they are spoken,—sculptors whose statues step as it were unexpectedly (themselves surprised) into sight, with none of the avoirdupois of later stone-work; that heaviness which, in some of the finest of these modern figures, causes them to pause involuntarily, as if snowed upon. The high degree of smoothness of the old statues, as well ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... acquired "bishop's voice"—it was his own. The biggest basso I ever heard was just five feet high and weighed one hundred twenty in his stockings; Brignoli, the tenor, weighed two hundred forty. Avoirdupois as a rule lessens the volume of the voice and heightens the register—you can't have both adipose and chest tone. Webster and Starr King had voices very much alike, and Webster, by the way, wasn't the big man physically that the school readers proclaim. It was his gigantic ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... could not or had not a propensity to commit in rapine and petty larceny, he has made up in tyranny. The papers are granted, and we are all going to turn jurymen. The rest of the day was spent in a kind of avoirdupois war. Your friend Sir George Lyttelton opened the budget; well enough in general, but was strangely bewildered in the figures; he stumbled over millions, and dwelt pompously upon farthings. Pitt attacked him pretty warmly on mortgaging the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... called, in their wrath, "dashed black dust;"[EN109] and when a second experiment yielded twenty-eight grammes (each fifteen grains and a half) and ten centigrammes from 111 grammes, or about a quarter of a pound avoirdupois. In the latter experiment also, the culot came away without the litharge, which almost always contains traces of silver and antimony. Hence we concluded that the proportions were 30:110—a magnificent result, considering that 12-1/2:100 is held to be rich ore in the silver mines ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... had weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes that ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois. ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... taken my words literally and was steadfastly occupying the automatic weighing machine, with her back impassively turned upon an indignant youth who was itching to gamble a penny on the chance of guessing his avoirdupois. Quietly I crept behind her and placed a coin in the slot, simultaneously pressing my foot upon the platform. Suzanne gazed with mingled horror and fascination at the mounting indicator, and at sixteen stone jumped off with a gasp on to my disengaged foot. For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... on Sir John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the college prize for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... conscious effort that we never realise the fact that, according to the calculation of most competent observers, the mere elasticity of the lungs, independent even of the elasticity of the chest walls, opposes a resistance to each inspiration equal to 150 pounds avoirdupois in the grown man and 120 in the grown woman. The want of breath puts the respiratory muscles into play: the man takes a deep inspiration, and by this unconscious effort, he overcomes the resistance ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... taken, and some I saw. I measured them, and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown Mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above; and measures from nose to rump four inches ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... game, or a veteran resuming training, should prepare himself for the hard work in sight. I don't mean that he should be down to edge, but in good ruddy health. As a matter of fact, a man is far better off if he can start the season with eight or ten pounds of extra avoirdupois; and four or five pounds above "pink of condition" may be carried throughout the season with good results. They will prevent one's getting cold while in the water and keep one from going stale, a very easy matter ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... around its axis by the force of horses. To measure the heat developed, a small round hole was bored in the cylinder for the purpose of introducing a small mercurial thermometer. The weight of the cylinder was 113.13 pounds avoirdupois. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... gravitation; weight; heaviness &c adj.; specific gravity; pondorosity^, pressure, load; burden, burthen^; ballast, counterpoise; lump of, mass of, weight of. lead, millstone, mountain, Ossa on Pelion. weighing, ponderation^, trutination^; weights; avoirdupois weight, troy weight, apothecaries' weight; grain, scruple, drachma^, ounce, pound, lb, arroba^, load, stone, hundredweight, cwt, ton, long ton, metric ton, quintal, carat, pennyweight, tod^. [metric weights] gram, centigram, milligram, microgram, kilogram; nanogram, picogram, femtogram, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... moment to have carried into legislation a mildened modicum of that metaphorical language which forms the staple of debate, we should make no remonstrance. We recognize the severe justice of an ideal avoirdupois in literary criticism. We remember the unconscious sarcasm of the Atlantic Telegraph, as it sank heart-broken under the strain of conveying the answer of the Heavy Father of our political stage to ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... then sat upon the lowest step and broke into uncontrollable spasms of mirth. Tears ran down her furrowed cheeks, and the oak step, that had not these four generations yielded to the weight of Mays, creaked beneath this onslaught of convulsive avoirdupois. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... Weights for Round and Square Steel. Table of Weight of Flat Steel Bars. Avoirdupois Weight. Troy Weight. Apothecaries' Weight. Linear Measure. Long Measure. Square Measure. Solid or Cubic Measure. Dry Measure. Liquid Measure. Paper Measure. Table of Temperatures. Strength of Various Metals. Freezing Mixtures. Ignition Temperatures. ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... and a colony, and a mission of my own. I was a man of the world before I was a Christian; I'm a man of the world still, and I made my mission pay. No good ever came of coddling. A man has to stand up in God's sight and work up to his weight avoirdupois: then I'll talk to him, but not before. I gave these beggars what they wanted: a judge in Israel, the bearer of the sword and scourge; I was making a new people here; and behold, the angel of the Lord smote them ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... even if India is taken in its limited signification, as including only British subjects. On this estimate the 94,000,000 of British subjects, men, women and children, would not individually consume more than one pound avoirdupois by the month. A fat, hungry Brahmin, at any of the festivals given by the great, will digest for his own share four pounds, without at all ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... listened. The solitude was profound. Then mounting the tree and standing over its axis he tried to rock it as the others had. Alas! Johnny's heart was stout, his courage unlimited, his perception all-embracing, his ambition boundless; but his actual avoirdupois was only that of a boy of ten. The tree did not move. But Johnny had played see-saw before, and quietly moved towards its highest part. It slowly descended under the changed centre of gravity, and the root arose, disclosing the opening ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... the weight of twelve hundred dollars in gold, and I found it would be almost five pounds and a half Troy, or nearly four and a half Avoirdupois. I don't blame him now for wanting to get rid of it; but I did not think before I figured it up, that the money would weigh so much. Four and a half pounds is not much for a man to carry on land, but I should not want to be obliged to swim with this weight in my trousers' pocket, ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... of any one regulated proportion between the respective values of the different metals in coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin. Twelve copper pence contain half a pound avoirdupois of copper, of not the best quality, which, before it is coined, is seldom worth seven-pence in silver. But as, by the regulation, twelve such pence are ordered to exchange for a shilling, they are in the market considered as worth a shilling, and a shilling can at any time be had for them. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... thin that, after the air had been extracted, they should become, in a considerable degree, specifically lighter than the surrounding medium. Each of his copper balls was to be about 25 feet in diameter, with the thickness of only the 225th part of an inch, the metal weighing 365 pounds avoirdupois, while the weight of the air which it should contain would be about 670 pounds, leaving, after a vacuum had been formed, an excess of 305 pounds for the power of ascension. The four balls would therefore, it was thought, rise into ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... trade for furs was soon opened. The Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings, and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is true the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a bundle of furs never so large in one scale, and a Dutchman put his hand or foot in the other, the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... that passion of patriotism as an advertisement in the style of Barnum or Perham. "I scale one hundred and eighty pounds, but when I'm mad I weigh two ton," said the Kentuckian, with a true notion of moral avoirdupois. That ideal kind of weight is wonderfully increased by a national feeling, whereby one man is conscious that thirty millions of men go into the balance with him. The Roman in ancient, and the Englishman in modern times, have been most conscious of this representative ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... the barons, from King John at Runnymede, in Surrey. Therein it is declared that the weights, all over England, shall be the same, although for different commodities there were two different kinds, Troy and Avoirdupois. The origin of both is taken from a grain of wheat gathered in the middle of an ear. The standard of measures was originally kept at Winchester, and by a law of King Edgar was ordained to ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... tried in succession, but not a key among them all is a duplicate of mine. What is to be done. Le portier looks as dejected as though Paris was about to be bombarded, as he goes down and breaks the dreadful news to le proprietaire. Up comes le proprietaire - avoirdupois three hundred pounds - sighing like an exhaust-pipe at every step. For fifteen unhappy minutes the skeleton-key is wriggled and twisted about again in the key- hole, and the fat proprietaire rubs his bald head impatiently, but all to no purpose. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two-thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... braces, drills, etc., to the wall, and then landed them safe outside. Then he returned and entered the room where the plunder he sought lay. Thanks to his friend, the way was easy, and his art was not required to secure it. There were 600 ounces in silver bars, a pretty good load in avoirdupois, but he only made one journey of it, mounted the wall and ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... the usual call upon them during the first month, and when, two months after the wedding, they were spending the evening with us, I asked him if his wife had told him about my relations with her avoirdupois? He laughed ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... which to cling, to stay her from the despair into which she had slipped, and could only clearly figure to herself that "the country of the Gergesenes lay to the southeast of the Sea of Tiberias and that a shekel weighed ten hundred-weights and ninety-two grains, Troy weight, equal to in avoirdupois—" her brain whirled. She could not work out the sum. She could not pray. She could recall no prayer. She could look to nothing beyond the country of the Gergesenes. And yet, never in her life had she so needed prayer, strength, as now, when this new guilty ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... rid of superfluous avoirdupois is one of the necessary steps to beauty. A ponderous actress has a limited field. Certain character parts, a few vaudeville acts, a singing turn, or a burlesquing of her own abnormality (if she has the personality to carry it off with), and there her availability for stage purposes ends. But ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... frowsing up here all the afternoon with your books, you should have been on the touch-line watching those Biffenites at their new tricks. Your opinion then would have a little avoirdupois. As it is, you Perry Exhibit, it is worth ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... affected the youth even more than it had Gale, or at least he showed the marks more plainly, for his face was drawn, his eyes were sunken as if from hunger, and his whole body seemed to have fallen away till his uniform hung upon him loose, unkempt, and careless. It was as if hope had been a thing of avoirdupois, and when taken away had caused a shrinkage. He had interrogated Stark again after getting the doctor, but the man had only cursed at him, declaring that his daughter was out of reach, where he would take ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... she cried, holding up a spangled dress, admiringly. "Ain't dat beautiful!" She drew near the mirror, attempting to see the reflection of the tinsel and chiffon against her very ample background of gingham and avoirdupois. "You'd sure be a swell nigger wid dat on, Honey," she chuckled to herself. "Wouldn't dem deacons holler if dey ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... the Half Moon, sailing into New York Bay, prohibited by Hudson "from wearing more than five jackets and six pair of breeches." We see the scrupulously "honest" Dutch traders buying furs from the Indians, using an invariable scale of avoirdupois weights, a Dutchman's hand in the scale opposite the furs weighing one pound, his foot two pounds. We watch the puzzled Indians trying to account for the fact that the largest bundle of furs never weighed more than two pounds. We attend a council of burghers at Communipaw, called to devise ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... lesson of substitution or doing without. You find that discomfort is as soon forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured if it is but for the time being; that absolute physical comfort is worth but a very small price in avoirdupois. Your pack shrinks. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... cup or vessel of convenient form, capable of holding a suitable quantity of water, say about two pounds avoirdupois. Berthelot decidedly prefers a simple can of platinum, very thin, with a light cover of the same metal, to be fastened on by a bayonet hitch. For strictly laboratory work this may be the best form; but for the hasty manipulation and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... was carried. The schoolmaster, occupied with his pupils, and not liking the interruption, hastily, and without further inquiries of the messenger, turned over his Bonnycastle, and arriving at the table of avoirdupois weight, replied, "Tell your father that sixteen ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... day was equipped in a well-made suit from the tailoring establishment on the opposite side of the building. Though he had not yet gathered that avoirdupois which is associated with the dignity of office, there was in his square young frame an undeniable promise. Already he carried himself with the deliberation of a man whose future is assured, and his mouth took those upward curves of one who is humorously satisfied ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... higher than usual, as the average for a series of years before gives 46 inches; but taking these former figures, we find that for that year (1884) each acre of ground received, accepting the results obtained by my examination, 76.24 avoirdupois pounds of common salt, if we regard the entire chlorine contents of the rains as due to that body, or 46.23 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... country for specifying the size of silk is based on the weight in drams (avoirdupois) of a skein containing 1000 yards. A skein, thus weighing 5 drams, is technically called 5-dram silk. The number of yards of 1-dram silk to a pound must accordingly be 256000. The formulas for figuring the amount of silk required for a piece ...
— Theory Of Silk Weaving • Arnold Wolfensberger
... costlier, and dug in their own grounds for it. Most of us, as thou sayest, have been upon the wheel of these artificers; and little was left but rags when we got off. Sanctified folks are the cleverest skinners in all Christendom, and their Jordan tans and constringes us to the avoirdupois ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... skin, and shape have been considered, size or weight finally determines the value. Pearls are sold by an arbitrary unit of weight known as the pearl grain. It is not equal to the grain avoirdupois, but is one fourth of a diamond carat. As the new metric carat is one fifth of a gram and as there are 15.43 avoirdupois grains in a gram, it is seen at once that there are but 3.08 real grains in a carat ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... others, whereby the artistic qualities and the durability of the best American pianos are now generally acknowledged throughout the world. The solidity of construction is such that with a compass of seven and one-third octaves the tension of the strings amounts to about 50,000 pounds avoirdupois. The hammers are larger and heavier, the action more responsive, and the singing quality and sustaining power has reached remarkable perfection. Perhaps the most curious and important of all American improvements in this direction is the so-called "duplex scale" of ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... trade for furs was soon opened; the Dutch traders were scrupulously honest in their dealings and purchased by weight, establishing it as an invariable table of avoirdupois, that the hand of a Dutchman weighed one pound, and his foot two pounds. It is true, the simple Indians were often puzzled by the great disproportion between bulk and weight, for let them place a ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... the East. The word is found variously spelled, "bahare," "bare," and "vare." Its value varies in different localities, there being two distinct weights—one, the great bahar, used for weighing cloves, other spices, etc.; and the small bahar, about 150 kilos or 400 pounds avoirdupois, used for weighing quicksilver, various metals, certain drugs, etc. John Saris, writing of the commerce of Bantam, says: "A sacke is called a Timbang, and two Timbanges is one Peecull, three Peeculls is a small bahar, and foure Peeculls ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... gaining such control of the medium that the subject-matter, or idea, may be fully and perfectly expressed. Ideas are the only substantial things in the universe, and that there is a difference in the quality of ideas need not be argued. Two men of the same avoirdupois may be walking side by side on the street, but one of them may be a genius and the other a ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... self-satisfaction,—"I must confess that those frills are not unbecoming. If we were only rich—and married—how I would dress, to please him! Being possessed of a figure, one's results are never uncertain. Figure is a weakness of mine, also. With the avoirdupois of Miss Jolliboy, life would appear a desert. Ten thousand per annum would not console me. And yet she wears sables and seal-skin, and is happy. It is a singular fact, worthy of the notice of the philosopher, that it is ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dish, however, is rice, which is not only employed by them in the composition of their various dishes, but supplies the place of bread. It is exceedingly cheap; the pekul, which is equal to 124 lbs. English avoirdupois, costing from one dollar and three-quarters to two dollars and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... until the avoirdupois cyclone had cooled off. Something in the cook's energetic rage suggested the activities of the Wildcat's former landlady, Cuspidora Lee, from whom he had occasionally borrowed tobacco money. He determined to visit his former boarding house and renew ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... of one day navigating the air on artificial wings, but it is due principally to this muscular weakness that Darius Green has never been able to make a success of his flying machine, and perhaps never will. He would not have the strength to wield wings large enough to sustain so much avoirdupois on ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Amboyna). Mr. Crawfurd, who resided a long time in the Indian Archipelago, calculates that an English acre could contain four hundred and thirty-five sago-trees, which would yield one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred pounds avoirdupois of fecula, or more than eight thousand pounds yearly. History of the Indian Archipelago volume 1 pages 387 and 393. This produce is triple that of corn, and double that of potatoes in France. But the plantain produces, on the same surface ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the unaccustomed stimulant that loosened her tongue; possibly it was the warm womanly sympathy that shone in her hostess's brown eyes—eyes that had made more than one person declare that Kate Kinross was absolutely beautiful, despite her avoirdupois. At any rate, Miss Bibby found herself pouring out all the story of her thwarted life, all the long tragedy of the seven declined novels in the ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... Valley Road, boarding at 'Wayside,' the home of Miss Janet Sweet. Janet is a dear soul and very nicelooking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be overlavish even in the matter of avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft, crimpy, brown hair with a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosy cheeks, and big, kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she is one of those delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don't care a bit if they ruin your digestion ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Mr. Blythe, in which he discusses surplus avoirdupois. It tells fat people how to get thin, and thin people will get fat ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... argued that all the weight was in his own favor. The keeka (girl) had made a mistake. And to a man who measured everything by worldly icties this was sound argument, for the only big thing about Peter was his avoirdupois—barring his heart, of course. In the heat of his argument Johnny determined to deprive Peter of his sacred property. And among the Indians this is not nearly so hazardous or hopeless or criminal an undertaking as it may seem ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might, before the deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shallum. But unhappily the life of man is now three-score years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... matter of fact Abigail Prim detested Samuel Benham because he represented to her everything in life which she shrank from—age, avoirdupois, infirmity, baldness, stupidity, and matrimony. He was a prosaic old bachelor who had amassed a fortune by the simple means of inheriting three farms upon which an industrial city subsequently had been built. Necessity rather than foresight had ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... man, and he has held him aloft like the saintly Herbert[10] as a shining model of a rural priest. We are glad, therefore, for Wordsworth's sake, that no judge from the Consistorial Court ever happened to meet with Walker when trudging over the Furness Fells to Ulverston with a long cwt. (120 lb. avoirdupois) of wool on his back, a thing which he did in all weathers. The wool would have been condemned as a good prize, and we much fear that Walker's gown would have been stripped over his head; which is a sad catastrophe for a pattern priest. Mr. John Coleridge came much nearer to Chaucer's ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... luggage, and his wife bought the tickets. She was larger than he—I should say about one hundred and fifty pounds larger. To take and hold such an enviable position as this woman held needs, I think, an excess of avoirdupois." ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... as I fawncied, and doubtless was bestowed upon me as indicative of my lack of avoirdupois. And it was not entirely unnatural that they should do so, for at the time when I came to Winthrop I was very slight, very slight indeed. The appellation, or cognomen, was without doubt given in recognition of that fact, a custom not unknown, ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... go back there, and make a long visit. But that can't be. How much I wish it could! If only there were life-renewers as well as hair-renewers! They called me pretty at fourteen—said I had pretty ways, (one of them was one hundred and thirty-five avoirdupois,) and would certainly be a belle. But I proved too much for that. One hundred and seventy-five cut off all hope. I sighed, ate nothing, studied poetry, did a good deal of melancholy by moonlight and otherwise, but nothing came of it. I made myself as agreeable as possible; but it ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... Crawford's History at 35,530 ounces; but no doubt it was much more when the native states were in a condition of greater wealth and civilisation, as they undoubtedly were some centuries ago. Valentyn says that in some years Achin had exported 80 bahars, equivalent to 32,000 or 36,000 Lbs. avoirdupois (!). Of the other products named, lign-aloes or eagle-wood is a product of Sumatra, and is or was very abundant in Campar on the eastern coast. The Ain-i-Akbari says this article was usually brought to India from Achin ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... extinguisher, and handed Bolivar a piece of rag carpet, and said: "Eat it, you old catamaran, or I'll kill you," and Bolivar was so scared of pa he eat the carpet, which shows the power of brain over avoirdupois, pa says. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... winter. That evening the Voorheeses came over and discussed their purchases, and Miss Wyatt, the sister, came with them. She was typically like Mrs. Voorhees, only younger, and with her figure in better restraint. She had so far successfully fought down an hereditary tendency to avoirdupois. She had brilliant yellow hair and a brilliant complexion, like her sister, and she was as well, even better, dressed. Ida had purchased that day a steamer-rug, a close little hat, and a long coat for the voyage, and the women talked over the ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... suddenly trotted a piebald pony, drawing a low, basket phaeton, in which sat two prim, little, old ladies, a fat one and a lean one. Despite the difference in their avoirdupois the two old ladies showed themselves to ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... is more generally used in this country, is the English system. The hank is 840 yards, and the number of hanks in one pound avoirdupois is the count of the yarn. It is based on the finished yarn, and singles, two or three cord yarns of the same number all have the same yards per ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... The strain of drawing a heavy bow is apt to pull the bow hand out of the line of sight. A 48-pound bow well drawn and loosed will give a lower trajectory than one of 55 pounds sluggishly handled. By the weight of a bow is not meant its avoirdupois, but the force necessary to draw the arrow to its head on the bow. It is all important to know how to string the bow. Grasp the handle firmly with the right hand, draw it near your right side, while the lower ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... engaged about five weeks when I saw him, and up to that time his Indians had used simply closely woven willow baskets. His nett proceeds (which I saw) were about $16,000 worth of gold. He showed me the proceeds of his last week's work— fourteen pounds avoirdupois of ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... 3-1/8 pages of the first to one column of the second. Your readers will never know how much they gain by the process, until Mr. James Smith publishes it all in a big book, or until they get hold of what he has already published. I have six pounds avoirdupois of pamphlets and letters; and there is more than half a pound of letters {343} written to you in the last two months. Your compositor must feel aggrieved by the rejection of these clearly written documents, without erasures, and on one side only. Your correspondent has ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... being the birthplace of the treaty "decreeing for ever a common sovereign for England and France," a treaty which, it is minded, "stood no while." Again, some dubious antiquary has put it forward as the home of that variety of weights "which are not avoirdupois." ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... pieces, sprinkled with dry flour, and at the end of four hours more, it is again kneaded for half an hour, and divided into quartern and half-quartern loaves. The weight of a quartern loaf, before baking, should be four pounds fifteen ounces; after baking, four pounds six ounces, avoirdupois. When the dough has received its proper shape for loaves, it is put into the oven, at a heat that will scorch flour without burning, where it is baked two hours and a half, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Mr. Passford," whispered Flint, when he realized that his avoirdupois was too much for the young officer. "I will get that box, and then I ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... science, had endeavored to convert himself into a screw of the Artesian well. Placed feet downward on the ground again, I could not thank my deliverers or swear at the mule. I was dumb with astonishment and the mud, having swallowed eighteen ounces avoirdupois weight of the sacred soil of Mississippi while endeavoring to express my admiration of the performance of the mule. When I had removed the mire from my optics, in which cotton-seed would have grown freely, I beheld the mule in the dim distance. ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... only weighed 4 1/2 pounds with my clothes on—and the clothes were the chief feature of the weight, too, I am obliged to confess. But I am doing finely, all things considered. I was at a standstill for 3 days and a half, but during the last 24 hours I have gained nearly an ounce, avoirdupois. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sat down on the table and waited. The news editor was thin-faced and nervous and alert and immaculately groomed. Bat was round-faced and sleepy-eyed—tortoise-shell eyes—and all that prevented his suit from looking positively slovenly was that his own ample avoirdupois ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Burn, the gunner, seemed to more than participate in my feelings. Our two bow-guns were very imposing-looking magnates. They would deliver a message at three miles' distance, though it were no less than a missive of eighteen pounds avoirdupois; and we were now barely within half that distance. Mr Burn was particularly excellent at two things—a long shot, and the long bow. In all the ships that I have sailed, I never yet met with his equal at a cool, embellished, intrepid lie, or ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... shillings for my daughter's portion. Use her kindly, and thank Heaven for her; for it is not every wife that is worth her weight in silver.' And Master Sewell took Mistress Sewall and thirty thousand pounds (not avoirdupois, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... inclined to get into and out of psychological experiences quickly, so he is inclined to sudden illnesses and to sudden recuperations. A Thoracic seldom has any kind of chronic ailment. If he acquires a superabundance of avoirdupois he is in danger of apoplexy. The combination of extreme Thoracic and extreme Alimentive tendencies is the cause ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Must not weigh less than five or more than five and one-quarter ounces avoirdupois, and measure not less than nine nor more than nine and one-quarter inches in circumference. The Spalding League Ball, or the Reach American Association Ball must be used in all ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... I stretch forth my hand and clutch the sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand and clutch many a thing and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the miracle lies in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see that the true miracle lies in this, that I can stretch forth my ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... LEMUEL, which in the vernacular tongue is called Lem "for short." The dimensions of the edifice were about 120 by 62 inches. The loss is almost irreparable, estimated at not less than 2,000 pounds, avoirdupois. May it rise like a Phoenix from its ashes!—Williams Monthly Miscellany, 1845, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... followed it at night in a well-ventilated apartment, a simple, unexciting life, the mental rest from vexatious business cares, all proved superior to any tonic a physician could prescribe, and I became more rugged as I grew accustomed to the duties of an oarsman, and gained several pounds avoirdupois by the time I ended the row of twenty-six hundred miles and landed on the sunny shores of ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... most of the ladies; the majority of their attendant cavaliers walk; of two horses, the side-saddled one has about one hundred pounds avoirdupois for his share, and, in spite of the lack of habit and equestrian "pomp and circumstance" generally, I cannot term it the most unpleasant three miles I ever travelled. The road is a wild, rugged ascent up a well-wooded hill-side. There is a tonic vigor in the atmosphere, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... grumbled Bess. "But what about Tubby's additional avoirdupois, Frankie? He's as big as a ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... said Sherlock Holmes. 'The fact is, I followed Sir George Newnes into the Capital and Counties Bank this afternoon, where he demanded six thousand pounds in gold; but when he learned this would weigh ninety-six pounds seven ounces avoirdupois weight, and that even troy weight would make the sum no lighter, he took two small bags of gold and the rest in Bank of England notes. I came from London on the same train with him, but he was off in the automobile before I could make myself known, and so I had to walk up. I was further ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... of weight from one end, and large increase of avoirdupois at the other, produced a natural but very surprising result. Chokie in his tub, though at the long end of the beam, so to speak (the rear axletree being the fulcrum), was not heavy enough to counterbalance two brothers and a barrel of water ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... recite her "piece." Francie and Sammy to be dressed as pages and bear, each, a tray spread with the gifts it was to be her own task and privilege to contrive. Sabina to hover over all as a sort of Cupid, who, if somewhat "hefty" as to avoirdupois, was in all other respects a perfect ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... the finest patent net weighs 262 1/2 grains. The ladies' coloured muslin dresses, mentioned in the table subjoined, cost ten shillings per dress, and each weigh six ounces; the cotton from which they are made weighing nearly six and two-ninth ounces avoirdupois weight. ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... foliage of the banyan, peepul, and other varieties of the Ficus family; but if it is expected to travel and perform good work, it is usual in the Commissariat department to allow each elephant seven and a half seers of flour, equal to 15 lbs. avoirdupois. In addition to this, 600 lbs. of green fodder are given, and about 1 lb. of ghee (buffalo butter), with salt and jaggery (native sugar). During a jungle expedition I have always doubled the allowance of flour to 30 lbs. daily for each animal. This is made into ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Formerly the pint used in the compounding of medicines, chemicals, &c. consisted of sixteen fluid ounces, weighing one pound Avoirdupois weight. Now the imperial pint of twenty ounces is in general use. The Troy and apothecaries' ounce are the same, and contain forty grains more than the Avoirdupois ounce. In making collodion, take any quantity of ether, and dissolve the gun cotton in it; if too thick, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... Charlemagne in her own right. Her husband's empire is but a mere arondissement compared with the domain that does homage to her sceptre. Sheffield is the great arsenal of her armaments. Sheffield cases ships of war with iron plates a foot thick; but that is nothing, in pounds avoirdupois, compared with the weight of steel it spins into elastic springs for casing the skirts of two hundred millions of the fair Eugenie's sex and lieges in the two hemispheres. It is estimated that ten thousand tons of steel are annually absorbed into this use in Christendom; and Sheffield, doubtless, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... taken in, than our captain came down to her—a little, thin, spare man, but a man of weight nevertheless, for he brought a great pair of scales with him, and weighed everything that was put on board. I forget his real name, but the sailors christened him Captain Avoirdupois. He had a large book, and in it he inserted the weight of the ballast, and of the shot, water, provisions, coals, standing and running rigging, cables, and everything else. Then he weighed all the men, and all the midshipmen, and ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... cheerful outlook and social inclination attain the age of five and fifty without contracting superfluous avoirdupois and distinctive mannerism. That Colonel William Landor was no exception to the first rule was proven by the wheezing effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... sternly. "What boy knows not that feathers are weighed by Avoirdupois, and gold by Troy weight, and consequently that a pound of feathers weighs sixteen ounces, and a pound ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... counts, burgomasters, merchants, shop-keepers, servants, shoe-blacks, all were buying and selling tulips like mad. In order to make the commodity of the day accessible to all, a new weight was invented, called a perit, so small that there were about eight thousand of them in one pound avoirdupois, and a single tulip root weighing from half an ounce to an ounce, would contain from 200 to 400 of these perits. Thus, anybody unable to buy a whole tulip, could buy a perit or two, and have what the lawyers call an "undivided interest" in a root. This way of owning shows how utterly unreal ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... corrupt and callous to the sufferings of the people. "Whenever an American is met abroad with the assertion that government in the Republic is corrupt, he can safely say that for one ounce of corruption in America there is a full pound avoirdupois in Britain."[578] "It is extremely doubtful, indeed, whether either slavery or the slave-trade would be abandoned in the British Empire if they still existed to-day, and their abrogation and suppression depended upon ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... little larger than I am, and oh, you should see the scrumbunctious dress I am going to wear to the picnic! It is perfectly— glorious!" and Tavia wheeled around on her toe, threatening her boasted one hundred and five pounds avoirdupois with disaster. ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... politeness of Sir Stratford Canning, English Ambassador at Constantinople, I was kindly permitted to visit the Sultan's harem as often as I pleased and there look upon the 'lights of the world.' These 'lights of the world' consisted of five hundred bodies of unwieldy avoirdupois. The ladies of the harem gazed upon ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Negro prefers to construe owlish looks as wisdom, to bow down to clam like silence as profound philosophy, to stand agape over blatant mouthings as eloquence, and to measure mental calibre by bodily avoirdupois, he not only gives evidence of weakness in a lack of sound discrimination, but he subjects the entire race to consequent criticism ...
— The Educated Negro and His Mission - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 8 • W. S. Scarborough
... so untrained that he really cannot hear what is said, or see what is done,—of what use is it to such a boy, merely because he has gone through a prescribed routine of books and classes, or perchance because he has attained a certain amount of years and of pounds avoirdupois, to be pushed forward into a higher department to attend lectures on chemistry, or anatomy, or morals, or history, or literature? It is preposterous. It is an insult to the Professor, and an ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... 6.5 inches. The circumference of the heads averages 22.1 inches, and the arc, from ear to ear, 13 inches. According to Mr. Davies, the average weight of the Aino adult masculine brain, ascertained by measurement of Aino skulls, is 45.90 ounces avoirdupois, a brain weight said to exceed that of all the races, Hindoo and Mussulman, on the Indian plains, and that of the aboriginal races of India and Ceylon, and is only paralleled by that of the races of the Himalayas, the Siamese, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... pound, or eight dollars the catty, and sells in the China market at Canton for nine to twelve dollars the pound, or twelve to fifteen hundred dollars the pekul of a hundred catties or one hundred thirty-three pounds and a third, avoirdupois. When of superior quality it sells for two thousand dollars, and I have been assured that some small choice samples have produced upwards of thirty dollars per catty.* It is estimated that the whole ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... charge of Brother Avoirdupois; and I acknowledge myself to be a worshipper at the shrine of Mr. Melancthon Sage, and I invoke a blessing upon the head of Monsieur Odervie, the chief cook. Our life on the ocean wave is a constant promotive of the appetite. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... therefore, that no express endeavour should be made for my conversion, - which would involve the rolling of several brothers and sisters on the floor, declaring that they felt all their sins in a heap on their left side, weighing so many pounds avoirdupois, as I knew from what I had seen of those repulsive mysteries, - ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... undertaken in their complicated entirety by a General who did not know what mental fatigue meant. This physical and mental fitness French has most carefully studied to preserve. At one time, several years ago, he feared a tendency to avoirdupois, and instantly undertook a stern but successful bulk-reducing regimen. Apropos the regimen there is a story. Just before the present war, a bulky package was one day delivered to him at his club. French opened ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... that very lively girl, Annie Mation," pursued Neale, racking his brain to discover other punning words. "And despite her superabundance of avoirdupois, Ellie Phant ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... food required to sustain an ordinary man in health and strength, I have previously stated, is about two pounds avoirdupois daily, and an equal weight of oxygen is necessary to the integrity of the vitalizing processes undergone by the food, and to maintain the physical temperature. When the requisite supply of oxygen is reduced, the extrication of heat within the system is promptly diminished, but ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... avoirdupois c.i.f. cost, insurance, and freight CY calendar year DWT deadweight ton est. estimate Ex-Im Export-Import Bank of the United States f.o.b. free on board FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) FY fiscal year GDP ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... net in avoirdupois ounces. Each complete ration with its tin container weighed nearly twenty-seven pounds. The five pounds over net weight of daily ration was taken up in tin necessary for protection of food. The weight of component parts of daily ration had to be governed ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... of a dollar gold. Dollar or dollar Mex., about fifty cents gold. Cash, about the twentieth part of a cent gold. Li, a scant third of an English mile. Catty, about one and one-third pounds avoirdupois. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... box. The moths, as soon as received, will be examined microscopically, and the eggs of those which are found to be free from disease will be weighed and paid for at the rate of $2.50 per ounce of 25 grammes (about 6-7 of an ounce avoirdupois). Silk culturists are advised not to attempt the production of eggs unless they are adepts at the industry, and have had at least one season's experience. We would advise each person desiring to sell, to send a sample first, with a statement of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... cautious young noblemen would talk with Kalora, and, finding her bright-eyed, witty, ready in conversation and with enthusiasm for big and masculine undertakings, be attracted to her. At the same time her father decided that there was no reason why her pitiful shortage of avoirdupois should be candidly advertised. Even at a garden-party, where the guests of honor are two English subjects, the young women would be required to veil themselves up to the nose-tips and hide themselves within a veritable cocoon of ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... anchovies, four ounces; fresh lemon-peel, pared very thin, an ounce; peeled and sliced eschalots, the same; scraped horseradish, ditto; allspice and black pepper, powdered, half an ounce each; cayenne, one drachm, or curry powder, three drachms; celery seed, bruised, one drachm; all avoirdupois weight. Put these into a wide-mouthed bottle, stop it close, shake it every day for a fortnight, and strain it (when some think it improved by the addition of a quarter of a pint of soy or thick browning), and you will have "a delicious double relish." ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... Lucinda could do more than despairingly ask herself what was to be done now, Romney answered—not in words, but in deeds. He coolly picked Lucinda up in his arms, as if she had been a child instead of a full grown woman of no mean avoirdupois, and began to wade with her through ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in New South Wales named Grabben-Gullen, where the best potatoes in the world are grown. Great, solid, flowery beauties, weighing two pounds avoirdupois, are but ordinary specimens in this locality, and the allegorical bush statement for illustrating their uncommon size has it that they grow under the fences and trip the horses as they travel the lanes between the paddocks. Similarly, to explain ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... description of how he felt as the days and weeks wore along and the pounds of avoirdupois slipped away one by one is interesting. The remarkable point about it is that he continued his work and kept well. He gave his account of it yesterday to a reporter for The Press. Mr. Rathbun is known by the business men for blocks around his own place of business, and ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... Jock took the guinea. At his usual swift wolf's lope he was out of sight over the long stretches of heather and turf so speedily that he arrived at the drying-ground on the hillside before Luckie MacMorrine, handicapped by her twenty stone avoirdupois, had perspired thither. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... bookseller, I walked home, took the cash, walked back again, and—carried the tomes from the west end of Euston Road to a street in Islington far beyond the Angel. I did it in two journeys—this being the only time in my life when I thought of Gibbon in avoirdupois. Twice—three times, reckoning the walk for the money—did I descend Euston Road and climb Pentonville on that occasion. Of the season and the weather I have no recollection; my joy in the purchase I had made drove out every other thought. ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... situated in large court yards. There is a public garden, evidently quite gay and pretty in summer. The church is said to be the finest edifice of the kind in Eastern Siberia. The double doors in front of the altar are of solid silver, and said to weigh two thousand pounds avoirdupois. Besides these doors I think I saw nearly a ton of silver in the various paraphernalia of the church. There were several fine paintings executed in Europe at heavy cost, and the floors, walls, and roof of the entire structure were of appropriate splendor. The church was built at the expense ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... said another, "her fingers closed on it pretty willingly methought, when all was done; and methought, too, she weighed them for a second in her hand, as she would say, I hope they be avoirdupois." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... demi-god—O Belleisle, what kind of France is this; shining in your grandiose imagination, in such contrast to the stingy fact: like a creature consisting of two enormous wings, five hundred yards in potential extent, and no body bigger than that of a common cock, weighing three pounds avoirdupois. Cock with his own gizzard much out of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... plants, devoid of branches, an unusual number of them can grow in a small space. Mr. Craufurd calculates that an English acre could contain four hundred and thirty-five sago trees, which would yield one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred pounds avoirdupois of starch, being at the rate of more than eight thousand pounds yearly. Besides the farina or meal, every tree cut down furnishes, in its terminal bud, a luxury which is as much prized as that of the areca oleracea, or cabbage ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... pink, and murmured politely. The stranger dismounted from the wagon with the awkwardness of age and avoirdupois. John Dysart stood just behind his guest, describing him as if ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian[15] figures; with two sword handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold watches, three of the number being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as time-keepers valueless, the works having suffered, more or less, from corrosion; but all ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... bulk filled the doorway, the expansion of his smile spreading over a bounteous rotundity of cheek, impressed himself as a personality who had the distinction in avoirdupois that Jim Galway had in leanness. In his hand he had five or six peonies as large ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... had a business, and a colony, and a mission of my own. I was a man of the world before I was a Christian; I'm a man of the world still, and I made my mission pay. No good ever came of coddling. A man has to stand up in God's sight and work up to his weight avoirdupois; then I'll talk to him, but not before. I gave these beggars what they wanted: a judge in Israel, the bearer of the sword and scourge; I was making a new people here; and behold, the angel of the Lord smote them ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... staging was to rest. One stood above to guide the huge piece of plank-work, while all the rest exerted their strength upon the ropes below. Even little Jan pulled with all his might—though a single pound avoirdupois weight would have been about the ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... vast numerical preponderance had solved itself in accordance with the rules of avoirdupois, and history—fond like all garrulous old crones of repeating even her inglorious episodes—had triumphantly inscribed on her bloody tablets, that once more the Few were throttled and trampled by the Many, then the fabled "Ragnarok" of the Sagas described only approximately ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... ounces to a pound, 6960 grains. A pound troy weight, 5760 grains. Mr. M'Culla's copper is fourteenpence per pound avoirdupois. Two of Mr. M'Culla's penny notes, one with another, weigh 524 grains. By which computation, two shillings of his notes, which he sells for one pound weight, will weigh 6288 grains. But one pound avoirdupois weighs, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... of Grasse are the distilling of perfumes and the preserving of fruits. The flowers are cultivated on terraces resembling great nursery-beds. Of the perfumes, the most precious are the Otto of Roses and the Nroly. It requires 45 lbs. avoirdupois of rose leaves (petals) to make 1 gramme, or 15 grains troy of the Otto of Roses, which costs from 2 to 3 frs. the gramme; and 2 lbs. troy of the petals of orange flowers to make 1 gramme of Nroly, which costs 8 to 10 sous the gramme. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... The width from horn to horn at their tops is often more than four feet, and the breadth of a single one, antlers included, is frequently above thirty inches. A single pair has been known to weigh as much as 60 pounds avoirdupois! ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... quantity of blood that flows to the lungs, to be acted upon by the air at one action of the heart, is two ounces, and this is acted on in less than one second of time. 6th. The quantity of blood in the whole body of the human adult, is twenty-five pounds avoirdupois, or twenty pints. 7th. In the mutual action that takes place between the air and blood, every twenty-four hours, the air loses thirty-seven ounces of oxygen, and the blood fourteen ounces ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... of black goggles, bestrode a sort of hobby-horse, made of papier-mache, and, when he saw that Hawkinson was taking his picture, cavorted and grimaced, to the huge delight of the onlookers. The female clowns, all of whom were burdened by excessive avoirdupois, wiggled their hips and shoulders as they marched in ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... strode past it was not for him to know at that stage of the game. He felt so small after the weary weeks of watching that he went and had himself weighed, devoutly certain that he shrunk respectably. He even went in for a savage system of training, calculated to reduce his avoirdupois. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon |
