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Half-moon   Listen
noun
Half-moon  n.  
1.
The moon at the quarters, when half its disk appears illuminated.
2.
The shape of a half-moon; a crescent. "See how in warlike muster they appear, In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons, and wings."
3.
(Fort.) An outwork composed of two faces, forming a salient angle whose gorge resembles a half-moon; now called a ravelin.
4.
(Zool.) A marine, sparoid, food fish of California (Caesiosoma Californiense). The body is ovate, blackish above, blue or gray below. Called also medialuna.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Half-moon" Quotes from Famous Books



... misfortune of the configuration of human anatomy, which makes sky-searching so uncomfortable a habit. This outlook was probably developed to a greater extent during the war than ever before; and I can remember many evenings in Paris and London when a sinister half-moon kept the faces of millions turned searchingly upward. But whether in city or jungle, sky-scanning ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... over about nine o'clock I suppose, walking in a fresh south-easter with a half-moon to light me. Dick was smoking outside in the yard when ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... was almost always in his tent; and the weather remained constantly warm and serene. We lost scarcely anybody of consequence. The Comte de Toulouse received a slight wound in the arm while quite close to the King, who from a prominent place was witnessing the attack of a half-moon, which was carried in broad daylight by a detachment of the oldest of the two ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... band in the street, or a glance thrown after her, or the contemplation of her own freshly washed yellow hair in the sunlight. She wore a seven glove, but her nails had great depth and pinkness, and each a clear half-moon. They were dug down ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... a few moments?' she said; and Albinia turned aside with her to the flagged terrace path between the churchyard and vicarage garden, in the light of a half-moon. ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and his whole court stood on the shore, expecting the issue of this great adventure. They saw the ships move forward in a large half-moon, but could not discern me, who was up to my breast in water. When I advanced to the middle of the channel, they were yet more in pain, because I was under water to my neck. The emperor concluded me to be drowned, and that the enemy's fleet was approaching ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... The half-moon disappeared behind Olympus, and out of the gathering darkness in the chamber a voice was at last heard: "They have killed other Sultans," it said. "They ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... bazar was the noisiest, for the men were engaged—to a nasty noise as of beef being cut on the block—with the kukri, which they preferred to the bayonet; well knowing how the Afghan hates the half-moon blade. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in the hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... guests began to pour into the room and offer us their congratulations. First came my cousins, who were too much troubled about their own bedraggled appearance to pay much attention to mine. Then Aunt Bridget, holding on to her half-moon bonnet and crying: ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... was treading softly, his head bent as if in thought. Suddenly he stayed his steps by a half-moon table on which stood a large Chinese bowl filled with pot-pourri; and into this he plunged his hands, seeming to lave them in the dry rose-leaves. Catherine felt no surprise, she was so used to his strange ways; and more than once he had hidden things—magpie fashion—in ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... its broad bulk and jagged crown of bastions on the western sky.... Perhaps it is now one in the afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises to the summit of Nelson's flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a puff of smoke, followed by a report, bursts from the half-moon battery at the Castle. This is the time-gun by which people set their watches, as far as the sea coast or in hill farms upon the Pent-lands. To complete the view, the eye enfilades Prince's Street, black ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... came over the western hill, the Lee boy was bringing in the herd from the other half-section. Emil ran from the windmill to open the corral gate. From the log house, on the little rise across the draw, the smoke was curling. The cattle lowed and bellowed. In the sky the pale half-moon was slowly silvering. Alexandra and Carl walked together down the potato rows. "I have to keep telling myself what is going to happen," she said softly. "Since you have been here, ten years now, I have never really been lonely. But I can remember what it was like before. Now I shall have nobody ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... in the afternoon that Barnabas knocked at the door of the Viscount's chambers in Half-moon Street and was duly admitted by a dignified, albeit somewhat mournful gentleman in blue and silver, who, after a moment of sighing hesitancy, ushered him into a small reception room where sat a bullet-headed man with ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... a half-moon, which struggled through the clouds soon after dark, and by its light the little English steamer sidled almost noiselessly under the shadow of her large companion. Captain Cable's crew worked quickly and quietly, and by nine o'clock that work was begun which ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... thirty thousand. The space formerly covered by rice fields and vegetable gardens is now laid out in well-built, wide thoroughfares, smoothly macadamized and faultlessly clean and neat. The town extends along the shore, which is level, but is backed by a half-moon of low, well-wooded hills, among which are the private dwellings of the foreign residents, built after the European style, on the location known as the Bluff. The two principal hotels, the club-houses, and some consular business residences, are located on the water-front, a ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... not going very well with him. For one thing, the Half-Moon Trust Company had finally terminated all dealings with the gorgeous marble-pillared temple of high finance of which he was a director. For another, he had met the men of the West, and for them he had done things which he did not always ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... the Englishman Henry Hudson, while in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, in his vessel of ninety tons, the Half-Moon, being in search of a northwest passage south of Virginia, cast anchor outside of Sandy Hook, September 3, 1609, and on the 11th passed up through the Narrows into the present bay of New York. Under the firm conviction ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... of them air-buggies around here, miss, they wouldn't be in our way," came in a hearty, gruff tone from the door. They looked up to see a big farmer-like looking person, with a fringe of black whiskers running under his chin in a half-moon, standing there. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... discovered that the planet Mars does not always present the appearance of a circular disc. When near opposition the full disc of the planet is visible, but at all other times it is gibbous, and approaches nearest to that of a half-moon ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... felt the rubber-covered floor of the conning-tower jump under his feet. All the coast lights were extinguished but there was a half-moon and he saw the outlines of the shore slip away faster behind them. The eastern heights of the Isle of Wight loomed up like a cloud and dropped ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... being fine, we had completed a half-moon of intrenchments, resting at each wing on the river. Two advanced redoubts we threw up were severely cannonaded, so as to interrupt the men ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... Trail, I had two most delightful swims—one on the night of the arrival of our party, the other by starlight next morning. Though there is an ugly rapid at this place, one may go up stream far enough to get away from danger, for a half-moon-shaped mass of rock affords safe shelter, and deep enough water for swimming. The night swim was so refreshing that I could not resist the allurement to take another in the morning, before we left camp. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... it at the moment, for I had not seen the town since war began. As the schooner dropped anchor at the wharf we were still arguing; as, arm in arm, we followed our two horses and our sea-chests which the men bore shoreward and up the steep hill to the Half-Moon Tavern, we argued every step; at the tavern we argued, she in her chamber, I in mine, the door open between; argued and argued, finally rising in our earnestness and meeting on the common threshold ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... twisting; as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briars and blackberries, From the memories of the birds that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, From the myriad thence-aroused words, From the word stronger and more delicious than ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... him outside in another minute and seated herself in the chair he drew out. The house was small and irregularly built, and a glass roof supported on light pillars stretched along part of the front. A half-moon hung above a ridge of dark fir wood, a tarn gleamed below, and here and there down a shadowy hollow there was a sparkle of running water. On the other side of the dale the moors stretched away, waste and empty, toward the half-seen hills. The loneliness of the prospect reminded ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... shame in showing off in the arena, and is said to have fought there seven hundred and fifty times, besides killing wild beasts. He boasted of having slain one hundred lions with one hundred arrows, and a whole row of ostriches with half-moon shaped arrows which cut off their heads, the poor things being fastened where he could not miss them, and the Romans applauding as if for some noble deed. They let him reign sixteen years before he was murdered, and then a good old soldier ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... king sits in the middle of an half-moon, and has his council, the old and wise, on each hand. Behind them, or at a little distance, sit the younger fry in the same figure. Having consulted and resolved their business, the king ordered one of them ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... of coast line in Dorset is Swanage Bay, and to see it at its best one should stroll across the rising ground of Peveril Point. To the right are the dark cliffs of Purbeck marble that encircle Durlston Bay; to the left across the half-moon stretch of water is the white chalk of Ballard Point guarded by "Old Harry's daughter," the column of detached chalk in front. At one time this was one of a family, but "Old Harry" and his "wife" have sunk beneath the waves and the sole remaining member of the family ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... fathoms; coloured blue.—The sea off the west coast of Palawan and the northern part of Borneo is strewed with shoals: SWALLOW SHOAL, according to Horsburgh (volume ii., page 431) "is formed, LIKE MOST of the shoals hereabouts, of a belt of coral-rocks, "with a basin of deep water within."—HALF-MOON SHOAL has a similar structure; Captain D. Ross describes it, as a narrow belt of coral-rock, "with a basin of deep water in the centre," and deep sea close outside.—BOMBAY SHOAL appears (Horsburgh, volume ii., page 432) "to be a basin of smooth ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin

... twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous'd words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... eastern edge of Hooker's Bend, drawn in a rough semicircle around the Big Hill, lies Niggertown. In all the half-moon there are perhaps not two upright buildings. The grimy cabins lean at crazy angles, some propped with poles, while others hold out against gravitation ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... wing-cases, a very wonderful pair of transparent wings is cunningly tucked away. The marvellous way in which they are folded up after use we cannot describe in detail here. In each wing there is a hinge shaped somewhat like a half-moon, in the middle of the stiff front edge (fig. 3, in the wing extended on the left). When the hinge is bent, the outer half of the wing folds over towards the tail, and the tip points forward. The further inward folding of the hinge of this rod next appears to divide the wing into two, the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... from good Authority, that the DEVIL finding it for his Interest to bring his favourite Mahomet upon the Stage, and spread the victorious Half-Moon upon the Ruin of the Cross, having with great Success, rais'd first the Saracen Empire, and then the Turkish to such a Height, as that the Name of Christian seemed to be extirpated in those two Quarters of the World, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... is long, and as it dips into night a drowsiness rises fog-like over the valley. When a half-moon hangs between the mountains its light is that of drooping drowsy lids. The lamps in the cabins on the mountainsides gleam but a brief time and go out. The descending of the shade of night is the universal ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan

... In vain I sought for stick or stone. Even the river, though I took to it, would not save me if they meant mischief. When they saw me they slackened their pace. I did not move. They then halted, and forming a half-moon some thirty yards off, squatted on their haunches, and began at intervals to throw ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... during which we sat speechless, awaiting a resumption of the clamour. At last Abner broke the heavy silence by saying: "I doan' see the do'way any mo' at all, sir." He was right. The tide had risen, and that half-moon of light had disappeared, so that we were now prisoners for many hours, it not being at all probable that we should be able to find our way out during the night ebb. Well, we were not exactly children, to be afraid of the dark, although there is ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... put on his cap, a sort of head-piece that swelled over a peak shaped like a half-moon, the model of which he had taken ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... advanced the armament of the Turks came into full view, spread out in half-moon shape over a wider space than that of the allies. The great galleys, with their gilded and brightly painted prows and their myriad of banners and pennons, presented a magnificent spectacle. But the wind, which had thus far favored the Turks, now suddenly shifted ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east: a new lamp had come, she thought, and ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in ...
— The Importance of Being Earnest - A Trivial Comedy for Serious People • Oscar Wilde

... experienced old negro engaged to clean generally, gave it as his opinion, that the shingles were not worth the compliment. The windows were very small; more than half the glass was of the old, blue bull's-eye pattern, no longer to be found at modern glaziers, and each heavy window-shutter had a half-moon cut in its upper panel, to let in the daylight. When we add, that there was a low porch before the door, with a sweet-briar on one side, and a snowball on the other, the reader will have a correct idea of the house inhabited by ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... the battery of six guns at daybreak in a kloof between two kopjes, in a half-moon formation, commanding the old position near Spion Kop, at about 4,500 yards, mine being in the centre. I was in charge all day and fired shots at intervals. The wind was too high for balloon reconnoitring. My first shot, a shrapnel, at the left part of Spion Kop, disabled twenty of the enemy digging ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne

... the "Half-Moon" has left a broadening wake whose ripples have written an indelible history, not only along the Hudson's shores, but have left their imprint on kingdoms over ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... supported by the Camel Corps and Horse Artillery, trotted out rapidly, and soon interposed a distance of eight miles between them and the army. As before, the 21st Lancers were on the left nearest the river, and the Khedivial squadrons curved backwards in a wide half-moon to protect the right flank. Meanwhile the gunboat flotilla was seen to be in motion. The white boats began to ascend the stream leisurely. Yet their array was significant. Hitherto they had moved ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... knees and staring into the fire. It was not Juan Lepe's place to talk when master merchant talked not. I, too, regarded the fire, and the herded mountains robed in night, and the half-moon like a sail rising from an ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... flagship seven points from the wind, the formation would have been concave to the enemy and the convoy could not have been au milieu. (Evolutions Navales, pp. 90, 95, and plate 29, p. 91.) The passage is in any case interesting, as showing that what was then called the crescent or half-moon formation was nothing but our own 'order of retreat,' or 'order of retreat reverted,' of Rodney's time. As defined by Sir Charles Knowles in 1780, the order of retreat reverted was formed on two lines of bearing, i.e. by the seconds of the centre ship keeping ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... as waited while she cooked And served upon returning to their cot In hall where once far other hearts caroused. They and their tribe could never reap a tithe Of the vast harvest rustling round those ruins, And over which a half-moon soon set forth From black hills mounded up both east and south, While north-west her light played on distant summits; All the huge interspace floored with standing corn Which kings afar send soldiery to reap, Who now, beside a long canal cut straight In ancient ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... old-fashioned row of houses, before them a few sooty trees in a half-moon of grass, one side railed off from the street and dignified with gates at either end—gates ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... first to make the difficult choice; Will you the necklace wear of pearls, or else The emerald half-moon? ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin

... The wind had shifted to the north-west, a good enough wind for working up Channel on the port tack. English contemporary accounts say the Armada was formed in a half-moon, a centre and two wings slightly thrown forward. Howard had as yet only brought part of his fleet out of Plymouth, but though greatly outnumbered by the Spaniards, he had his best ships and his most enterprising ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... warm. He should have started three hours earlier. Chapman ranch was only eighteen miles away, but there was a road for only three miles of the distance. He had ridden over there once with one of the Half-Moon cowpunchers, and he had the direction ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry

... not think of stealing you away," continued Madame Balnokhazy, touched to the quick. "Kindly greet, in our names, dear Czipra and dear Fanny. We are very fond indeed of the good girls, and wish you much good fortune with them. The arms of Aronffy, too, find an explanation therein: the half-moon will in one case mean a horse-shoe, in the other a bread-roll. Adieu, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 5 And quench its speed i' ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... held in his hand when he pushed open the door of the sitting-room and stood before the inmates in his rough pea-jacket, his ruddy face crimson with the cold, his half-moon whiskers all ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... so," said I; "what might it be about?" "Well, anything on newspapers, or perhaps what you've done yourself, starting them." And off the boys went, for we had reach'd the Philadelphia side. The hour was fine and mild, the bright half-moon shining; Venus, with excess of splendor, just setting in the west, and the great Scorpion rearing its length more than half up in the southeast. As I cross'd leisurely for an hour in the pleasant night-scene, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... avoid plunging headlong upon a reef projecting from the northern extremity of a small island, of the existence of which Dyer declared himself to be utterly ignorant. Luckily for the adventurers, there was a half-moon riding high in the sky, which, together with the highly phosphorescent state of the sea, and the admirable look-out which was being maintained by George's orders, enabled them to detect the danger in time ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... reconnaissance of the little wigwam which held our dear lady. As I have said, this was pitched in the thinning of the forest which covered the steep slope behind the encampment, and so was the farthest removed from the stream, and from the Indian lodges disposed in a half-moon at the water's edge. Here all was quiet as the grave, and the clamor of the Indian camp came softened by the distance to a low monotonous humming like the buzzing of a bee-hive. The flap of the tepee-lodge was closely drawn, and the bit of fire before it had burned ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... rumble of mid-autumn thunder jarred sullenly overhead. Ford ceased caressing the purple half-moon which inclosed his left eye and began ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... most beautiful and magnificent landscape I have yet seen in England. It was the Belvoir Vale; and it would be worth a hundred miles' walk to see it, if that was the only way to reach it. It lay in a half-moon shape, the base line measuring apparently about twenty miles in length. As I sat upon the high wall of this valley, that overlooks it on the south, I felt that I was looking upon the most highly-finished piece of pre-Raphaelite artistry that could be found in the world,—the artistry ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... A half-moon shone down upon the rugged wilderness, and he could see the black pines rush past. The cars lurched and he heard the great locomotive snort on the inclines. Now and then there was a roar as they sped across a bridge, and water ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss

... came. Here we have not an engine ready, not a mine, not a petard beneath these walls; and the Marechal de la Meilleraie told me this morning that he had proposed to bring some with which to open the breach. It was neither the Castillet, nor the six great bastions which surround it, nor the half-moon, we should have attacked. If we go on in this way, the great stone arm of the citadel will show us its fist a ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... kindled every evening, as was the custom, and folk sat round these fires for a long while before they went to supper. On that evening on which the funeral party came home, while the folk at Froda were sitting round the fires, they saw a half-moon appear on the panelling of the hall, and it was visible to all those who were present. It went round the room backwards and against the sun's course, nor did it disappear so long as they sat by the fires. ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang

... passage we awaited our leader. Between the roofs we could see the low half-moon, hanging like a tilted bird's nest in the dark blue sky, while a group of stars fluttered near it like young birds. The Cathedral clock sounded the hour ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... in London in May, he surprized me one morning with a visit at my lodgings in Half-Moon-street, was quite satisfied with my explanation, and was in the kindest and most agreeable frame of mind. As he had objected to a part of one of his letters being published, I thought it right to take this opportunity of asking him explicitly ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... change my temper, and I shrink from suffering as from death. I would rather bear it than see it. Society always provides its good Samaritans; and you are one of them. Don't look modest. I went once through some of those damnable alleys near Half-Moon Court, the agreeable place where you spend so much of your leisure. I was looking for a subject to paint. For curiosity, I asked an urchin if he knew you. He flung his ragged cap twenty feet into the air, turned a somerset, and came up smiling as well ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... Groby, and Sir John Gall, of Hopton—brave officers in the service of the parliament, who, according to Whitelock, voted them a letter of thanks for this and other services. The assault was begun on the east side, with cannon planted on Pentridge Common, and a half-moon battery raised for its defence in this quarter was soon carried; but a breach being found impracticable, the cannon were removed to a wood on the opposite side. They soon opened a considerable breach ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various

... length than breadth, and was shaped something like a half-moon, the road following the contour of the crescent. We had proceeded not more than a hundred yards along the road within the compass of the valley when a six-pounder broke the silence with a bang, and a shell went hurtling through the valley. It seemed to be so uncomfortably near that I involuntarily ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... sailed before daybreak, and in the morning the little hotel had returned to its normal state of peace. The early sun blazed upon the white walls above, and upon the half-moon, beach below, and shot straight into the recess in the rocks where Clare had sat by the old black cross in the dark. The level beams ran through her room, too, for it faced south-east, looking across the gulf; and when she went to the window and stood in the sunshine, her ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... the weekly market with Auld Jock, a farm laborer, and the Grassmarket of the Scottish capital lay in the narrow valley at the southern base of Castle Crag. Two hundred feet above it the time-gun was mounted in the half-moon battery on an overhanging, crescent-shaped ledge of rock. In any part of the city the report of the one-o'clock gun was sufficiently alarming, but in the Grassmarket it was an earth-rending explosion directly overhead. It needed to be heard but once there to be registered on even a little dog's ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now, For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now; Shut your ears, stranger," saith the grey mother, crooning Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in. ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... protected the extreme left flank. This long line of troops, who were visible to each other but divided by the deep broad nullahs which intersected the whole plain, fell back slowly, halting frequently to keep touch. Seven hundred yards away were the enemy, coming on in a great half-moon nearly three miles long and firing continually. Their fire was effective, and among other casualties at this time Lieutenant Crawford, R.A., was killed. Their figures showed in rows of little white dots. ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill

... yesterday night, after having supped, I grew so restless that I was obliged to go out in search of some excitement. There was a half-moon lying over on its back, and incredibly bright in the midst of a faint grey sky set with faint stars: a very inartistic moon, that would have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... leaving their horses in the rear, formed a compact column after the Scottish fashion. But archers were distributed in open order on the right and left flanks, with both extremities pushed forward, so that they formed the horns of a half-moon. Then the Scots advanced to the charge, and both sides joined in battle. The irresistible weight of the Scottish main phalanx forced back the little column of the disinherited, and for a moment it looked ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... by a quadrangular bulwark. A hard, rocky soil resisted the tools of the miners, and on the south-east, where the ground was more tractable, their approach was retarded by a new work, which advanced in the shape of a half-moon. The double and treble ditches were filled with a stream of water; and in the management of the river, the most skilful labor was employed to supply the inhabitants, to distress the besiegers, and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... full to-night, and one of the most beautiful sights I have witnessed was its rising above the mountain. First the sky lighted up, then a halo appeared, then the edge of the moon, not bigger than a star, then the half-moon, not semi-circular, but blazing up like a great gaslight, and, finally, the full, round moon had climbed to the top, and seemed to stop a moment to rest and look down ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... Falkland Isles,) came hovering several times over the ship, and then left us in the direction of N.E. They are a short thick bird, about the size of a large crow, of a dark-brown or chocolate colour, with a whitish streak under each wing, in the shape of a half-moon. I have been told that these birds are found in great plenty at the Fero Isles, North of Scotland; and that they never go far from land. Certain it is, I never before saw them above forty leagues off; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... fashionable sacque and mantua-maker, and lived in the Strand, a few doors west of the residence of the celebrated Le Beck, a famous cook, who had a large portrait of himself for the sign of his house, at the north-west corner of Half-moon Street, since called Little Bedford Street. One day Mr. Fielding observed to Mrs. Hussey, that he was then engaged in writing a novel, which he thought would be his best production; and that he intended to introduce in it the characters of all his ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... in circumference, and so high and steep in many places that it is almost impregnable, and they have built forts in such places as are accessible. The only port is before the capital, named Angra, and as it is in the form of a half-moon, it is called the Half-Moon of Angra. At each horn of this half-moon there is a mountain, which are called the Brazils, which project out into the sea, appearing from a distance as if two islands; and these mountains are so high that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... The half-moon westers low, my love, And the wind brings up the rain; And wide apart lie we, my love, And seas ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman

... part of Mount Lebanon, at the distance of two English miles from the port. On one side of this port, in the form of a half-moon, there are five block-houses, or small forts, in which there are some good pieces of artillery, and they are occupied by about an hundred janisaries. Right before the town there is a hill of shifting sand, which gathers and increases with a west wind, insomuch, that they have an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... who made so many dupes, rode a good horse, and dressed both gaily and expensively. One of her saddles cost 30 pounds. It was literally studded with silver; for she carried on it the emblems of her profession wrought in that metal; namely, a half-moon, seven stars, and the rising sun. Poor woman! her sun is now nearly set. Her sins have found her out. She has been in great distress on account of a son, who was transported for robbery; but has never thought of seeking, as a penitent, refuge in the God of mercy; for seeing one of her ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... silver buckles. The saddle is short and narrow, and exceedingly awkward to riders unaccustomed to it. The front bolster is four or five inches high, and inclines backward; the hind one is lower, and is curved forward in the form of a half-moon; the intervening space just affording sufficient room for the thighs of the rider, who, in a saddle of this construction, is so firmly fixed that he cannot possibly fall. These saddles have, however, one great disadvantage, viz., ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... the stern of the other boat, who appeared to be the captain of the crew—a fellow, as Dunburne could indefinitely perceive by the dim light of the lanthorn and the faint illumination of the misty half-moon, possessing a great, coarse red face and a bullet head surmounted by a mildewed and mangy fur cap— bawled out, in reply, that if they would only put their boat near enough for a minute or two he would give them a bellyful of something that would make them ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... is not so black. It only seemed so, at the first moment, by contrast with the glaring illumination of the street. In reality it is transparent and blue. A half-moon, high up in the heavens, and veiled by a diaphanous mist, shines gently, and as it is an Egyptian moon, more subtle than ours, it leaves to things a little of their colour. We can see now, as well as feel, this desert, which ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... living woman, much less herself, insomuch that her small thin person was like nothing else than a huge, shapeless, many-coated onion. Her little face peeped out of the veils and kerchiefs that wrapped her head, like a half-moon out of thick clouds; but her bright eyes shone kindly on me as she cried: "Come, haste to your breakfast, lie-a-bed! I thought to find you fitted and ready, and you are keeping the men waiting as though it were an every-day matter that we ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... run over these details as he lay on his back, he pushed up the stair over his face and let the front of it with the step of the next swing inwards; the light was stronger now, and poured in, though still dim, through three half-moon windows, glazed and wired, that just rose above the level of the ground outside. Then he extricated himself, closed the steps behind him, and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... called a frozen grove of skeleton trees, a conservatory of dead specimens belonging to the palm family, calling up the memory of an impossible phoenix and unlikely palms; but it also recalled by its half-moon shape and doubtful light, the image of a ship's prow below water. In fact it allowed to filter through its bars, to its windows trellised with all black network, the murmur, suggested by the rolling of the carriages which ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... Lescarbault with his small telescope to see Vulcan at all, whereas he saw the black spot very distinctly. Say Vulcan has half the diameter of Mercury, and let us compare the brightness of these two planets when at their greatest apparent distances from the sun, that is, when each looks like a half-moon. The distance of Mercury exceeds the estimated distance of Vulcan from the sun as 27 exceeds 10, so that Vulcan is more strongly illuminated in the proportion of 27 times 27 to 10 times 10, or 729 to 100—say at least 7 to 1. But having ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... its ferny coasts, The river gazed at our strong, free ghosts, And with rocky fingers shed Apart the silver curls of its head; Laid its murmuring hands, On the reedy bands; And at gaze Stood in the half-moon's of brown, still bays; Like gloss'd eyes of stags Its round pools gaz'd from the rusty flags, At our ghostly crests At the bark-shields strong on our phantom breasts; And its tide Took lip and tongue and cried. "I have push'd ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... a glittering steel corselet crossed by a silken sash, who bore at his side a long sword with a magnificent handle, and upon his shoulder a lance of some six feet in length, headed with a long scarlet tassel, and brass half-moon pendant. "Is not Crichton victorious?" asked Ogilvy of Captain Larchant, for ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... all scolded that day for not coming down to tea when called. I can remember my tutor sitting at his easel, and you standing behind him, holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy cliff, the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon hung above." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... names of the old lakes of the section were these: "Brooklyn Lake; Magnolia Lake; Soldier Pond (near Keystone); Half-Moon Pond, near Putnam Hall; Hick's Lake" and others. On one of them was the large grist mill of Dr. McCray; Coker suggests that this might be the origin of the town of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... that the man who had driven him from the station was waiting in the neighboring village, and when they left the house he walked on with Sylvia, leaving Mrs. Lansing and West to follow. It was a clear night, with a chill of frost in the air. A bright half-moon hung above the shadowy hills, and the higher boughs of the bare trees cut in sharp tracery against the sky. Dead leaves lay thick upon the road and here and there a belt of mist trailed across a meadow. Sylvia, however, did not respond when her companion said something about the charm ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... turns its back on the voyager who there seeks refuge. The sea-wall curving like a half-moon round the bay, and the pebbled esplanade above it, occupy all the foreground. The principal street of Oban skirts this artificial quay, where the shipping of the place lies at anchor, and on its farther side the buildings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold, was sinking behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making the sky dull purple with its glow. Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to stir with scent, as if it ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... and not a light was to be seen. Narrow clouds stretched here and there over the star-spangled sky, and where the dawn would soon be coming there was a narrow crescent moon; but neither the stars, of which there were many, nor the half-moon, which looked white, lighted up the night air. It was cold and damp, and there was a ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... it is not all. It is here to transfigure all; we must accept with it the merer things it glorifies. For life calls us, even from our love. The day is long and we must work in it; but we can meet when the day is done. In the light of this low half-moon can put off in our boat, and row across and push the prow into the slushy sand at the other side ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... are much shyer than you are, and can see you better; so that, if you blunder towards them, they mistake your blindness for courage, and take to their heels promptly. As I stepped out there was a double rush in some bushes behind my tent, and by the light of a half-moon I caught one glimpse of a bear and her cub jumping away for the ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and how all Moscow was ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... was going up a slope that had been eroded concave. It was at the very top of the half-moon angle, upside down, standing Ekstrohm on his head. Since he was not strapped into ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon

... northwest of Lille. From there it zigzagged its way to a point about sixty miles north of Paris, whence it then followed an eastern tangent paralleling the northern bank of the River Aisne; thence easterly to Verdun, forming there a queer half-moon salient arc with the points bent sharply toward the center. From the south of Verdun the line extended unbroken and rather straight south and a little easterly ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... few minutes' examination proved to him that this was a genuine old clock, untouched by the restorer's hand, and in an excellent state of preservation. The works appeared all right as far as he could make out, but through the narrow half-moon of glass, so often inserted in the cases of old clocks for the purpose of displaying the pendulum, that article was not to be seen, and he found that it was missing from inside the case, as were also the weights, so that it was impossible to set it going. There was one ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... and shutting of the swinging door a round-bodied, round-headed man in his shirt sleeves comes into view. Covering his forehead, shielding his eyes from the glare of the overhead gas jet, is a half-moon of green leather held in place by strings tied behind his ears. The line of shadow caused by this shade makes a blank space about his eyes and brings into relief his pale, flabby cheeks, hard, straight ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... dish. You work this off carefully, turning the dish about this way and that and swishing the water round in it. It requires some practice. The gold keeps to the bottom of the dish, by its own weight. At last there is only a little half-moon of sand or fine gravel in the bottom lower edge of the dish—you work the dish slanting from you. Presently the gold, if there was any in the dirt, appears in 'colours', grains, or little nuggets along the base of the half-moon of sand. The more gold there is in the dirt, or the coarser ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... 2 miles from Lihue, on the road leading south and west from the harbor of Nawiliwili, is a fish pond known as Alakoka. It is a short distance above the mouth of the river, where the little valley widens in a half-moon shape, the stream flowing close to the bluff on the right. The bottom land on the other side is so low as to be swampy. Along the river bank on this side is a heavy wall of stone and earth, reaching the higher land at each end, thus forming a pond of 15 or 20 acres in ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... evening soon after the thunderstorm, in a late twilight, with a half-moon high in the heavens, I came upon Diamond in the act of climbing by his little ladder into ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, And trampling envy ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... river, French Lick, and Patoka. Surface, hilly and broken,—limestone rock,—springs of water, of which Half-moon and French Lick are curiosities. On the alluvial bottoms, the soil is loamy,—on the hills, calcareous, and inclined to clay. Excellent stones for grit, equal to the Turkey oil stones, ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck

... Of the two men occupying the front seat, both under the age of thirty, the one sitting on the right and acting as driver was tall, showily dressed, and of a haughty, aristocratic air; while his sharp features, which set out in the shape of a half-moon, the convex outline being preserved by a retreating forehead, an aquiline nose, and a chin sloping inward, combined to give him a cold, repulsive countenance, fraught with expressions denoting selfishness and insincerity. The other occupant of the same seat was, on the contrary, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... half-moon, with the westering sun striking full upon the windows of their high, castellated poops. Their great guns gleamed; mast and spar and rigging made network against the blue; high in air floated bright pennants and the red cross in the white field. To and fro plied small ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... and on the second night we lay in camp in a burnt forest. We were all tired and hungry, and—for Johnston was silent—a melancholy settled down upon the camp, while I lay nearly frozen under two blankets, watching a half-moon sail slowly above the fretted ridge of firs. ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... advance party halted to wait until these should arrive; but at length Semple grew impatient and ordered his men to advance without them. The Nor'westers had concealed themselves behind a clump of trees. As Semple approached they galloped out, extended their line into a half-moon {97} formation, and bore down to meet him. They were dressed as Indian warriors and painted in hideous fashion. The force was well equipped with guns, knives, bows and ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... were stationed on the left wing. Then that chastiser of foes, Savyasachin, beholding the host disposed in battle-array, aided by Dhrishtadyumna, disposed his troops in counter-array. And in opposition to that array of thine, the son of Pandu formed a fierce array after the form of the half-moon. And stationed on the right horn, Bhimasena shone surrounded by kings of diverse countries abundantly armed with various weapons. Next to him were those mighty car-warriors Virata and Drupada; and next to them was Nila armed with envenomed weapons. And next to Nila ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... allies, appear scarcely to have come into action. The men on board, including those of every description, were computed at not less than a hundred and twenty thousand. The galleys spread out, as usual with the Turks, in the form of a regular half-moon, covering a wider extent of surface than the combined fleets, which they somewhat exceeded in numbers. They presented, indeed, as they drew nearer, a magnificent array, with their gilded and gaudily painted prows, and their myriads of pennons and streamers fluttering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... the dress with the silver moons, and put a half-moon made of precious stones in her hair. When she appeared at the festival, all eyes were turned upon her, but the King's son hastened to meet her, and filled with love for her, danced with her alone, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... cried. 'It is the one thing I've been doubtful about. Now observe this map. Erzerum isn't invested by a long chalk. The Russians are round it in a broad half-moon. That means that all the west, south-west, and north-west is open and undefended by trench lines. There are flanks far away to the north and south in the hills which can be turned, and once we get round a flank there's nothing between us and our friends ... I've figured out our ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... painting, he would have recognized anywhere the rounded shapeliness of her head, the hair swept smoothly back from the calm forehead, the splendid strength of her throat and the delicate, wholly feminine half-moon of her shoulders. ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... time very little wind was blowing, and a half-moon in the sky shed a sad but uncertain ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... had risen at last; a waning half-moon, lying low and yellow in the sky, just above the horizon, casting a feeble light on earth. Loo turned and looked at Miriam, who had always met his glance with her thoughtful, steady eyes. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman

... Aunt Mary and her green plaid waist in the middle and flanked her with purple violets and red carnations. The ear-trumpet was laid upon the orchids just where she could reach it easily. Then her escorts took positions as a sort of half-moon guard behind and each held two or three American Beauties straight up and down as if they were the insignia ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... phases of Venus will alone supply sufficient interest for telescopic observation. The changes in her form, from that of a round full moon when she is near superior conjunction to the gibbous, and finally the half-moon phase as she approaches her eastern elongation, followed by the gradually narrowing and lengthening crescent, until she is a mere silver sickle between the sun and the earth, form ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... spare shirt, and then lay down on my blanket beside the fire to listen contentedly to the clamour of the rain upon the roof. About two in the morning the downpour ceased, the sky cleared, and a fair half-moon of silvery brightness shone out above the tops of the white gum forest. Fifty yards or so away, in front of the door, a shallow pool had formed in a depression of the hard, sun-baked soil, and as the soft light of the moon fell upon it there came a whirr of wings as ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke

... defenceless against another attack. But with his curved blade of temper, which will not shiver and which takes a razor's edge, the warrior of the East neither strikes nor gives point, but presents the half-moon-shaped sword at his opponent, holding it still if galloping, pushing it forward if motionless, and will so slice off limb or head, or cut deep into the body, without useless expenditure of strength, or the chance of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... those to whom he justly thought it more fairly belonged than to the King of England—namely, with the Indians. He consequently convened a meeting—under the wide spreading branches of an elm tree, the Indian chiefs assembled. They were unarmed; the old men sat in a half-moon upon the ground, the middle aged in the same figure, at a little distance from them; the younger men formed a third semicircle in the rear. Before them stood William Penn,—a light blue sash, the only ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich

... horizon with his half-fevered gaze. To the south lay the rugged shore line with its sea-corroded cliffs, indented at one point into a half-moon of glistening beach and sweeping on again into vanishing and reappearing ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... I went up on deck to take a look round. It was a most glorious night, still a breathless calm, the heavens perfectly clear, save for a low cloud bank hanging over the land, the stars shining brilliantly, and a half-moon shedding a soft, mysterious radiance upon the scene powerful enough to enable us to distinguish with tolerable clearness the nearer islands and some half a dozen craft lying becalmed within two miles of us, inshore. The moon would set about midnight; ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... senses begin swinging in a certain rhythm. I am ringing in tune with the great stillness—ringing with it. I look at the half-moon; it stands in the sky like a white scale, and I have a feeling of love for it; I can feel myself blushing. "It is the moon!" I say softly and passionately; "it is the moon!" and my heart strikes toward it in a soft throbbing. So for some minutes. It is blowing a little; a stranger ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun

... oval, i.e., the T with an oval at the top; the circle with the cross inside, symbolises, again, the male and female union; also the six-rayed star, the pentacle, the double triangle, the triangle and circle, the pit with a post in it, the key, the staff with a half-moon, the complicated cross. The same union is imaged out in all androgynous deities, in Elohim, Baalim, Baalath, Arba-il, the bearded Venus, the feminine Jove, the virgin and child. In countries where the Yoni worship was more popular than that of the Phallus, the VIRGIN and CHILD was ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... played too often. "This damned nonsense is too late," said the sergeant, and with levelled bayonets his sections swept away the chance of treachery. So the story runs, and at any rate our men pushed forward without further opposition until they formed a half-moon overlooking the darkness in a deep valley that might have been full of foes. Into that darkness, therefore, they poured steady volleys for half an hour, while the engineers were trying to destroy the captured howitzer. Their first attempt failed owing to a defective ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse

... receiving whip-castigation at a cart's tail, a punishment frequently inflicted of old upon women of that description, as many authors testify: soldiers with halberds, &c., as before, march on either side of the cart, which at the moment is passing a house with the sign of the Half-moon hanging out from the wall by ornamented iron-work. The eight of spades is upon the proverb, "Two of a trade can never agree;" and in the engraving, a couple of fish-wives, who have thrown down their baskets of plaise, flounders, &c., are fighting ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various

... of surrender was, as it were, begun, nay, some say concluded, when some of the out-guards of the Imperialists finding the citizens had abandoned the guards of the works, and looked to themselves with less diligence than usual, they broke in, carried an half-moon, sword in hand, with little resistance; and though it was a surprise on both sides, the citizens neither fearing, nor the army expecting the occasion, the garrison, with as much resolution as could be expected ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... been historic since the revolutionary days of General Washington, when their slopes were white with the tents of his soldiers. As they approached the cottage, the artistic eye of Fillmore Flagg noted with pleasure the broad expanse of spacious lawn, gently sloping down to the road. Half-moon-shaped, it presented for his admiration five acres of smoothly shaven, velvety green. For one-eighth of a mile, the entire width of the lawn and cottage grounds, a low wall of ornamental cut stone separated the lawn from the road and ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... ventricles and the veins will be shut, and the fluid will be obliged to move into the arteries; and, if it tries to get back from them into the heart, it is prevented from doing so by the valves at the origin of the arteries, which we now call the semilunar valves (half-moon shaped valves); so that it is impossible, if the fluid move at all, that it should move in any other way than from the great veins into the arteries. Now that was a very remarkable ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley

... corn, these last being perhaps intended especially for the divine bull. The sect-mark of the Saivas consists of three curved lines horizontally drawn across the forehead, which are said to represent the tirsul or trident of the god. A half-moon may also be drawn. The mark is made with Ganges clay, sandalwood, or cowdung cakes, these last being considered to represent the disintegrating force of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... to the isles of Chametly, eighteen leagues to the east of Cape Corientes. These are five small low and woody islands, surrounded with rocks, and lying in form of a half-moon a mile from the shore, having safe anchorage in the intermediate space. These isles are inhabited by fishers, who are servants to some of the inhabitants of Purification, a considerable town or city fourteen leagues up the country.[184] We anchored at these isles on the 20th, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... about its furnishings. Yet there was a certain dignity about it; it was unmistakably a best room, and not a place where one might make a litter or carry one's every-day work. You felt at once that somebody valued the prim old-fashioned chairs, and the two half-moon tables, and the thin carpet, which must have needed anxious stretching every spring to make it come to the edge of the floor. There were some mourning-pieces by way of decoration, inscribed with the names of Mrs. Patton's departed friends,—two worked in crewel ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... not take upon me to deny that, signor. I still think with a mixture of terror and satisfaction on the night when we took Scardona, and carried the half-moon before the city walls. By my soul, our Venetians ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis

... Yes, of course I do—in Half-Moon Street. I'll engage two rooms for you. And as for to-morrow, I can spare you quite well. In fact I shall probably manage better alone. Can't you go up by that nice early morning train, ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... half-moon in the sky, which was pitilessly clear, for cloudiness might have made it warmer; when the firelight sank, the slender spruce trunks cut sharply against the silvery radiance and the hard glitter of the snow. Everything was tinted with blue and white, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... gayety. This was one thing that had drawn him back to Rosemont. Her ripples never hid her depths, yet she was never too deep to ripple. I give his impressions for what they may be worth. He did not formulate them; he merely consented to stay a day longer. A half-moon was growing silvery when John said good-by at the gate of ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... of thing that only a lithe, supple, strong-hearted lad such as I was in the days of my youth, could relish—speeding over a dark road by the light of the stars and a half-moon, with a horse that loved to kick up a wind. My brain was in a fever, for the notion had come to me ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... gunboats that had silenced the lower batteries now moved up to the aid of their comrades, and the seven made a united effort, steaming forward in a sort of half-moon, and raining shot and shell upon the summits. But the guns there, well-sheltered and having every advantage over rocking steamers, maintained an accurate and deadly fire. The decks of the gunboats were swept more than once. Many men were killed ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... unlatticed screen, near to a matted dais, droops a hideous banner, red, purple, and yellow, with a white cross. Peeping in, through an oblong aperture, one sees a sort of minute circus, in the form of a half-moon, containing a table with an ugly red-and-white striped cloth. There the Eucharist, which must be preceded by confession, is celebrated. The pulpit is of rosewood, inlaid with ivory and ebony, and in what is called ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... Yes, but carved From some clear stuff, not like a woman's flesh, And colored like half-faded, white-rose leaves. 'Tis all too thin, and wan, and wanting blood, To take my taste. No fulness, and no flush! A watery half-moon in a wintry sky Looks less uncomfortably cold. And ... well, I never in the eyes of a sane woman Saw such a ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... was clear, with a touch of frost in the air, yet with the feeling in it of approaching spring. A dim light fell over the forest from the half-moon and the stars, and seemed to fill up the little clearing in which the manse stood, with a weird and mysterious radiance. Far away in the forest the long-drawn howl of a wolf rose and fell, and in a moment sharp and clear came an answer from ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... A half-moon rose above the black tops of the pines, and a faint light, which the snow flung back, filtered down between the motionless branches upon the narrow trail that wound sinuously in and out among fallen trunks and thickets draped with withered fern, for the Siwash Indians passed that way when the ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... great cherry-tree, and, from the chirping and calling, we concluded they spent the night in its shelter. How strange it must have been to them, this first night of their perching! The sky was clear, the stars twinkled, and the half-moon shed her silvery light on the earth, and gleamed through the cherry-leaves, as it had done through the honeysuckles; but it was not home, that cherry-tree, and they sighed as they thought of their birthplace. They sat close to their mother's side, and felt that, after all, where she was, ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... was a tremendous old pile, built on a rocky peninsula and surrounded on three sides by the waters of Appledore Harbour, It lay so as to face the entrance, which Verna told me was commanded—or rather had been in years past—by the guns of a half-moon battery that stood planted on a sort of third-story terrace. It was all towers and donjons and ramparts, and might, in its mediaeval perfection, have been taken bodily out of one of Sir Walter Scott's novels. ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... Rutherford, in the form of a half-moon, with a sandy beach round it, and at its head a fresh-water river, having a bar across its mouth, which makes it navigable only for boats. He mentions also the height of the land which forms its sides. All these particulars are ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik



Words linked to "Half-moon" :   lunula, nail, phase of the moon, first quarter, lunule, area



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