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Keyed   Listen
adjective
Keyed  adj.  Furnished with keys; as, a keyed instrument; also, set to a key, as a tune.
Keyed bugle. See Kent bugle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Keyed" Quotes from Famous Books



... said. I keyed for Stores; the object must have hit about there. "This is the Captain," I said. "Any ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... well, however...' He replied gravely: 'All Saint-Omer believes in the existence of Putois. Would I be a good citizen if I deny him? One should look twice before setting aside an article of common faith.' Only a perfectly honest soul has such scruples. At heart my father was a Gassendiste.* He keyed his own particular sentiment with the public sentiment, believing, like the countryside, in the existence of Putois, but not admitting his direct responsibility for the theft of the melons and the betrayal of the cook. Finally, he professed faith in the existence of a Putois, ...
— Putois - 1907 • Anatole France

... very gentle and easy. "Quite so! I fancied myself that Mr. Harden came along with the idea of making a speech either for or against." And he grinned at Billy Harden in a way that seemed to make him wild, though he tried not to show it. Somehow the doctor seemed to be all keyed up, instead of scared, like a feller that's had jest enough to drink to give ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

... bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep, so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a big easy-chair by ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... sad procession, And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles, All the channels of the city streets they're flooding, As ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... domain. It has been my privilege to assist in proving that Bartolommeo Cristofori was, in the first years of the 18th century, the real inventor of the pianoforte, but with a wide knowledge and experience of how long it has taken to make any invention in keyed instruments practicable and successful, I cannot believe that Cristofori was the first to attempt to contrive one. I should rather accept his good and complete instrument as the sum of his own lifelong studies and experiments, added to those of generations ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... but with his nerves keyed to the highest pitch now, took it as an omen. The kindly Scheller little dreamed what he sought, but the good wishes of a sergeant might have as much effect as those of a general or a ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... wrong approach," Jake said one morning. "Our body defenses are keyed up to top performance right now. Maybe if we break them down we can ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse

... living for nothing but the joy of a scrap. At the same time a life of dreary monotony on a dead land becomes more endurable when there is the hope of coming excitement and the spur to effort of a definite place to be won. And when a man is keyed up to the idea of a fight, life seems dull and flat if he is suddenly told that it will ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... Lulov—the palm-branch of the Feast of Tabernacles—and shook it piously toward every corner of the compass. At each shake the audience rolled about in spasms of merriment. A moment later a white gliding figure, moving to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. It was the Ghost appearing to frighten Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... began. And there was nothing Dog-like about Beppo. He laughed high-keyed, sardonic laughter; he scolded, he quavered, he pleaded, he was finally choked with sobs; while as for his wife, she, poor little wisplike body, early succumbed to whatever is Venetian for ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... in my afternoon strolls, and Sunday excursions; and as Harry was a generous fellow, he shared with me his purse and his heart. He sold off several more of his fine vests and browsers, his silver-keyed flute and enameled guitar; and a portion of the money thus furnished was pleasantly spent in refreshing ourselves at the road-side inns in the vicinity ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... a builder has built a house for a man, and has not keyed his work, and the wall has fallen, that builder shall make that wall firm at ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... she was listening, nerves keyed to sense sounds inaudible to him. Then, as he sat, fascinated, scarcely breathing lest the enchantment break, leaving him alone in the forest with the memory of a dream, a faint aromatic odor seemed to grow in the air; not the close scent of ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... and should not be treated as separate. They are all drinking from the same fountain. Where an upstream demand is great enough or is going to be great enough in a short span of years to warrant major storage, that storage must be keyed in with all other demands that it might meet or help to meet, including that at Washington. Where an area of lesser need is shut off by its location from sharing in such major storage, groundwater development or headwater reservoirs may well be the answer, but these measures ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... much more than is generally recognized by the impressions gathered from the things we have contact with, and it is quite a common experience that very delicate and sensitive people take the "atmosphere" of places into which they go. I have in mind an instance of an extremely high-keyed person who invariably takes on the atmosphere of new localities, houses and even rooms. Going to view a house with the object of taking it on rental, she will as likely as not pronounce against ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... canoe they had followed, while at various distances farther on no less than six more small canoes were dotted about, their feather-crowned crews all busily employed fishing, while as the boats glided round the tree-covered rocks the nearest Indians struck up a soft minor-keyed chant which was taken up by the crews of the other canoes, the whole combining in a sweet low melody which floated over the smoothly-flowing river, fully explaining the sounds heard ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... note makes 240 complete vibrations a second while traveling 1,120 feet; if we divide 1,120 by 240 we shall get 4.66 as the wave length of this note. So it is the pitch to which a note is keyed that helps determine its distance; and the force employed to start the note sent out through the magnetic field. That is why a message projected into the ether from a high-power station carries a greater distance than one sent from a station where ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... day, or during most of it, at least, Rosa and O'Reilly sat hand in hand, oblivious of hunger and fatigue, impatient for the coming of night, keyed to the highest tension. Now they would rejoice hysterically, assuring each other of their good fortune, again they would grow sick with the fear of disappointment. Time after time they stepped out ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... already been noted earlier in these memoirs, Mr. Bryce, when occasion required it, for all his huge bulk, could move as agilely and noiselessly as that pre-eminently silent animal, the domestic cat. He had been so keyed up by the emotional stresses of the last few days that he threw himself into the adventure with all the zest of a schoolboy just being introduced into romance. The man was dodging through the trees a hundred yards or so ahead, and ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... Myles, in his high-keyed nervousness, could not forbear a short hysterical laugh at his friend's warmth of enthusiasm. He took the fresh lance in his hand, and then, seeing that his opponent was walking his horse slowly up and down at his end of the lists, did ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... are," he told her. "When you lived under a daily strain you were probably keyed to a sort of harmony with it. Now you are getting more normal. Life is a thing ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... upward to a stone gallery which ran all round the wall, with doors communicating with the apartments above. The hall ceiling, two storeys above the pavement, was of stone, groined; the ribs of the groins boldly moulded, and massively keyed in the centre with a stone of considerable size, boldly carved with the representation of a dragon or griffin coiled into a circle. Over the great fireplace hung a trophy of rusty and dinted armour, surmounted by another trophy of faded and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... day, followin' glimpsin' that flea-bitten cayouse at Tramperos. But the mules can't think or talk of nothin' else. It arouses their religious enthoosiasm to highest pitch; even the cynic Jerry gets half-way keyed up over it. I looks for trouble that night; an' partic'lar I pegs out Jerry plenty deep and strong. The rest is hobbled, all except Tom. Gray mare or not, I'll gamble the outfit Tom wouldn't abandon Jerry, let the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... nerves excited till anything quieter than lower Broadway hurts his ears, all passion and brilliance spent on business, dinners here and there, with people who all have their ax to grind, too, and are keyed up to it by rows and rows of cocktails. He drew him without mercy, and he had every wife there either wincing or laughing, with the truth of what he said. He was quite eloquent." She paused, she laughed softly, she turned her eyes upon him. "Then, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... however, that the foreman, like himself was stationed somewhere off there in the blackness, sitting on his pony as immovable as a statue, his straining eyes peering into the night, his ears keyed to catch ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... when he sought the presence of the girl whose soul was keyed up to almost a passion of self-sacrifice. His mind belittled the cause for which her idolized father was, at that moment, perilling his life, and to which her dearest friends had consecrated themselves. He was serene in congratulating himself that "little Strahan" ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... hill behind him. He had no expectation of coming upon Peppajee—unless Peppajee deliberately put himself in his way—and so there was no need of caution. He stopped once, and stood long minutes with his head turned to catch the faint sound of high-keyed laughter and talk which drifted up to him. If he went higher, he thought, he might get a glimpse of them—of her, to tell his thought honestly. Whereupon he forgot all about finding and expostulating with Peppajee, and thought only a point of ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... as a very light stroke will keep a hoop going, when a smart one was required to set it in motion. While others are yawning and stretching themselves to overcome the vis inertiae, he has his eyes wide open, his faculties keyed up for action, and is thoroughly alive in every fiber. He walks through the world with his hands unmuffled and ready by his side, and so can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing than a vacant man is likely to do ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... Success has also attended the pitting of selling districts against each other. These larger competing units work against bogies of the same character as do the individual ones. The whole house may be keyed up to surpass previous records or to ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... in the midst of the circle. The file and coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The beach-comber was talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... and you know best," said Henley, as he clucked to his horse, "but Long will be powerfully disappointed. He's got sort of keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... he had been a motion-picture actor, he could not have portrayed better the similitude of hate that was written on his face. A few strides and he had advanced toward our little audience, now keyed up to the highest pitch of excitement by ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... the Pitti Palace, which depicts a young Augustinian monk as he plays on a keyed instrument, having on one side of him a youthful cavalier in a plumed hat, on the other a bareheaded clerk holding a bass-viol, was, until Morelli arose, almost universally looked upon as one of the most typical Giorgiones.[31] The most gifted of the purely aesthetic critics ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips

... really due to the sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a Tarentella Sincera of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer

... he had suddenly hardened and stiffened to a repressed, tense calm; speechless, almost rigid in his chair. Excitable under even ordinary circumstances, his every faculty was now keyed to its highest pitch. The nervous strain upon him was like the stretching and tightening of harp-strings, too taut to quiver. The color left his face, and the moisture fled his lips. His projected article, his promise to Blix, all the jollity of the afternoon, ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... Calamba in the same province, in Naig (Cavite), in Camarines Province, and a few other places, an attempt to improve upon the current system by employing an ingenious wooden mechanical apparatus worked by buffaloes. It consisted of a vertical shaft on which was keyed a bevel-wheel revolving horizontally and geared into a bevel pinion fixed upon a horizontal shaft. In this shaft were adjusted pins, which, at each revolution, caught the corresponding pins in vertical sliding columns. These columns (five or six)—being thereby raised and allowed to fall of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... talking?" Blades asked. Chung wasn't built for times as hectic as the last few hours, and was worn to a nubbin. He himself felt immensely keyed up. He'd always ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson

... conditions compels. What we may think about the future—about what can be done and what ought to be done, is in part, and perhaps largely, a matter of temperament. At least we see men, presumably having access to the same facts, drawing from them very different conclusions. Some are keyed to high expectations; they look for revolutions, mutations, a new era in politics and everywhere in the social life. For them, after the war, the world is to be a new world. Fate will make a new deal. Others appear to believe that after the flurry is over we shall settle down to something very ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... made three distinct impulses to laughter in one conversation. This was not like Cliff's usual conservatism. As Johnny had known him he laughed seldom, and then only at something disagreeable. He was keyed up for something; a great coup of some sort was in sight, Johnny guessed shrewdly, studying Cliff's face and the sparkle in his eyes. He was like a man who sees success quite suddenly where he has feared to look upon failure. Johnny wondered ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... middle of it all, and a decorative frieze of camels festooning in front of a pure pale turquoise sky." He began to walk up and down. "And yet, you know, if you try to give these people the thing as God gave it, keyed down to their comprehension and according to the powers He has ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... or the place lowly, or both, there will be a cheery eager using of the highest powers keyed to their best pitch. If higher up, a steady remembering that there can be no power save as the Spirit controls, and a praying to be kept from the dizziness which unaccustomed height is apt to produce. Large quantities of paper and ink will be saved. For many letters of application ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon

... tension seemed to abate. He had been keyed to so high a pitch that his pulses grew gentler through very lack of force, and with the relaxation came a clearer view. He saw the sinking red sun through the banks of smoke, and in fancy he already felt the cool darkness ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler

... interest of the feature story that now inspired Jimmy Hale, on his way the following morning with his friends to the camp of Isaac Higginbotham. Jimmy's vivid imagination was keyed to its highest pitch. Decidedly this trip to Canada seemed very much worth while, even to a star reporter. What McCall had intimated the day before whetted his appetite. He thrilled at the thought that he was on the scene where a big story might be in the very making. ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... works, as the Summit Tunnel, near Littleborough, was approaching completion, the rumour was spread abroad in Manchester that the tunnel had fallen in and buried a number of the workmen. The last arch had been keyed in, and the work was all but finished, when the accident occurred which was thus exaggerated by the lying tongue of rumour. An invert had given way through the irregular pressure of the surrounding earth ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... keyed up, fired twice again at the fleeing men, but with no more effect than to kick up the dust once behind and once ahead of them as they ran. The instant they reached the rocks where they found shelter Bucks drew back ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... tension of town life. I know that I seem to get keyed up as soon as I come into the town. There are so many things here, and many of them are so artificial that I seem unable to relax as I do out there where there are just frogs, and moon, and chickens, and cows. When I am here ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... talking points without wasting a big appropriation. His letters are tested as accurately as the chemist in his laboratory tests the strength or purity of material that is submitted to him for analysis. How letters are keyed and tested is the subject of ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... to encourage it. Day and night he leads a kind of hair-trigger life, that feeds naturally upon excitement, even if only as a relief from the irksome idling in quarters. Try as they may to give him enough to do there, the time hangs heavily upon his hands, keyed up as he is, and need be, to adventurous deeds at shortest notice. He falls to grumbling and quarrelling, and the necessity becomes imperative of holding him to the strictest discipline, under which he chafes impatiently. "They nag like a lot of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... Robin! . . . After a few Words, they retired to theire Books; and my Husband, taking my Hand, sayd in his kindliest Manner,—"And now I leave my sweete Moll to the pleasant Companie of her own goode and innocent Thoughtes; and, if she needs more, here are both stringed and keyed Instruments, and Books both of the older and modern Time, soe that she will not find the Hours hang heavie." Methoughte how much more I should like a Ride upon Clover than all the Books that ever were penned; for the Door no sooner closed upon Mr. Milton than it seemed ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... attract our Lord Jesus? Perhaps if you have ever walked in those narrow crowded alleys called streets, in China or Japan, you may have wondered, sometimes. Tired, dirty, pinched faces, eyes vacantly staring, or else fired with low passion, high-keyed voices bickering and jangling,—all this crowds in and out on every hand. Dirt, disease, low passion, selfishness, apparent absence of anything noble or refined, are all tangled inextricably up with these in ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... when the world was young, there were no automobiles nor flying-machines to make one wonder; nor were there railway trains, nor telephones, nor mechanical inventions of any sort to keep people keyed up to a high pitch of excitement. Men and women lived simply and quietly. They were Nature's children, and breathed fresh air into their lungs instead of smoke and coal gas; and tramped through green meadows ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum

... thrilling and realistic fire pictures ever produced was "The Incendiary Foreman," released by Pathe Freres early in 1908. It had a well-developed plot that kept the dramatic interest keyed up every moment, but the features of the film were the many thrillingly realistic fire scenes, in which the Parisian fire department battled with the flames while several enormous buildings were being ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... such vigour of behaviour that in the morning he found his shoes at opposite corners of the room. No! He who, as a boy, had not hesitated to assert a sort of proprietorship over Irene, would not hesitate now— He was keyed to the heroic. ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... more to say, of course, than I have thought proper to put down here, but before Anna went I saw that she was keyed up to the heroic part. This was none the less to her credit because it was the only part, the dictation of a sense of expediency that despaired while it dictated. The noble thing was her capacity to take it, and, amid ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... her speak like that before. For a moment he was inclined to lay bare his soul; but his nerve was broken. He did not want her to mistake the outpouring of a strong man's heart for the irresponsible ravings of a too hearty diner. It was one of Life's ironies. Here he was for the first time all keyed up to go right ahead, and he ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... and Cora Courtney had passed very close to them in an effort to hear what they were so excitedly talking about. But the girls had purposely lowered their voices till, when the two passed, they were talking in whispers. It was a great satisfaction to get Linda so keyed up with curiosity. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr

... to our advantage that we'd acted without hesitation, and I don't think we'd have been able to do that except that we'd been all set to kill each other when he dropped in. Our muscles and nerves and minds were keyed for instant ruthless attack. And some "civilized" people still say that the urge to murder ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... uplifting mission among the lowly whom literary perfection and musical nicety could not touch—and the first two lines, at least, are good hymn-writing. Few of the best sacred lyrics have been sung with purer sentiment and more affectionate fervor than "The Sweet By-and-By." To any company keyed to sympathy by time, place, and condition, the feeling of the song brings ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... Bain devised an automatic method of playing on wind instruments by moving a band of perforated paper which controlled the supply of air to the pipes; and likewise proposed to play a number of keyed instruments at a distance by means of the electric current. Both of these plans ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... forth in the storm to watch and listen for aught of her return. I passed some little distance within the confines of the forest, and was soon put upon my guard by the approaching tramp of horses' feet, and then, low-keyed voices, and in very truth I thought my lady was come; instead, three horsemen came within a few feet of my hiding and one said,—'We are even now hard by the Castle courtyard; 'tis possible the lackeys are waiting for the beauty who ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... primitive colors of the spectroscope. But modulation, in the modern sense of a free shifting of the centre of gravity to any one of the twelve semitones of our chromatic scale, was not developed and accepted until after the acoustical reforms of Rameau, and the system of tuning keyed instruments embodied in that work called the Well-tempered Clavichord of Sebastian Bach. Both these men published their discoveries about ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... Shorty, strolling down Main Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to attract the attention of others on the street. Then came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows and brought the inhabitants into ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... his life, overspilling with vigor and virility. When Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, a snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharging its pent magnetism at the contact. Every part, brain and body, nerve tissue and fibre, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; and between all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium or adjustment. To sights and sounds and events which required action, he responded with lightning-like rapidity. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... thin arms, every movement of a muscle in the thin fingers, was swift and accurate. He worked at high tension, and the result was that he grew nervous. At night his muscles twitched in his sleep, and in the daytime he could not relax and rest. He remained keyed up and his muscles continued to twitch. Also he grew sallow and his lint-cough grew worse. Then pneumonia laid hold of the feeble lungs within the contracted chest, and he lost his job ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... We are keyed up, some of us, rather nervous in anticipation of to-morrow. Porter is trying to give Irving a light from his own cigarette. Irving, who doesn't know the meaning of nerves, asks him who in hell he is waving at. Poor old Porter! His usefulness as a combat pilot has ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... in derision. It was impossible for him to stop talking, he was so keyed up. "It's paradise, I'm sure, compared to being in old ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... if he could accurately gauge the progress of his invisible antagonist, he could crash him and go down with him to death. If he could get close enough to feel his prop-wash! A wild chance, but Dick's mind was keyed up to desperation. He shot like an arrow toward the scene, with a view ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... at his watch. It was close to midnight. In that hour his nerves had been keyed to a tension that was almost at the breaking point. Not a sound came from off the Barren or from out of the scrub timber that did not hold a mental and physical shock for him. He believed that Bram and his pack would come up quietly; that he would not hear the man's footsteps or the ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... staring at the man in a moment of bewilderment, Peter drew out his revolver and dashed through the house, keyed up at once to new adventure, the eager Brierly at his heels. They went up the stairs and to the door of McGuire's own room, where they stood for a moment aghast at the disorder and ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... distinguishes this Exposition above all others in America or Europe rests on two outstanding facts: the substantial unity of its architectural scheme, and its harmony of color, keyed to Nature's coloring of the landscape in which it is placed. The site furnished the clue to the plan; co-operation made possible the great success with which it has ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... The blue vault overhead deepened and darkened. The hunter patrolled his beat, and hours were moments to him. He heard the low hum of the insects, the murmur of running water, the rustle of the wind. A coyote cut the keen air with high-keyed, staccato cry. The owls hooted, with dismal and weird plaint, one to the other. Then a wolf mourned. But these sounds only accentuated the loneliness and wildness ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey

... then put on the hinges and lock. If desired, the tenons may be made keyed as shown in the photograph instead of through as shown in ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor

... this life-force differently, according to their constitution. Animals have only 28 pairs of spinal nerves. They are keyed to the lunar month of 28 days and therefore dependent upon a Groupspirit for an infusion of stellar rays necessary to produce consciousness. They are altogether incapable of absorbing the ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel

... they are no longer children, and occasionally in men, tickling may be a source of acute pleasure, which in very early life is not sexual, but later tends to become so under circumstances predisposing to the production of erotic emotion, and especially when the nervous system is keyed up to a high tone favorable for the production of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of his pride and faith in Ken. It was this, perhaps, as much as anything, which kept Ken keyed up. For Ken was really pitching better ball than he knew how to pitch. He would have broken his arm for Worry; he believed absolutely in what the coach told him; he did not think ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey

... at midnight, with a huge, steel-bound, lock-and-keyed book that Jane has had made for me, with my name and the inscription, "In case of death, send unopened to Jane Mathers, Boston, Massachusetts," on the back, committed to a cause as crazy and as serious as anything since the ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the keyed tenons, the length of mortise must be slightly in excess of the width of the tenon—about 1/8-in. of play to each side of each tenon. With a shelf of the width specified for this table, if such allowance is not made ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... Louis, his eyes fixed searchingly on La Mothe's face. The lad's prompt response promised well, all that was needed was to keep this enthusiasm of devotion keyed to the pitch of action. "Body and soul! Be sure I shall not forget. But what you promise in hot blood you will forget when your mood cools. No? Well, Molembrais' mood cooled and he has been colder than his mood these three ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... in camp on the mountains, Mike never rested a minute, but moved silently from one place to another, with senses keyed for some sign of the rascals. However, that first night passed quietly away. His extra men spent the evening in smoking and playing cards, then they rolled up in their blankets and snored ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Strained, every faculty keyed up to its highest tension, he crouched there against the safe. Again and again his fingers rubbed over the rough carpet, and again the sweat beads oozed out upon his forehead with the strain—and then there came through the stillness a ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... plagiarism-hunter's blunder of forgetting that the treatment, not the subject, is the crux of originality. Of her longer books, Alcidamie, the first, has been spoken of. The Amours des Grandes Hommes and Cleonice ou le Roman Galant belong to the "keyed" Heroics; while the Journal Amoureux, which runs to nearly five hundred pages, has Diane de Poitiers for its chief heroine. Lastly, Carmente (or, as it was reprinted, Carmante) is a sort of mixed pastoral, with Theocritus himself introduced, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... to him to collect money for the church he'd contribute some of his unpaid shoe accounts. He knew the people that owed them would pay the church, because they'd be afraid not to. Old Deacon Timothy Todd used to do the collecting. He had a high-keyed voice and no front teeth, and always chewed as he talked. He'd pull out the bill and shake it at the man that owed it and say: 'A debt to the church is registered above. Not to pay it is a mortal sin. To perish in sin is to be burned with brimstone and eaten by the worm ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... have much to say about the machines and workshop, but each felt that it was to be their very own magazine, so that their interest and pleasure in every new development were keyed ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... Medora Phillips turned a studious glance on her companion. Carolyn was conceivably in a state of mind—keyed up to an all-inclusive appreciation. Did that foreshadow further verse?—a rustic rhapsody, a provincial pantoum? But Medora withheld question. Much as she would have enjoyed a well-consolidated impression ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... "spirituals." By these they could sing themselves, as had their fathers before them, out of the contemplation of their own low estate, into the sublime scenery of the Apocalypse. I remember that this minor-keyed pathos used to seem to me almost too sad to dwell upon, while slavery seemed destined to last for generations; but now that their patience has had its perfect work, history cannot afford to lose this portion of its record. There is no parallel instance of an oppressed ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... co-workers. I find, that the relief from the high tension of our trade comes from the change in the character of what we read, rather than in "something else," such as physical recreation. Fiction relaxes where "news" has keyed up. ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... things, he was not confident. He was supremely conscious of the precariousness of his situation. Though unperturbed by the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive and ready to be startled as any timorous deer. He was aware of the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness—intelligences similar to his own in ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... was a foregone conclusion, antagonism to which was heresy. Here let us not blame Philip; for this was the temper of his era, and to have anticipated in him larger views than those of his contemporaries is not just. To this notion was his whole nature keyed. He commanded the Netherlands to be faithful Catholics. What more was needed? Let this be the end. So reasoned the Spanish autocrat; and fealty to religious convictions on his subjects' part seemed to him nothing but settled obstinacy, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... well-being of the men depend is due to the fact of travelling with animals whose needs are proportionately so much greater than those of the men. It follows that it must be sound policy to keep the men of a sledge party keyed up to a high pitch of well-fed physical condition as long as they have animals to drag their loads. The time for short rations, long marches and carefullest scrutiny of detail comes when the men are dependent on their own ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... After her went Robinson, keyed to exultation by this outcome of his watchfulness. She was going to The Hollies, of course. The road led to Knoleworth, and no young woman of her age in the village would dream of taking a lonely walk in the country ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... keyed to the point of grappling with and throwing whole pages of "Beowulf," stood outside the chapel door waiting for Cathy to appear, the professor of Latin came out ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster

... in at the open door, and even fluttered the primer leaves, but the back of the room felt hot and close, as if it were midsummer. The children in the class read their lessons in those high-keyed, droning voices which older teachers learn to associate with faint powers of perception. Only one or two of them had an awakened human look in their eyes, such as Matthew Arnold delighted himself in finding so often in the school-children ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... from them. They quivered, clearly, they hummed and drummed, they leaped and bounded in Mrs. Stringham's typical organism—this lady striking him as before all things excited, as, in the native phrase, keyed-up, to a perception of more elements in the occasion than he was himself able to count. She was accessible to sides of it, he imagined, that were as yet obscure to him; for, though she unmistakeably rejoiced and soared, he none the less saw ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

... of the European coalition against revolutionary France, the principle of action was that announced by Danton,—"to dare, and to dare, and without end to dare." Genet therefore went on his mission to America keyed to measures which were audacious but which can hardly be described as reckless. By plunging heavily he might make a big winning; if he failed, he was hardly worse off than if he had not made the ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... shoulders; huge veins stood out upon his forehead—and Nathaniel sat mute as he watched this lion of a man whose great throat quivered with the power that might have stirred a nation—that might have made him president instead of king. He waited for the thunder of that throat and his nerves keyed themselves to meet its bursting passion. But when Strang spoke again it was in a voice as soft and as gentle as ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... great game to watch, a game in which those high school boys, keyed to a keen tension, were really outdoing themselves, performing more than once feats which would have been creditable to professionals. It was the kind of baseball that makes the blood tingle, the heart throb, ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott

... advance of the instrument. Dr. Burney mentions, in his History of Music (Vol. IV. p. 664), that when he came to London in 1744, "Handel's Harpsichord Lessons and Organ Concertos, and the two First Books of Scarletti's Lessons, were all the good music for keyed instruments at that time in the nation." We have at this moment before us the catalogue of music sold by one house in Boston, Oliver Ditson & Co. It is a closely printed volume of three hundred and sixty pages, and contains the titles of about thirty-three thousand pieces ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... that his mental process was keyed to the highest pitch of melodrama. It was not usual for him to indulge in mental abuse. He had never quite understood the dark and moving processes of red-eyed anger. There had been something absurd in the theatrical hauteur of his manner in this last scene ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... I thought; "and James Whitcomb Riley was right when he said that the speaker who is about to make his bow to an audience is always so keyed up that at the moment he is incapable ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard

... Curtis Publishing Company. Copyright, 1922, by Stacy Aumonier. Reprinted by permission of the author and of Curtis Brown, Ltd. people were Mr. and Mrs. Dawes. Mr. Dawes was an entirely negative person, but Mrs. Dawes shone by virtue of a high, whining, insistent voice, keyed to within half a note ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with songs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep hand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of achievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which hails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the faculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Nan herself was keyed up to a rather high pitch these days, and it was difficult for those who were watching her with the anxious eyes of friendship to gauge the extent of her happiness or otherwise. From the moment of Mallory's departure she had flung herself with zest into each day's ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... were out of school—since two days before. The long summer vacation was ahead of them. Time might hang idly on their hands. So it behooved them to find something absorbing to keep their attention keyed ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose

... seemed to Ann interminably long. Insensibly she was keyed up to a delicate pitch of expectancy, her ear nervously alert for the sound of a familiar footstep on the flagged path. And as the leaden moments crawled by, and the warm, sunshiny silence which ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... architecture was the excavated rock, not the column, as was the case with the Greeks. The wall replaced the excavated rock after a time, but without wholly losing its character. There is nothing that leads us to believe that the Phoenicians knew how to construct a keyed vault. The monolithic principle which dominated the Phoenician and Syrian art, even after it had taken Greek art for its model, is the exact contrary of the Hellenic style. Greek architecture starts from the principle of employing small ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... again. To go again might deepen my impression—might better register the thrill. But then it might not be just the same. I would be keyed to such expectancy that I might be disappointed. Persons in the seats behind me might whisper. And just as Chenal got to the "Amour sacre de la patrie" some one might cough. I am confident that something of the sort would surely ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... It was so sweet and sane, this home life, interesting and not feverish. There was time for reading, time for turning over things in the mind, time for those interchanges of feeling and of ideas, by the fireside; she was not required to be always on dress parade, in mind or person, always keyed up to make an impression or receive one; how much wider and sounder was Morgan's view of the world, allowing for his kindly cynicism, than that prevalent in the talk where she had lately been! How sincere and hearty and free ran the personal currents in this little neighborhood! In the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... or lost itself in little cul de sacs, from which the paddlers were obliged to retrace their way. All about them rose myriads of birds and wild fowl, which made their nests among these marshes, and the babbling chatter of the rail, the high-keyed calling of the coot, or the clamoring of the home-building mallard assailed their ears hour after hour as they passed on between the leafy shores. Then, again, the channel would sweep to one side of the marsh, and give view to wide vistas of high and rolling lands, dotted with groves of hardwood, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... what positions our crank has to be at the opening and closing of the three valves, and with the aid of the diagram, fig. 28, we can determine the size of the cams. In fig. 29, S is the side shaft to which the cams have to be keyed, R the roller on valve lever, the latter being represented by the centre lines LL, as all we require to find is the motion this lever will transmit to the valve, the spindle of ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman

... in Paris in the winter of 1917-18—in the midst of bombs, and raids, and death. Everyone was keyed up to a strange pitch, and only primitive instincts seemed to ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him then, how soon would ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... deliberately called "Fire! Fire!" These were the same ominous words she had heard Thanksgiving night, only they seemed now more alarming, more threatening. Who could be so foolish, so ill-advised as to scream those agitating words in a roomful of girls and boys already keyed up to a high pitch of excitement? Anne ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... the boys, "cannot be run on the low gear. You must keep her keyed up. Relax when the store is empty, but when you go to meet a customer put on the tension—take a brace—get spring into your step—learn to bunch your vitality and get it across. But keep ...
— Sam Lambert and the New Way Store - A Book for Clothiers and Their Clerks • Unknown

... an electric torpedo actuated by accumulators, A A, keyed upon the shaft, and revolving along with the gearings. At the beginning of the running, the accumulators are not all coupled, but under the action of a clockwork movement which is set in motion at the moment of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... talked lately not only with Sir Edward but with nearly half the other members of the Cabinet, and they are all keyed up to the same tune. The press of both parties, too, are (for once) wholly agreed: Liberal and Conservative papers ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... been wrong, quite easily could have been false a thousand times, but it was knowledge to her, sure, fateful, undeniable knowledge; and from that day her instinct was keyed to find its proof. The cancerous disease of jealousy had dropped its first seed in the blood of her, and the vulturous growth began to spread its lean, clutching fingers ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... quite as fast as they had been when he was young, but they were better educated. Also, he was already keyed-up. Almost as it started, the flurry in the leaves stopped with the roar of his rifle. Fired like that, the heavy gun just about took his hand off, but he did not notice it at the moment. He came erect in a ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams

... circle of daylight above him. "Gee Gosh!" he panted, as he got to his feet outside the cave. "It was him!" He clambered over the circle of stones and backed away, eyeing the entrance as though he expected to see the Hopi emerge at any moment. He crouched behind a boulder, his pulses racing. He was keyed to a high tension of expectancy. In fact, he was in a decidedly receptive mood for that which immediately happened. He noticed that his horse, a hundred yards or so up the valley, was circling the cedar and pulling back on the ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... planetary arrangement is found in Oldham's coupling, Fig. 44. The two sections of shafting, A and B, have each a flange or collar forged or keyed upon them; and in each flange is planed a transverse groove. A third piece, C, equal in diameter to the flanges, is provided on each side with a tongue, fitted to slide in one of the grooves, and these tongues are at right angles to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... cordial, almost confidential manner in which she soon began to talk to him made Keith feel as if they had been friends always, and in a moment, in response to a question from her, he was giving quite frankly his impression of the big city: of its brilliance, its movement, its rush, that keyed up the nerves like the ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... an hour passed in this way. The strain was beginning to tell on some of the boys, for they felt that it was necessary to keep keyed up to a high tension all the time. They did not know at what moment loud yells would indicate that the battle had been ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... afterward, they sat around the blazing fire they had made, discussing eagerly ways and means for the morrow's search. All of them were keyed up to the highest pitch. They had no definite plans except to hunt and dig until their strength gave out, but there was not one of them, even including cautious Bill, who did not feel sure that victory was within ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... son coolly, but Rachael never knew it. Her radiant dream—or was it an awakening?—went on. Her mother, a neat, faded, querulous little woman, whose one great service was in sparing her husband any of the jars of life, was keyed to frantic anxiety lest Jerry be unappreciated, now that he had come back. Clara met the few men to whom her husband introduced her in London with feverish eagerness; afraid—after fifteen years—to say one word that might suggest her own concern in Jerry's future, quivering ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... "He looks irritated and bored. Everybody else is alert and keyed up with anticipation. His eyes are dull and he looks as if he wished that the show was over and he ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... Vergil Gunch. "That's the way I look at it. If a fellow is keyed up to what you might call intensive living, the way you get it here in Zenith—all the hustle and mental activity that's going on with a bunch of live-wires like the Boosters and here in the Z.A.C., why, he's got to save his ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... the boy singing through them? It's only us—it's only us. I say, as knows the long wild nights, and the wet and the rain and the mist of nights on the boglands—it's only us, I say, could listen him in the right way. And ye knowed, right well ye knowed, that every string of his fiddle was keyed to the crying ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... inquisitive, jealous, fiery people which we have been formerly, and which we have been a very short time ago."[8] England was the country of Tom Jones, hearty and healthy, but animated by no high principles and keyed to no noble actions. It needed the danger of the Napoleonic wars to bring out once more the sturdy manliness of the nation. Through all the earlier reign of George III there was, to be sure, a remainder of the old high-minded spirit. Chatham and Rockingham, Burke, Barre, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... me very often, in such cases, as if it were to escape the excitement. I think you're both keyed up pretty sharply by nature, Miss Bessie," said the doctor, with the personal kindness he felt for the girl, and the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... expected plenty of originality and novelty; I could find no trace of either in this transparent work, and an opera with a finale like that of the second act could not be named in the same breath with any of my favourite works. The only thing that impressed me was the unearthly keyed trumpet which, in the last act, represented the voice ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... see Teddy ... besides, he'd better not. She was probably keyed up about as high as Bill was, and in no shape to do the kind of thinking he wanted of her on this stuff. Better wait a couple ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... caresses: Evil and thankless the desert it blesses; Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses; Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing. What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses? What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes? Sweeter is music with minor-keyed closes, Fairest the vines that on ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... was "flat, stale, and unprofitable." Judith didn't realize how tired she was; mentally and emotionally she had been keyed up to a very high pitch during the last two or three months and now had come the inevitable reaction. No wonder she was dull and miserable. But next morning the sun was shining brightly, there was a fresh, clean-washed ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... later, and the room was echoing to the rattle of knives and forks and a conversation which, though lighter than before, was still fitful and rather feverish in its rapid change of topic. It was the talk of men keyed to an unbearable state of anticipation. Sergius presently called Irina to sing Marie's song of the stirrup-cup from "The Boyar"; and fourteen hands applauded wildly as she smilingly climbed upon her chair, and, holding ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... cold winter's morning, after a fall of nearly two feet of snow, as I came out of my door three crows were perched in an apple tree but a few rods away. One of them uttered a peculiar caw as they saw me, but they did not fly away. It was not the usual high-keyed note of alarm. It may have meant "Look out!" yet it seemed to me like the asking of alms: "Here we are, three hungry neighbors of yours; give us food." So I brought out the entrails and legs of a chicken, and placed them upon the snow. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... when each one of those sturdy champions had already been keyed up to top-notch speed. Time was slipping away, and despite the almost superhuman efforts of Clifford they could not seem to get the ball over that strenuously defended line ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... the thick, soft grass by the side of the packs, and his physical system, keyed up so long, suffered a collapse, complete but not unpleasant. Every nerve relaxed and he sank back against his pack, content to be idle as long as Boyd was away. But while his body was weak then, his mind was content. Clarke Valley, which had been named after him, was surely wonderful. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... with a growing feeling of expectation. When the steel curtain rose and the men of the orchestra took their places, he felt distinctly nervous. The burst of applause which greeted the conductor keyed him still higher. He found that he had taken off his gloves and twisted them to a string. When the lights went down and the violins began the overture, the place looked larger than ever; a great pit, shadowy and solemn. The whole atmosphere, he reflected, was somehow more serious than ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his soul ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... Laverock called upon Mr Mann to read his scheme to the committee.... Rarely can a room have contained so much eager idealism, rarely can so many mighty brains have been keyed up to take ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... all his clothes, searched the pockets, found in them one poor shilling and a few coppers, a black cutty pipe, a box of snuff, a screw of pigtail, a knife with a buckhorn handle and one broken blade, and a pawn-ticket for a keyed flute, on the proceeds of which he was now sleeping—a sleep how dearly purchased, when he might have had it free, as the gift of God's gentle darkness! Then he destroyed the garments, committing them to the fire as the hoped farewell to the state of which ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... journey back to Darth was as anticlimactic as that. There was no trouble finding the space yacht in its remote orbit. Hoddan sent out an unlocking signal, and a keyed transmitter began to send a signal on which to home. When the liner nudged alongside it, Hoddan's last contrivance operated and the yacht clung fast to the larger ship's hull. There were four days in ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... must have fended the day-break from the plain long after it was light upon the hill from where we watched, for it was not until the range of serrated peaks to the east of Doiran was all aglow with the red and gold of sunrise that the higher-keyed crack of the enemy's field-guns came welling up to tell us that the Bulgar was getting ready to go over the top. The flame-spurts—paling from a hot red to faded lemon as the light grew stronger—splashed ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... elephants. Mechanical parts, pumps, jacks, boxes of tools, cans of oil, extra tires and wheels, cushions and innumerable odds and ends were scattered about each building and everybody seemed to be keyed up to an extreme nervous pitch. On every side could be heard remarks about the cars and drivers, their records and their chances for winning the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump

... in the conversation that was very significant. It did not seem a real pause, or the silence real silence, for both men continued to think so rapidly and strongly that one almost imagined their thoughts clothed themselves in words in the air of the room. I was more than a little keyed up with the strange excitement of all I had heard, but what stimulated my nerves more than anything else was the obvious fact that the doctor was clearly upon the trail of discovery. In his mind at that moment, I believe, he had already solved ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... Chorus.[1] Every living creature in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, as though unable to resist the contagious sweep, catch up the music and add their own to it. We don't commonly associate music with the animal creation, nor with nature. It has been said that all the sounds of nature are keyed in the minor, as though some suffering had affected them. We talk of the sighing of the wind, the moaning of the sea-waves, and the mourning of the doves. Though the singing-birds must be excepted. They seem to have caught and kept ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... monotony. Afflicted by the wind and the darkness, the correspondent sat with nerves keyed high waiting to hear the pickets open fire on a night attack. He was so unaccountably sure that there would be a tumult and panic of this kind at some time of the night that he prevented himself from getting a reasonable amount of rest. He could hear the soldiers breathing in ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... a trifle angry with myself by this time, but it only left me well keyed. My bird fell dead inside of Orme's. A murmur of applause ran down the line. "Silence in the ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... movement by Chopin; a violoncello leaned in its case in one corner, a cornet-a-piston showed itself, like an arrangement in brass macaroni packed in red velvet upon a side-table; and in front of it lay open a small, flat flute-case, wherein were the two halves of a silver-keyed instrument side by side, in company with what seemed to be its young one—so exact in resemblance was the silver-mounted piccolo made to ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn



Words linked to "Keyed" :   high-keyed, keyless, low-keyed



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