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Backwards   Listen
adverb
Backwards, Backward  adv.  
1.
With the back in advance or foremost; as, to ride backward.
2.
Toward the back; toward the rear; as, to throw the arms backward.
3.
On the back, or with the back downward. "Thou wilt fall backward."
4.
Toward, or in, past time or events; ago. "Some reigns backward."
5.
By way of reflection; reflexively.
6.
From a better to a worse state, as from honor to shame, from religion to sin. "The work went backward."
7.
In a contrary or reverse manner, way, or direction; contrarily; as, to read backwards. "We might have... beat them backward home."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Backwards" Quotes from Famous Books



... served in a small white Georgian dining-room, with every appurtenance of almost Sybaritic luxury. The only light in the room was thrown upon the table by two purple-shaded electric lamps, and the servants who waited seemed to pass backwards and forwards like shadows in some mysterious twilight—even the faces of the three diners themselves were out of the little pool of light until they leaned forward. The dinner was chosen with taste and restraint, the wines were ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... full hours there trying to get a rich hops dealer to take out some insurance. The man had him explain over and over again the advantages of insurance, studied the tables backwards and forwards, and yet he was unable to come to a decision. Then the waiter brought him his dinner. There he sat, smacking his lips with the noise of human contentment, his great white napkin tied under his chin in such a fashion that the two corners of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... dying-scene from another—all very pretty, but not on the whole satisfactory, or entitling one to claim from it alone any real knowledge of the original whole. Yet this volume we have found fascinating, have flitted from page to page, backwards and forwards, [it is a great advantage in a book of 'unconnections' that one may conscientiously skip about,] and concluded by thanking in our heart the judicious Eclectic, whoever he may be—who mosaicked these bits into an enduring picture of De Quincey-ism. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... new picture sufficed, and then Mr. Alexander turned from it with an involuntary sigh. Was it to look at other pictures? No. He crossed his hands behind him, bent his eyes upon the floor, and, for the period of half an hour, walked slowly backwards and forwards in his library. There was a pressure on his feelings—he knew not why; a sense of ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... And he rocked himself backwards and forwards in the chair. What trouble men take for money—what trouble it brings them! So distressed was he that it would perhaps have been wiser to change the current of his thoughts, but there was surely work here for an idle man like ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... from a considerable height into the water. He struggled across the channel to the sand-bank, and in an incredibly short space of time stood in front of the savage, against whom my aim had been directed. Seizing him by the throat, he pushed backwards, and forcing all who were in the water upon the bank, he trod its margin with a vehemence and an agitation that were exceedingly striking. At one moment pointing to the boat, at another shaking his clenched hand in the faces of the most forward, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... regalia, An' our Lodge was old an' bare, But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, An' we kep' 'em to a hair; An' lookin' on it backwards It often strikes me thus, There ain't such things as infidels, ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... at the Old Exchange his tongue shall be bored through with a hot iron; and that he be there also stigmatized in the forehead with the letter B: And that he be afterwards sent to Bristol, and conveyed into and through the said city on a horse bare-ridged, with his face backwards, and there also publicly whipped the next market-day after he comes thither: And that from thence he be committed to prison in Bridewell, London, and there restrained from the society of all people, and kept to hard labour, till he be released ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... a broad-bladed knife. The thing was screeching and clawing at the man's arm. Its razored tail was lashing forward—and the man was dodging it as he kept backing in a circle and thrusting the head upward and backwards. Both brute and man were streaming blood. The man made no sound other than an occasional savage grunt as his blade struck deep through the horny hide of the thing. The Saurian ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam

... like horses, and chiefly employed in drawing little carts with fish, vegetables, &c., to market. Previous to the year 1795, such dogs were also employed in smuggling; which was the more easy, as they are exceedingly docile. The dogs were trained to go backwards and forwards between two places on the frontiers, without any person to attend them. Being loaded with little parcels of goods, lace, &c., like mules, they set out at midnight, and only went when it was perfectly ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... had brought him up had given him the resources of a gymnast and an athlete. His articulations usefully displaced and fashioned to bending the wrong way, had received the education of a clown, and could, like the hinges of a door, move backwards and forwards. In appropriating him to the profession of mountebank nothing had been neglected. His hair had been dyed with ochre once for all; a secret which has been rediscovered at the present day. Pretty women use it, and that ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... his duty and that of the nation and the Germans to guard against some atavistic caprice which would strike at his own power. The predecessor of Frederick the Great was a monomaniac and the predecessor of William the Strong was a madman. Could Bismarck not foresee that by his leap backwards he ran the risk of lending himself to the fatal reproduction of these same circumstances, of transcendental importance to the whole estate, nay, to the whole nation? A king of Bavaria singing Wagner's ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various

... And old Bathory answered With a sad smile, 'It is a witch's prayer, And may Heaven read it backwards.' Though she was rash, 'Twas a small fault for ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... took hold of the rope, and by means of the rope climbed up to the bar. Here he began to perform a great variety of the most astonishing evolutions, the man all the time poising the pole in the air. The boy would climb about the bar in every way, drawing himself up sometimes backwards and sometimes forward, and swinging to and fro, and turning over and over in every conceivable position. He would hang to the bar sometimes by his hands and sometimes by his legs—sometimes with his head downward, sometimes with his feet ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott

... the blacksmith swore in his beard. Then the soldier took another step back, laughing at his wit, yet moving irresolutely, as though he had another word or two to add to the joke. After this his progress backwards was steady. ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas

... trick of old, and was prepared for it. As the horse started to fall backwards, Jim who had been sticking like a leech, leaped lightly to the ground and with all his strength, pulling upon the bridle, slammed him to the ground. No sooner was the horse upon his feet again than Jim was in ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt

... the feathered tribe, which includes twenty-two species indigenous to the islands. The megapodius or mound-maker, an ash-coloured bird about the size of a small fowl, grasps sand or soil in the hollow of a powerful claw, and throws it backwards into mounds six feet high, wherein the eggs are deposited, to be hatched by this natural incubator, through the heat of the vegetable matter contained in the rubbish heap. The young birds work their way through ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... usually get some taste of old Latin is Terence, in whose plays, though they are from Greek originals, something is heard of that rippling movement which has lived through the ages and still survives in Italian conversation. Reaching backwards from Terence we come to Plautus and Ennius, and then to Nvius (B.C. 274-202), who composed an epic on the first Punic war. He lamented even in his time the Grecising of his mother-tongue. He wrote an epitaph upon himself, to say that if ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... follows:—Each pawn for his first move may advance either one or two squares straight forward, but afterwards one square only, and this whether upon starting he exercised his privilege of moving two squares or not. A pawn can never move backwards. He can capture only diagonally—one square to his right or left front. A pawn moves like a rook, captures like a bishop, but only one square at a time. When a pawn arrives at an eighth square, viz. at the extreme limit of the board, he may, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... common type is a bridge with two leaves or bascules, one hinged at each abutment. When closed [v.04 p.0544] the bascules are locked at the centre (see fig. 13). In these bridges each bascule is prolonged backwards beyond the hinge so as to balance at the hinge, the prolongation sinking into the piers when the bridge ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... was roughly dashed upon her mouth—so roughly that it almost knocked her backwards—and the blood flowed from her wounded lip; but by a preternatural effort, the indignant Indian queen hurled the ruffian from her, flew to the bell, and kept on ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... the room, retreating backwards, with hands clasped and eyes cast upwards, as if imploring blessings on the religious man whom they venerated so highly. The door of the apartment was shut after them, but not before Fairford had perceived that there were one or two men in the gallery, and that, contrary to what he had before ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... 'adventure.' You remember, children, my telling you that during her husband's life, my grandmother and he used to spend part of the winter in the old house where she afterwards ended her days. My grandfather used to drive backwards and forwards to his farms, of which he had several in the neighbourhood, and the town was a sort of central place for the season of bad weather and short days. Sometimes he used to be kept rather late, for ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth

... group, an assemblage of outlines scarcely to be equalled in the world. The street is narrow, and the houses, more and more overhanging as they ascend floor by floor, approach each other very closely towards the summit. The roofs are, some of them, gabled; others, slanting backwards, give room for picturesque dormer windows. Wide lattices stretch across some of the houses from end to end; in others the windows are smaller and open outwards like ordinary French windows, but always latticed, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various

... She paced backwards and forwards restlessly, before she answered. "The room isn't half large enough!" she burst out. "I feel suffocated in these four walls. Space! space! I must have space to breathe in! Did you say you wished to go out with ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... Time He bent His mind, For the beginning, which He could not find, Through endless centuries and backwards still Endless for ever, till His 'stonied will Halted in circles, dizzied in the swing Of mazy nothingness.—His mind could bring Not to subjection, grip or hold the theme Whose wide horizon melted ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... periods, her mind would go backwards, returning, always returning, to the house in Black's Lane. She would see the row of elms and the white wall at the end with the green balcony hung out like a birdcage above the green door. She would see herself, a girl wearing a big chignon and a little round hat; or sitting ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair

... my dear. She can't stir from the boy, they are giving him champagne every ten minutes; she has the nurse, and Spencer is backwards and forwards; I think they will pull him through, but it is a near, a very near touch. Good, patient, unselfish boy he ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on conspicuous joints in his shop-front; frightened his neighbour, the old lady, into a palpitation of the heart, by his awful denunciations of Spruggins's party; and bounced in and out, and up and down, and backwards and forwards, until all the sober inhabitants of the parish thought it inevitable that he must die of a brain fever, long ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... am rather nervous," he replied. "Whew! Don't, Polly! Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways. Don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards. Whew! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, "we ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... words, but yielding to the inexorable fatality of his situation, "sometimes madness takes a stupid and brutal form; the unfortunate creature, who is attacked by it, preserves nothing human but the shape—has only the instincts of the lower animals—eats with voracity, and moves ever backwards and forwards in the cell, in which such a being is obliged to be confined. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... as in dummy whist, dummy's hand being spread in a long row upon the deck of the saloon cabin. The conjuror, as did the other passengers, walked about behind the players, and saw all the players' hands, but not a word was spoken. The dog played dummy's hand. When it came to his turn he trotted backwards and forwards, smelling each card that had been dealt to him. He sometimes hesitated, then comically shaking his head, would leave it to smell another. The conjuror stood behind the dog's partner, and never ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... de grace. They did not descend, and the daring youth failed of fame as the laurel almost embraced his brows. A hickory walking-stick was thrust between his legs; and he, expecting to strike, received a blow upon the temple sufficient for his present undoing and bedazzlement. He went over backwards, and the pitchfork (not the thing to hold poised on high when one is knocked down) fell with the force he had intended for ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... the salon filled with gentlemen and ladies, far fewer of the last than the first, for some wives had been left at home with their children to keep possession of the estates, and send what supplies they could to their lords in exile. Some, like brave Lady Fanshawe, traveled backwards and forwards again and again on their husbands' affairs; and some who were at Paris could not afford a servant nor leave their little children, and others had no dress fit to appear in. And yet some of the dresses were shabby enough— frayed satin or ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... entered a cove or bay on the S.E. side of the island, when many thousands[4] of the inhabitants came down to meet them, bringing with them vast quantities of fowls and roots; and many of them brought these provisions on board, while the rest ran backwards and forwards on the shore, like so many wild beasts. As the ships drew near, the islanders crowded down to the shore to get a better view of them, and at the same time lighted fires, and made offerings to their idols, probably ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... the magic spectacles. I had become their slave. I had nothing more to fear. Having seen myself, I was compelled to see others, properly to understand my relations to them. The lights that cheer the future of other men had gone out for me. My eyes were those of an exile turned backwards upon the receding shore, and not forwards with hope upon the ocean. I mingled with men, but with little pleasure. There are but many varieties of a few types. I did not find those I came to clearer sighted ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... in great shape, Koku!" replied the aged inventor with a smile at Koku's English, for the giant frequently got his words backwards. "That barrow is quite heavy for ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... interested in "studying lessons," and was soon, after hard study, complete master of the alphabet. I could repeat it forwards and backwards, and could instantly tell the name of any letter pointed out to me. My mistresses seemed to take great pleasure in teaching me, and I was very anxious to learn. I soon found that I could understand in a great measure the instructions the teacher gave to ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson

... Sally Rocliffe crept out of the cave backwards. They did so, facing Mehetabel, with mistrust. Each believed that ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

... Partners face and march backwards four steps. Leaders draw for first chance. One side named Blues, other Reds. If "Blues" have first chance, they try for the space of thirty seconds to make the "Reds" laugh. All "Reds" found laughing are recruited to the other side. Three turns constitute a game. ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various

... other bird, is an inch and a half longer than the upper. In a lake near Maldonado, from which the water had been nearly drained, and which, in consequence, swarmed with small fry, I saw several of these birds, generally in small flocks, flying rapidly backwards and forwards close to the surface of the lake. They kept their bills wide open, and the lower mandible half buried in the water. Thus skimming the surface, they ploughed it in their course: the water was quite smooth, and it formed a most curious spectacle to behold a ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... distinctions between broad and subtle humour. "Every man," he says, "has not a nose," i.e., a keen perception—cannot smell a fault. He is very seldom guilty of a pun, and says in one place that he has not adopted verbal tricks, imitating echoes, or making lines which can be read backwards or forwards.[26] Nor has he any intention to indulge in bitter reflections; ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... sustain Kentucky's reputation for courage I said no more, but hoped Mrs. Bain would come to my relief since she knew her husband was given to dizziness when riding backwards or swinging round sudden curves. She said: "Isn't this a grand sight?" I said: "Yes, it's grand, but we are going down the mountain on this hand car." "That will be fine," was all the ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... it. Marster would talk to de gal and if she was willin', den Marster would tell all de other Niggers us was a-goin' to have a weddin'. Dey would all come up to de big house and Marster would tell de couple to jine hands and jump backwards over a broomstick, and den he pernounced 'em man and wife. Dey didn't have to have no licenses or nothin' lak dey does now. If a man married up wid somebody on another place, he had to git a pass from ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration

... time the vanguard of the crowd came pressing up Bridge Street, past the windows of Foster's shop. It consisted of wild, half-amphibious boys, slowly moving backwards, as they were compelled by the pressure of the coming multitude to go on, and yet anxious to defy and annoy the gang by insults, and curses half choked with their indignant passion, doubling their ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... The Senior Ministerial Whip is the danger-signal of the House of Commons; and the danger-signal was very much in evidence. Mr. Marjoribanks—of all Whips the most genial, even-tempered, and long-suffering, as well as the most effective—was to be seen, rushing backwards and forwards between the lobby and the Treasury bench, where, with Mr. Gladstone, he held whispered and apparently excited conversations. Meantime, there grew up in the House of Commons that mysterious sense of coming storm which its quick sensibilities ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... range which I mean to ascend. Got to it at eleven and a half miles; then quarter of a mile along top of range, the ascent of which we found excessively difficult, and had two of our best horses nearly killed by falling backwards down the hill, and only being brought up from going to the bottom and getting smashed by some trees and rocks; the camels especially we had to unpack twice (two ascents) and I once thought we were not to get them up they are so weak, especially the smallest ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... saying they understood one another, whispering a few words, and then shutting the ear up again, so as the words shouldn't be lost before they got into the elephant's brain, as I explained, because they'd got a long way to go. Then Harry would lie down, and let the great beast walk backwards and forwards all over him, lifting his great feet so carefully, and setting them down close to Harry, but never touching him, except one day when, just as the great beast was passing his foot over Harry's breast, a voice called out something ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn

... essential defect of system. Under our modern policy, military power—though it may be the growth of one man's life—soon takes root; a succession of campaigns is required for its extirpation; and it revolves backwards to its final extinction through all the stages by which originally it grew. On the Roman system this was mainly impossible from the solitariness of the Roman power; co-rival nations who might balance the victorious party, there were absolutely none; and all the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... was simple. It consisted of four pieces of tough hard wood, about a foot long, and the thickness of a man's thumb. These were tied to the end of a stout rope made of raw hide, and so arranged that their points were directed backwards, and curved somewhat outwards—thus forming as it were four huge barbs. The dead monkey was placed on and around this horrible hook—if we may so term it. The delicate morsel was then attached to the end of a pole which stretched over the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... Somal use as camel saddles the mats which compose their huts; these lying loose upon the animal's back, cause, by slipping backwards and forwards, the loss of many a precious hour, and in wet weather become half a load. The more civilised make up of canvass or "gunny bags" stuffed with hay and provided with cross bars, a rude packsaddle, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... confused beyond measure he named the names of all manner of grains save sesame, which had slipped from his memory as though he had never heard the word; whereat in his dire distress he heeded not the Ashrafis that lay heaped at the entrance and paced to and fro, backwards and forwards, within the cave sorely puzzled and perplexed. The wealth whose sight had erewhile filled his heart with joy and gladness was now the cause of bitter grief and sadness.—And as the morn began to dawn Shahrazad held her ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... the N. W. was open or thinly wooded, and likely to be found so as far as the central downs and plains on the banks of the river Victoria. A new and very remarkable Ventilago was found this day.[*] I now again numbered the camps, continuing the series backwards, by a different character; this was numbered 77; the last, 76. The utility of these numbers along our surveyed line will be admitted, when the country is taken up, as they will not only serve to identify localities ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... thou saidst, 'How loathly is what yonder Jinni Maymun eateth!"[FN217] Tohfah replied, "By Allah, O my lady, I have not any eye that can look at him,[FN218] and indeed I am fearful of him." When the queen heard this, she laughed till she fell backwards and said "O my sister, by the might of the graving upon the seal-ring of Solomon, prophet of Allah, I am queen over all the Jann, and none dare so much as cast on thee a glance of the eye;" whereat Tohfah kissed her hand. Then the tables were ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... surrounded with hills covered with wood, that I having no guide but the sun, nor even this, unless I knew will the position of the sun at the time of day; and to add to my misfortune, the weather proving very hazy, I was obliged to return to my post by the sea-side, and so backwards the same way I came. In this journey my dog surprised a kid and would have killed it, had I not prevented him. As I had often been thinking of getting a kid or two, and so raising a breed of tame goats ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... at the table, his eyes upon the wide-spread loveliness of the landscape, but his thought elsewhere. It wandered over the years already lived through, wandering backwards even to the days when existence, opening before the child eyes, was a ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... fit for Maskes, or rather fayrer Then those for preseruation cas'd, or shame) Made good the passage, cryed to those that fled. Our Britaines hearts dye flying, not our men, To darknesse fleete soules that flye backwards; stand, Or we are Romanes, and will giue you that Like beasts, which you shun beastly, and may saue But to looke backe in frowne: Stand, stand. These three, Three thousand confident, in acte as many: For three performers ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Court were already full of activity. The attendants hurried, out of breath, dragging their feet along the ground without lifting them, backwards and forwards, with all sorts of messages and papers. Ushers, advocates, and law officers passed hither and thither. Plaintiffs, and those of the accused who were not guarded, wandered sadly along the walls ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... of my house, that you walk backwards like men bewitched, and who is that tall and deathly man who comes ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... her get in first, which she did very rapidly, as if to escape observation. There she crouched like a wild beast, in the left corner, on the straw, riding backwards. The doctor sat beside her on the right. Then the executioner got in, shutting the door behind him, and sat opposite her, stretching his legs between the doctor's. His man, whose business it was to guide the horse, sat on the front, back to back with the doctor and the marquise, his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... spoke, and the first bear reared up and fell over backwards, a second shot striking the hindmost full in the head, and one after the other the two monsters fell headlong, the first seeming to dive down, making a swimming motion with its massive paws, the second ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... and his companions said they wished to send a herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to know what they were to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go, but themselves called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this message: "The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so long as you do nothing dishonourable"; upon which after consulting together they surrendered themselves and their ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... magician regarded not their scoffs, hootings, or all they could say to him, but still continued crying, "Who will change old lamps for new?" He repeated this so often, walking backwards and forwards in front of the palace, that the princess, who was then in the hall with the four-and-twenty windows, hearing a man cry something, and not being able to distinguish his words, owing to the hooting of the children and increasing mob about him, sent one of her women ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... over very slowly. He frowned impatiently, and from the end backwards turned them over again. Then he laid the book softly down on the table and sat back. He stared with narrowed lids into the flame of his quiet friendly candle. Every trace, every shred of portrait and memoir were gone. Once more, deliberately, punctiliously, he examined page by page the blurred and ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare

... the figures—in the habit of a Franciscan, barefooted, with a purple stole across its shoulders—had sprung towards him, and half pushed, half waved him backwards again. ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... of Niagara is supposed to have commenced on the heights of Queenstown, and to have gradually receded, or worn its way backwards to its present site, seven miles above, near Chippewa, the banks of the river on both sides between the two spots being perpendicular, 2 to 300 feet in height, chiefly of solid rock, and of the same ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... although he is aware that there are some things which are not so well among 'the children of the Nile,' he is deeply struck with the stability of Egyptian institutions. Both in politics and in art Plato seems to have seen no way of bringing order out of disorder, except by taking a step backwards. Antiquity, compared with the world in which he lived, had a sacredness and authority for him: the men of a former age were supposed by him to have had a sense of reverence which was wanting among his contemporaries. ...
— Laws • Plato

... best part of a week we stood backwards and forwards in all directions looking for the boat; till at last the men began to grumble, and I felt it my duty to urge the master to carry out the object of the voyage. Almost broken-hearted, he consented to do so. Slowly his ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston

... I. fig. 2), with its convexity backwards, from the projecting end of the tenth rib to a point a little in front of the anterior superior spinous process of the ilium. At first through the skin and fascia only, this incision must be continued through the muscles of the abdominal wall, one by one, till the ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... time "Perhaps she had climbed out of bed backwards!" For Marcella complained to each doll ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... harrowing tradition, was to wring the tears from Constance's eyes; they fell on her aproned bosom, and she sank into a chair. And though, the cheeks of the trumpeters were puffed out, and though the drummer had to protrude his stomach and arch his spine backwards lest he should tumble over his drum, there was majesty in the passage of the band. The boom of the drum, desolating the interruptions of the melody, made sick the heart, but with a lofty grief; and the dirge seemed to be weaving a purple pall ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... bring anyone into trouble): 'And ye next morning I went over in a boat to James Lancaster's, and as soon as I came to land there rushed out about forty men, with staffs, clubs, and fishing-poles, and fell upon me with them, beating, punching, and thrust me backwards into the sea. And when they had thrust me almost into the sea, I stood up and went into the middle of them again, but they all laid on me again and knocked me down and mazed me. And when I was down and came to myself, I looked up and saw James Lancaster's wife throwing stones at my face, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... distance when a gruff voice ordered him to stop. He had a way, however, of misunderstanding English when he chose, and interpreted the command to mean, run faster. Receiving it in that sense, he obeyed. Somebody behind him began to run too. In short, it was a chase; and Carl, glancing backwards, saw long-legged Silas Ropes, one of the ringleaders of the mob, taking appalling strides after ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more. And backwards flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she was, and is, to me; For I was born on ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... looked unused to not twinkling. His gravity clothed him like an ill-fitting coat; or, possibly, he might have reminded the imaginative observer, just now conjured up, of a music-box set to turning its cylinder backwards. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... funny, queer stuff, sir," said I, for I had never had the opportunity of noticing it before, all my voyages hitherto backwards and forwards across the Atlantic having been outside the limits of the uncanny looking gulf-weed. "Does it grow in the sea, sir? It looks so fresh ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... is positively irritating to watch. The agriculturist has in consequence plenty to do to keep his eye on them, and in the course of the day he walks over his farm half-a-dozen times at least. Very few ordinary working farmers walk much less than ten miles a day on the average, backwards and forwards over ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... Then he moved backwards on tiptoe towards Deringham's room, but apparently changed his intention, and presently knocked ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... long time ago, and if I mistake not, it was in the month of August, 1354, that the valiant Genoese captain, Paganino Doria[6] by name, utterly routed the Venetians and took their town of Parenzo. And his well-manned galleys were now cruising backwards and forwards in the Lagune, close in front of Venice, like ravenous beasts of prey which, goaded by hunger, roam restlessly up and down spying out where they may most safely pounce upon their victims; and both people ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... and the object seems to rest; but is it going to remain at rest for ever? Has its long journey been finished? For many nights this seems to be the case, but at length the astronomer suspects that the planet must be commencing to move backwards. A few nights more, and the fact is confirmed beyond possibility of doubt, and the extraordinary discovery of the direct and the retrograde movement of Mars has ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... used, the lighter the bread, and if the mixing be done by an open window so much the better, for unfermented bread is air-raised. Distilled or clean boiled rain-water makes the lightest bread. But it should be poured backwards and forwards from one jug to another several times, in order to ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel

... person unacquainted with the nature of the business, but old birds want a more substantial temptation than chaff. A principal objection against the plan of union was the risque and expense of sending materials and publications backwards and forwards through so great a distance: one failure would be fatal to one month's magazine, and a repetition of such a disaster would discourage subscribers. The subscribers here would probably not be satisfied ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... the brink, and looking sheer To where the slope ceased in the level stretch Of country, I sat down to lay my head Backwards into a single ivy-bush Complex of leaf. I lay there till the wind Blew to me, from a church seen miles away, Half ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... disconcerted by the deadly reality of Neil's attack. In the second thrust, his foot got entangled in a tuft of grass; and, in evading a lunge aimed at his heart, he fell on his right side. Supporting himself, however, on his sword hand, he sprang backwards with great dexterity, and thus escaped the probable death-blow. But, as he was bleeding from a wound in the throat, his second interfered, and proposed a reconciliation. Neil angrily refused to listen. He declared that he "had not come to enact a farce;" ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... arranged on the plan of the man and the woman in the toy called a "weather-house," both on the same wooden arm suspended on a pivot,—so that when one comes to the door, the other retires backwards, and vice vers. The more particular speciality of one is to lubricate your entrance and exit,—that of the other to polish you off phrenologically in the recesses of the establishment. Suppose yourself in a room full of casts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... new world. This, however, is what we think of least; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we obstinately fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be described upon the shore we have left, whilst the current sweeps us along, and drives us backwards ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... from the sea prospect and looked backwards over the lagoon to the island. She could make out the broad green glade beside which their little house lay, and a spot of yellow, which was the thatch of the house, just by the artu tree, and nearly hidden by the shadow of the breadfruit. Over woods the fronds of the great cocoa-nut ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... exhalation of its tail was distinctly perceived. First, little jets of light streamed out towards the sun, as if bursting forth elastically under the influence of the scorching blaze; very soon these streams were stopped, and turned backwards by the impulse of some new force, and as they flowed in this fresh direction, became the diverging streaks of the tail. Not only a vapour-forming power, but also a vapour-drifting power, is brought into play in the process of tail formation; and this latter must be some occult agent of considerable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... slaty above; head and lower parts pale yellowish; hands concolorous with body, or only a little darker; tail slightly tufted; hair on the crown of the head short and radiated; on the cheeks long, directed backwards, and covering the ears. Hutton's description is, dark greyish, with pale hands and feet, white head, dark face, white throat and breast, and white tip ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... sidewise and backwards, in these pamphlets, without exhausting them. I have not ceased to think of the great warm heart that sends them forth, and which I, with others, sometimes tag with satire, and with not being warm enough for this poor world;—I too,—though I know its meltings to-me-ward. Then I learned ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... another, they played with knives, slings, baskets, brass balls, and earthenware plates, and they walked on their hands with their feet in the air or with their heads turned downwards so as to look through their legs backwards. These acrobatic feats were even practised by women. According to a legend, the daughter of Herodias was a renowned acrobat, and on a bas-relief in the Cathedral of Rouen we find this Jewish dancer turning somersaults before ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... heads to look wonderingly at the discomposed features of the white man as he crossed the circle of light thrown out by their fire. He disappeared in the darkness and then came back again, passing them close, but with no sign of consciousness of their presence on his face. Backwards and forwards he paced, muttering to himself, and the two Malays, after a short consultation in whispers left the fire quietly, not thinking it safe to remain in the vicinity of a white man who behaved in such a strange manner. They ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... Gresley, meanwhile, were receiving Mrs. Pratt and the two Misses Pratt in the drawing-room. Selina and Ada Pratt were fine, handsome young women, with long upper lips, who wore their smart sailor hats tilted backwards to show their bushy fringes, and whose muff-chains, with swinging pendent hearts, silk blouses and sequin belts and brown boots represented to Mrs. Gresley the highest pinnacle of ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... a ship to transport him to Flushing. He supped with my Lord, my Lord using him as a person of honour. This evening too came Mr. John Pickering on board us. This evening my head ached exceedingly, which I impute to my sitting backwards in my cabin, otherwise than I am used to do. To-night Mr. Sheply told me that he heard for certain at Dover that Mr. Edw. Montagu did go beyond sea when he was here first the other day, and I am apt to believe ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... said Nolan, touching his hat gravely. "He was pulling a valise one way, and the gentleman that owned it, sir, was pulling it the other, and the gentleman let go sudden, and the Italian went over backwards off ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis

... frugal Ancestors before him, are torn off from the Top of the Register; and you are not left to imagine, that the noble Founder of the Family ever had a Father. Were we to trace many boasted Lines farther backwards, we should lose them in a Mob of Tradesmen, or a Crowd of Rusticks, without hope of seeing them emerge again: Not unlike the old Appian Way, which after having run many Miles in Length, loses it self in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... obnoxious assortment of pygmy habitations were two: could not lie down straight in them, absolutely impossible to stand up. Circular of roof, mode of entrance was an enforced elegant attitude on hands and knees wherein a decided advantage could be derived by going in lobster-wise—backwards, for there was NOT an ample space in which to ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... positively the last atom of Diva's knowledge, and though Miss Mapp tried on the principles of psycho-analysis to disinter something she had forgotten, the catechism led to no results whatever. But Diva had evidently something else to say, for after finishing her tea she whizzed backwards and forwards from window to fireplace with little grunts and whistles, as was her habit when she was struggling with utterance. Long before it came out, Miss Mapp had, of course, guessed what it was. No wonder Diva found ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... moans in vain: Ah! but you should hear it calling, calling when the haggard sky Takes the darks and damps of Winter with the mournful marsh-fowl's cry; Even while the strong, swift torrents from the rainy ridges come Leaping down and breaking backwards—million-coloured shapes of foam! Then, and then, the sea out yonder chiefly looketh for the boon Portioned to the pleasant valleys and the grave sweet summer moon: Boon of Peace, the still, the saintly spirit of ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... spectators. It was fine to see the deliberate way in which he picked his way among the ink bottles. As he sprang down from the last bench on to the floor, his opponent struck him a smashing blow full in the face. Cullingworth got his bulldog grip on him, however, and rushed him backwards out of the class-room. What he did with him I don't know, but there was a noise like the delivery of a ton of coals; and the champion of law and order returned, with the sedate air of a man who had done his work. One of his eyes looked like an over-ripe damson, but ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro

... respects, the bad effects of a political economy, in some degree both partial and oppressive. Such a political economy, though it no doubt retards more or less, is not always capable of stopping altogether, the natural progress of a nation towards wealth and prosperity, and still less of making it go backwards. If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered. In the political body, however, the wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provision for remedying ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... accessible to all—from the hypothesis of the latest variation in the habits of species—say, the acquisition of carnivorous habits by the New Zealand parrot, for instance—to the farthest glimpses backwards into Space and Eternity afforded by the "Fire Mist" doctrine, it will be apparent that they all rest on one basis. That basis is, that the impulse once given to a hypothetical Unit has a tendency to continue; and consequently, that anything "done" by something ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... found himself walking into a patch of moss, and he felt the soft growth giving way, till he was knee-deep, and it was only by a sudden scramble backwards that he was ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... thousand to-morrow again from the shires by pamphlets of my printing; I can raise a mighty army thus to shield him from Papists and the devil's foul contrivances. An I were a Papist, I would pray to him, were he dead, as he were a saint.' Throckmorton moved his face a line or two backwards from the gesticulating ham of a hand, and blinked his eyes. 'My gold were Privy Seal's an he needed it; my blood were his and my prayers. Nevertheless,' and his voice took a more exalted note, 'one letter of the Word of God, God aiding ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... in the Savannahs, patting the wild horse, and shaking down cocoanuts! Oh yes, I have plenty of stories to tell! But one need not tell everything. You know that very well, old woman!' and then he kissed his mother so heartily that she nearly fell backwards; he was indeed a ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... crack, so she gave another big pull, and then she let go. She thought there was a rumbling noise right below her feet, and she wondered if the roots went down to some dragon's cave. Then she tried once again, and up came the bush so quickly that Proserpina nearly fell backwards. There she stood, holding the stem in her hand and looking at the big hole which its roots had left ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... on the long-absent button, or, with even greater trepidation, attempted a patch. At such a time the soldier pondered on the peculiar fact that war separates men from women. A man cannot thread a needle with ease; certainly not with grace. He sews backwards. ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... marked by any unusual occurrence, and at the close, the little company of schoolmates proceeded together, until they came to the road leading to Lucindy's home. Here they parted, with many professions of everlasting friendship; Lucindy, walking backwards, watched her companions until the turn in the road hid ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... for getting hold of the other end of the force of gravity. The general idea is to build a sort of tower or flag-pole on the planet—something that reaches far enough out over the edge to get an underhold as it were—grip hold of the force of gravity where it works backwards. Of course, as anyone can see at a glance, when it is once built out with steel, the first forty miles or so (workmen using compressed air and tubular trolleys, etc.), everything on the tower would pull the other way and ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee

... with his arms somehow pinioned or held back, towards the little gibbet on the stage. I could just see the nightcapped head behind him. Then there was a cry and a crash. The whole show-box fell over backwards; kicking legs were seen among the ruins, and then two figures—as some said; I can only answer for one—were visible running at top speed across the square and disappearing in a lane which ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James

... hospitality of Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host at the house in Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional poem on the Kit-Cat club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is read backwards into Bocaj, and ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... Mr. Robinson obtained another considerable accession, assisted by Lemina Beginna: they travelled, backwards and forwards, for four hundred miles, and found old acquaintances. Eumarrah, the chief of the Stony Creek tribe, when he saw Mr. Robinson, ran to him and shook hands, and with five men and one woman, gave himself up: three only of his tribe remained! The captives were described as remarkably ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... ingratitude. "However," added she, "I will give no worse gift to the princess than to warn you, that if you let her see daylight before she is fifteen years old, you will repent it." So saying, she retired backwards, crab-fashion, resisting all entreaties to resume her proper form and join in ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... him back to the engine-room. The iron grating around the first cylinder enabled the monkey to get his head on a level with Mark's as he descended the stair and Mr. Monk flew at his throat with a shriek of rage. Mark luckily had his eye on the brute and protected his throat, but fell backwards with the animal on top of him, receiving a painful bite on the leg. The monkey then bounded over to his corner, where he glared at Mark, his grey whiskers standing out stiff with rage. After satisfying himself as to the extent of his injuries, the big ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... moment that the lioness, attracted no doubt by the outcry of her cub, chose to put in an appearance. There she stood, twenty paces or so from me, lashing her tail and looking just as wicked as it is possible to conceive. Slowly I stepped backwards, trying to push in the new case, and as I did so she moved on in little runs, dropping down after each run. The danger was imminent, and the case would not go in. At the moment I oddly enough thought of the cartridge maker, whose name I will not mention, and earnestly hoped ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard

... concluded, 'it is not much of a lion to show a stranger; but I wanted to see it again myself, for I assure you after I constructed it, Mamma (Mrs. Scott) and I both of us thought it so fine, we turned out to see it by moonlight, and walked backwards from it to the cottage-door in admiration of our own magnificence and its picturesque effect.' It was his way to invest his circumstances with an interest over and above what intrinsically belonged to them, and to prompt his friends to ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... so did I follow them as I used to do the reviews in England, when a boy. All creation appeared to be independent on this day; some of the horses particularly so, for they would not keep "in no line not no how." Some preferred going sideways like crabs, others went backwards, some would not go at all, others went a great deal too fast, and not a few parted company with their riders, whom they kicked off just to shew their independence; but let them go which way they would, they could not avoid the squibs and crackers. And the women were in the same predicament: ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... him, the gods, feeling a compassion for the poor creature, blessed him, saying, 'In consequence of thy being a parrot, thou shalt not be wholly deprived of the power of speech. Though thy tongue has been turned backwards, yet speech thou shalt have, confined to the letter K. Like that of a child or an old man, thy speech shall be sweet and indistinct and wonderful.' Having said these words unto the parrot, and beholding the deity of fire within the heart of the Sami, the gods made Sami wood a sacred ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... spectators roar with laughter. All the traditional ceremonies and good-natured horseplay were scrupulously adhered to, and some twenty schoolboys and five adults were duly dosed, lathered, shaved, hosed, and then toppled backwards into a huge canvas tank of sea-water, where the boys persisted in swimming about in all their clothes. The proceedings were terminated by Neptune and his entire Court following the neophytes into the tank, and I am afraid that we induced ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... her belly yellowed underneath with pollen dust. She dives head first into the cell; and for a few moments you see some spasmodic jerks which show that she is disgorging the honey-syrup. After emptying her crop, she comes out of the cell, only to go in again at once, but this time backwards. The Bee now brushes the lower side of her abdomen with her two hind-legs and rids herself of her load of pollen. Once more she comes out and once more goes in head first. It is a question of stirring the materials, with her mandibles for a spoon, and ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... want you to take this as any favour from me. I quite understood what you said to me. I think that it was undeserved, and, after all that I have suffered in this matter, cruel on your part. It was not my fault that my uncle changed his mind backwards and forwards. I never asked him for the estate. I came to Llanfeare only because he bade me. I have taken possession of the property only when told to do so by Mr Apjohn. If I could not make myself pleasant to you, it was not ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... above, another case has occurred in the author's practice. The cow—belonging to Samuel Barton, Esq., near Bordentown, New Jersey—had been in labor some eighteen hours; upon an examination of the animal, the calf was found to be very much deformed, presenting backwards,—one of the hind-legs having been pulled off by the person or persons assisting her previous to the author's arrival. Finding it impossible to deliver her in the usual way, embryotomy was in this instance employed. By ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... smiles at it now: yet these men were no less sensible than we; and if we know better, it is only because other men, and those few and far between, have laboured amid disbelief, ridicule, and error; needing again and again to retrace their steps, and to unlearn more than they learnt, seeming to go backwards when they were really progressing most: and now we have entered into their labours, and find them, as I have just said, more wondrous than all the poetic dreams of a Bonnet or a Darwin. For who, after all, to take a few broad instances (not to enlarge on the great ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... cried Pepper, and he gave the cadet a quick shove backwards. Paxton bumped into Reff Ritter, lost his footing, and fell over the dress-suit case ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... up to the armpits, bend your knees till the water nearly reaches the chin. Then gradually throw your bead back as far as it will go, until the base of the skull is immersed and the water covers your ears. Now stretch your arms backwards behind your head, at their fullest extent, the palms uppermost and slightly hollowed. Take a full breath, and swelling out the chest, give a little push off the bottom with both feet. Keep your mouth shut, as, ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... arrived," said the king, opening the door, and leading in the queen. Suddenly Sophia Dorothea uttered a cry of horror, and fell backwards; behind her stood the curious, astonished, and shocked courtiers, pressing themselves hastily through the door ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... attachment of our furniture, when I went off into a corner to think about it. Perhaps I was not able to cling to negations. The possession of the bread was a more absorbing fact than the loss of the jam. If I were to read my character backwards, I ought to believe that I did miss what I lacked in our days of privation; for I know, to my shame, that in more recent years I have cried for jam. But I am trying not to reason, only to remember; and from many scattered and shadowy memories, that ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... shocking. When we passed Highgate Archway, he tried to pass everything and everybody. He shouted to respectable people who were walking quietly in the road to get out of the way; he flicked at the horse of an old man who was riding, causing it to rear; and, as I had to ride backwards, I was compelled to face a gang of roughs in a donkey-cart, whom Lupin had chaffed, and who turned and followed us for nearly a mile, bellowing, indulging in coarse jokes and laughter, to say nothing of occasionally pelting us ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith

... ones. The dentition of the under jaw differs in the dental band being narrower, and in there being a conspicuous canine in the middle of each limb of the jaw. There are also six canines standing across the extreme tips of the jaw, opposed to the upper ones. Most of the teeth are slightly curved backwards. The chevron of the vomer projects from the roof of the mouth, and its surface is armed by minute teeth in about three or four densely crowded rows. The palatine teeth are still more minute, and the band is four or five deep. The teeth, when examined with ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... obliquely opposite. By still greater good fortune, these three points of light had such a position in reference to my eye that they gave me three straight lines traversing and bounding the space in which the medium sat, and I at once saw that if Medium moved his body forwards or backwards he must occult one of my three rays. While therefore taking care to feel his foot and keep a good grip of his hand, I fixed my eyes intently on rays A and B. For I felt sure that I could trust to G.D. keeping a sharp look-out on the right hand and foot; and so no instrument ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... good, gets surreptitious High Church books and newspapers, under cover to a friend. Another got under Low Church influence, and refuses to please her mother by dressing prettily or going out. It seems to me that both girls read their lesson backwards and neglect the weightier matters of the law, truth, and obedience,—while they seek what is good in itself but not good for them. Others persist in going to a church their mother disapproves of,—they ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... back, lurched backwards against the door, and went into the drawing-room, crimson, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... prostrates himself on the ground, and in a second the rest follow his example. We will not follow all the different manoeuvres of the deer-stalker and his followers, but bring them at once near the unconscious stag. After performing a very considerable circuit, moving sometimes forwards and sometimes backwards, the party at length arrive at the back of a hillock, on the opposite side of which the stalker said, in a whisper, the deer was lying, and that he was not distant a hundred yards. The whole party immediately moved forward in silent and breathless expectation, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... returning it, if his delay in returning it was not caused by his own fault. "Yet," say you, "although the player is not wanting in skill, because he did one part of his duty, and was able to do the other part, yet in such a case the game is imperfect, for its perfection lies in sending the ball backwards and forwards." I am unwilling to expose this fallacy further; let us think that it is the game, not the player that is imperfect: so likewise in the subject which we are discussing, the thing which is given lacks something, because another equal thing ought ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... good woman's proposition, alleging that riding backwards I always found the best preventive of illness from the motion of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various

... pardons," he said, hurriedly stepping backwards to the door. "But I hardly need say to a fellow-officer, general, that we had no idea of making so gross an intrusion! We heard some cock-and-bull story of your being occupied—cross-questioning an escaped or escaping nigger—or we should never have ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... round with a ghastly expression. Harry was alarmed at the agony depicted in the charmer's countenance; which not only exhibited pain, but was exceedingly unbecoming. Madame Bernstein also at length remarked her niece's indisposition, and asked her if sitting backwards in the carriage made her ill, which poor Maria confessed to be the fact. On this, the elder lady was forced to make room for her niece on her own side, and, in the course of the drive to Farnham, uttered many gruff, disagreeable, sarcastic remarks to ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... curiously resemble the head and beak of a vulture in miniature, seated on a neck and capable of movement, as is likewise the lower jaw or mandible. In one species observed by me, all the avicularia on the same branch often moved simultaneously backwards and forwards, with the lower jaw widely open, through an angle of about 90 degrees, in the course of five seconds; and their movement caused the whole polyzoary to tremble. When the jaws are touched with ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... occasionally she stood upright, made a megaphone of her hands, and returned their hail. But her strength—all of it—finally had to be given to the boy. She seized him by the shoulders and fairly dragged him toward the other side of the gully, thus walking against the wind, backwards. Occasionally she threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure that she was making straight for ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... richly rewarding you are, my dear. And shan't I make an odd ambassadress! I haven't been to a Court since the dark ages, when I went to those beloved States. We will practise after dinner, dear, and you and Marion shall be the King and Queen, and I will try to walk backwards without tumbling on my head. You will like being the King, Robert. And then we will be ourselves again, all except Og, who shall be Tony and shall go out of the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson

... cried, as he tugged out his knife, for the tree bent and bent like a fishing-rod, the spiny centre on which he was being now very thin. Then, steadying himself, he climbed the last six feet and hung over backwards, holding up his legs and one hand, as he used his knife and divided the string tail. "Pull, ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn

... did not venture on promising him a tame whale in the Bristol Channel, she had him clinging to her in a moment, eager to set off, to go to Cilly, and the dove he had seen at her house. 'It's a nasty house here—I want to come away,' he said, running backwards and forwards between her and the window to look at the horses, while nurse's interminable boxes ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... jessamine climbed over the balustrade and twined about its pilasters, where oleanders grew in tall marble urns and shed their roseate petals on the pavement, Beatrice, dressed for dinner, in white, with pearls in her hair, and pearls round her throat, was walking slowly backwards and forwards, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... bystander or to bite the legs of the rider. These ponies have a funny little way of getting from under you, if you ride them with an English saddle. They bend their legs till they see you firmly planted on the ground, and then quickly withdraw backwards leaving you, with your legs wide apart and standing like a fool, to meditate on equine wickedness in the Realm of the Morning Calm. They are indeed the trickiest little devils for their size I have ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... waving consisted of a movement forwards and backwards. Some think that there was also a lateral motion from right to left and the reverse. The heaving was a movement upwards and downwards. The ground of the distinction between these two forms of presentation to Jehovah is uncertain. We only know that the ceremony of heaving was restricted to certain ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... quaffing the blood that lay on the ground. They were fierce, tawny in hue, terrible, of adamantine teeth, and dyed with blood. With matted locks on their heads, their thighs were long and massive; endued with five feet, their stomachs were large. Their fingers were set backwards. Of harsh temper and ugly features, their voice was loud and terrible. They had rows of tinkling bells tied to their bodies. Possessed of blue throats, they looked very frightful. Exceedingly cruel and incapable of being looked at without fear, and without abhorrence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... up above the mast, Had fix'd her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, With a short uneasy motion— Backwards and forwards half her length With ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... right peart, but he'll be 'round in a little, I reckon. Preachin' Bill he 'lows hit's good fer a feller t' be down in th' back onct in a while; says if hit warn't fer that we'd git to standin' so durned proud an' straight we'd go plumb over backwards." ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright

... Bluff, twisting his head backwards, saw that Frank was making for a tree that had been blown down at some previous time. It chanced to be close at hand, and in a dozen seconds the running ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... then," answered Dawes, and before the younger man knew where he was, he was staggering backwards from a blow ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... and, holding it down firmly on the perch, cracked it and pecked out its contents, scattering some on the floor of the cage and letting the fractured shell fall into the china bath that was fixed against the bars. This accomplished, the bird paused meditatively, extended one leg backwards, and went through an elaborate process of wing-stretching that made it look as if it were lopsided and deformed. With its head reversed, it again applied itself to a subtle and exhaustive search among the feathers of its wing. This time its ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... round temple surrounded by nine chapels, all curving in a round arch, and each within in the shape of a niche. Now, since the arches of the said chapels rest on the pilasters in front, the result is that the stone dressings of the arches, inclining towards the wall, tend to draw ever backwards in order to meet the said wall, which turns in the opposite direction according to the shape of the tribune; wherefore, when the said arches of the chapels are looked at from the side, it appears that they are falling backwards, and ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... of Miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found Sticks or Straws that lay in the Figure of a Cross before her. If she made any Mistake at Church, and cryed Amen in a wrong Place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her Prayers backwards. There was not a Maid in the Parish that would take a Pin of her, though she would offer a Bag of Mony with it. She goes by the Name of Moll White, and has made the Country ring with several imaginary Exploits which are palmed upon her. If the Dairy ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele



Words linked to "Backwards" :   forward, fall over backwards, bend over backwards, rearward, rearwards, back



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