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Ply   Listen
noun
Ply  n.  
1.
A fold; a plait; a turn or twist, as of a cord.
2.
Bent; turn; direction; bias. "The late learners can not so well take the ply." "Boswell, and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries,... did not understand the secret plies of his character." "The czar's mind had taken a strange ply, which it retained to the last." Note: Ply is used in composition to designate folds, or the number of webs interwoven; as, a three-ply carpet.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books



... I could both laugh and cry. These poor good men, merciful, zealous, with many sympathies and thoughts, there do they vehemently appeal to me, Et tu, Brute? Brother, wilt thou too insist on the breeches being old,—not ply a needle among us here?—To the naked Caliban, gigantic, for whom such breeches would not be a glove, who is stalking and groping there in search of new breeches and accoutrements, sure to get them, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... polished his manners as much as she could,—and 'twas much, for women, even of the lowest classes, have gentle tastes and delicacy. She could not bear to think that her darling should one day sit cross-legged on the paternal bench, and ply needle and scissors. She breathed her own aspirations into the boy's ears, and filled his mind with them. O mothers, ye do make us what ye please! Your tears and caresses are the rain and the sun that mature the seed which time and the accidents of life sow in our tender minds! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... and boy Played with the strength he could employ, Without one fear, and they are fleet To sense injustice and deceit. No back door gossip linked his name With any shady tale of shame. He did not have to compromise With evil-doers, shrewd and wise, And let them ply their vicious trade Because of some ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... humanity. In the midst of these vast Amazonian deserts, more especially at the time when the steamers had not begun to furrow the waters, it was very difficult to find means of safe and rapid transit. Boats did not ply regularly, and in most cases the traveler was obliged to walk across the forests. This is what Torres had done, and what he would continue to have done, and it was for him unexpected good luck to have got ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne

... Doll! the stars above us shine; God of His goodness made them mine and thine; His silver have we gotten, and His gold, Whilst there's a sun to call us in the morn To ply the hook among amid the yellow corn, That such a mine of pretty gems doth hold: For there's the poppy half in sorrow, Greeting sleepy-eyed the morrow, And the corn-flower, dainty tire for ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps

... in pity for the youth, The headsman would not rightly ply The weapon, or the gods in truth Had ordered that he should not die, Soon to the king there came report The sword would not destroy his son, The council held thereon was short, The king's look frightened ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... habits are not to be conquered as one would pull up weeds: though both must be torn up by the roots, one might weed three gardens in the time it takes to destroy one fault; and so, without really meaning it, Bartlemy at last began to ply his needle less briskly; his thoughts wandered; he took a stitch that was three times too long, then another in a wrong place, a third and fourth all askew, and finally the work came to a dead stand-still. But, thimbles and thread! what happened? The instant his hand stopped, ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... Although bi-weekly steamers ply between England and the States, and many mercantile men cross the Atlantic twice annually on business, and think nothing of it, the voyage seems an important event when undertaken for the first time. Friends living in inland ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... the ship as built—a goodly ship of stout timber frame covered two-ply with hides seasoned and sea-worthy, well found in provisions against a long voyage, fitted with sturdy mast of pine and broad sail. And think of the Mass as sung, with special prayer to Him who is the confidence of them that are afar off upon the sea. And think of the leave-taking ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... die we are dead. If they live we can grow, They ply in our streets as blood corpuscles ply In their own little veins. If you cut off the flow Of these beasts in a city, that city will die. Yet we heighten our buildings and harden our souls Till the little ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... dry out of the ground, Were of one colour with the robe he wore. From underneath that vestment forth he drew Two keys, of metal twain: the one was gold, Its fellow silver. With the pallid first, And next the burnish'd, he so ply'd the gate, As to content me well. "Whenever one Faileth of these, that in the key-hole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. "One is more precious[1]: but ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock

... fair, and the prodigious conflux of people which come to it, there are sometimes no less than fifty hackney coaches which come from London, and ply night and morning to carry the people to and from Cambridge; for there the gross of the people lodge; nay, which is still more strange, there are wherries brought from London on waggons to ply upon the little river Cam, and to row people up and down from the town, ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe

... it was resolved Captain Misson should take the Name of Fourbin, and returning to Carthagene, dispose of his Prize, and set his Prisoners ashoar. Accordingly they ply'd to the Eastward, and came to an Anchor between Boca Chieca Fort, and the Town, for they did not think it expedient to enter the Harbour. The Barge was manned, and Caraccioli, with the Name of D'Aubigny, the first lieutenant, who was killed in the Engagement with the Winchelsea, and ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe

... "Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some, African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but the gifted monarch, perceiving, by the build and lightness of the craft, that they bare ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... winders, and makes the young lady twict as beautiful nor what she was before, which is onnecessary. She is magnificently dressed up in a Berage basque, with poplin trimmins, More Antique, Ball Morals and 3 ply carpeting. Also, considerable gauze. Her dress contains 16 flounders and her shoes is red morocker, with gold spangles onto them. Presently she jumps up with a wild snort, and pressin her hands to her brow, she exclaims: "Methinks I ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne

... flew, As Norsemen fly, They but retired, the fight anew Unawed to ply. Now o'er the bodies of his slain His way Carl makes; He thinks he has the city ta'en, But he mistakes. Thus for Norroway fight ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... the blade before the wrist grows stiff and old; Hardly we learn to ply the pen ere Thought and ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... costly sacrifices, failing which, I take it, neither gods nor men would tolerate you; and, in the next place, you are bound to welcome numerous foreigners as guests, and to entertain them handsomely; thirdly, you must feast your fellow-citizens and ply them with all sorts of kindness, or else be cut adrift from your supporters. [2] Furthermore, I perceive that even at present the state enjoins upon you various large contributions, such as the rearing of studs, [3] the training of choruses, the superintendence of gymnastic schools, or consular ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... movements were closely watched by Barnstable and his cockswain, and when he was in a state of comparative rest, the former gave a signal to his crew to ply their oars once more. A few long and vigorous strokes sent the boat directly up to the broadside of the whale, with its bows pointing towards one of the fins, which was, at times, as the animal yielded sluggishly to the action of the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... canoes, going at more than double our speed, took twelve to accomplish the voyage between the same two places. And though the river is from thirteen to fifteen feet in depth at its lowest ebb, and broad enough to allow a steamer to ply upon it, the suddenness of the bendings would prevent navigation; but, should the country ever become civilized, the Chobe would be a convenient natural canal. We spent forty-two and a half hours, paddling at the rate of five ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... pictures are those of a full-rigged clipper ship of to-day under all sail, and one of the magnificent ocean steamers that ply so swiftly between New York and Liverpool, making in eight or nine days the voyage that it took the Savannah thirty days ...
— Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Its eight and eight, Now for the winning shot, man; Draw slow and sure, and tak' your aim, I 'll sweep you to the spot, man. The stane is thrown, it glides along, The besoms ply it in, man; Wi' twisting back the player stands, And eager breathless ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... like Mr. Wilson said. He planted seedlings in 1948, and he is telling me that most of them haven't come into bearing, so he is going to ply the axe or top work them. He hasn't time to wait. He's got to make his bread and butter out of that, and when it comes to growing nuts, we can't wait 40 or 50 years for a tree to come in. That might be all right for posterity, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various

... one ceased to ply their useless oars, and the captain did not take notice of it, for he felt that unless God sent relief in some almost miraculous way, their continuing to row would be of no avail. It would only increase their agony without advancing them more than a few miles on ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne

... think with the late Dr. Samuel Parr, that a spitting-box is a necessary article of household furniture. The free-born citizen of the States laughs at the aristocratic restrictions imposed on smoking in England, where, on board of the numerous steamboats that ply on the Thames, conveying the pride of the city to Gravesend and Margate, no smoking is allowed abaft the funnel, and where, in public-houses ashore, no gentleman is permitted to smoke in the parlor before two o'clock in the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, 5 Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this olian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon winter-bright! And overspread with phantom ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... from her seat as she did so. By this time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening her. He rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint hope that ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... Phrygian Cybebe, 20 Where loud the cymbal's voice resounds with timbrel-echoes blending, And where the Phrygian piper drones grave bass from reed a-bending, Where toss their ivy-circled heads with might the Maenades Where ply mid shrilly lullilooes the holiest mysteries, Where to fly here and there be wont the she-god's vaguing train, 25 Thither behoves us lead the dance in quick-step hasty strain." Soon as had Atys (bastard-she) this lay to comrades sung The Chorus sudden ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... intelligible to them. When she reached a quiet spot, where one of the walks ended suddenly in a little circle among the rose-trees, far down from the palace, she had her carpet spread, and her cushion was placed upon it, and she wearily sat down. The fan-girl began to ply her palm-leaf, as much to cool the heated summer air as to drive away the swarms of tiny gnats which abounded in the garden. Nehushta rested upon one elbow, her feet drawn together upon the carpet of dark soft ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... rains, But still the six feet ply; No care at all to the following four If the leading two knows why, 'Tis a pleasure to have six feet we think, My ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... little room with tinted plaster walls shut off from the "back-parlour" by sliding doors. A ply carpet covered the floor, a cheap piano stood across one corner of the room, and a greenish sofa across another. The mantelpiece was of white marble with gray spots; on one side of it stood an Alaskan "grass basket" full ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... became; and a head-waiter was no more to him than a scullion. He gave loud-voiced orders in French of which both he and Sophia were proud, and a table was laid for them in a corner near one of the large windows. Sophia settled herself on the bench of green velvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which Gerald had given her. It was very hot; all the windows were wide open, and the sounds of the street mingled clearly with the tinkle of the supper-room. Outside, against a sky of deepest purple, Sophia could discern the black skeleton of a ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... from here to the various army posts to carry food and other supplies, while ships, like farm yards adrift, ply on the same errand between port and port. Cebu and Negros are ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... hear something more of the particulars relating to the confinement of the colonel, I called a coach, and ordered the coachman to put us down at the King's Bench, where Mr. Clifford had engaged to dine with us. As we rode along, I began to ply my companion, to inform me what desperate offence Colonel Despard had committed, which called for such rigorous treatment. His answer was this—"He served the government faithfully and zealously, as ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... When it was proposed a year ago to place a steamer upon the line from Halifax to Boston, to carry freight and passengers, the idea was scouted as chimerical, and certain to fail. The Eastern State, a Philadelphia-built propeller of 330 tons, was purchased and commenced to ply fortnightly; she has accommodations for fifty passengers, and two hundred tons of freight. She has seldom had less than fifty passengers upon any trip, and upon the last one from Halifax there were one hundred and sixty-three. The fare from Boston to Halifax is $10, meals included. She has also ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... nearly all lodging houses, and at night at least, looked brilliant and grand; certainly to Bel Bree's eyes, seeing three-storied houses and gas-lights for the first time. Inside, at number eight, the one little gas jet revealed presently just what Aunt Blin had told about: the scarlet and black three-ply carpet in a really handsome pattern of raised leaves; the round table in the middle with a red cloth, and the square one in the corner with a brown linen one; the little Parlor Beauty stove, with a boiler atop and an oven in the side,—an oval braided mat before it, and a mantel ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... DUFFERS. Cheats who ply in different parts of the town, particularly about Water-lane, opposite St. Clement's church, in the Strand, and pretend to deal in smuggled goods, stopping all country people, or such as they think they can impose on; which they frequently do, by selling them ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... of two things, Gordon," Sawtelle said in disgust. His sneer was plainly visible through the six-ply, plastic-backed lead glass of his face-plate. "Either shut up or accept my personal invitation to come to Ardvor and try to go through the wringer. That's an invitation to your own funeral." Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, torn inwardly to ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... had set out from Tadoussac, the Montagnais arrived at Quebec, to the number of sixty able-bodied men, en route for the war. They tarried here some days, enjoying themselves, and not omitting to ply me frequently with questions, to assure themselves that I would not fail in my promises to them. I assured them, and again made promises to them, asking them if they had found me breaking my word in the past. They were greatly pleased when I renewed my promises ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... aunt's walking-boots. One corner was Lucy's, which she occupied in conjunction with a little table, at which, from seven in the morning until bedtime, she worked with pen or needle (it was provoking she could not learn to ply both at one time), when she was not running about the house, or nursing a boarder's baby. On the rare evenings when her aunt could not find work of any description for her, Lucy was requested to take the Bible ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... muttered sullenly as he fiddled with his pen and paper, "maybe I've had cause to regret it. For a week after that Carre episode I dared not show my face in the streets of Paris; for nigh on a fortnight I dared not ply my trade...I have only just ventured again to set up in business. I am not going to risk my old neck ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... hundred pounds on the pig than the second, and less for the second than the third, etc.; that it was much cheaper to produce 200 pounds of pork in six months than in nine and twelve months. When it became evident that profit required more rapid feeding, then they began to ply them continually with the most concentrated food—corn meal or clear corn. If this was fed in summer, on pasture, no harm was observed, for the grass gave bulk in the stomach, and the pigs were were healthy and made good progress. But if the young pigs were fed in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... that the club cut him as soon as Mrs. Stanhope left her husband. He went there one day after it was known, and no one saw him; finally he walked up to McLean, and would have sat down, but McLean said, 'Your company is not desired, Mr. Mostyn.' Mostyn said something in re-ply, and McLean answered sternly, 'True, we are none of us saints, but there are lines the worst of us will not pass; and if there is any member of this club willing to interfere between a bridegroom ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr

... evening, all the other large ships, having silenced the guns to which they had been respectively opposed, joined the rest of the fleet. The four bombs being anchored near the shore, began to ply the town with shells and carcasses; so that in a little time the houses were in flames, the magazines of gunpowder blew up with the most terrible explosion; and about ten o'clock the whole place blazed out in one general conflagration. Next ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... lake, in S. of Siberia, 397 m. long and from 13 to 54 wide, in some parts 4500 ft. deep, and at its surface 1560 ft. above the sea-level, the third largest in Asia; on which sledges ply for six or eight months in winter, and steamboats in summer; it abounds in fish, especially sturgeon and salmon; it contains several islands, the largest Olkhin, 32 ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... pyre dy'nas ty de ny' hy'dra type an'ti type re ly' ty'phus fyke a sy'lum re ply' ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... all too enterprising individual chartered one of the fast little Seine boats, always so beplastered with "Dubonnet" advertisements, which ply along the river between the Quai du Louvre and St. Cloud. He announced that since it was now no longer possible to reach London via the train to Havre, he would transport Americans on his little boat to England, going down ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... jargon." The Vicomtesse pushed me out of the room, and after that I was never allowed to be there when you had those flights. Curse the mosquitoes! He seized a fan and began to ply it vigorously. "I remember. You were giving Auguste a lecture. Then I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... England ... have given themselves out to be our own minstrels."[570] Without any experience or understanding of the art, they go from place to place on festival days, and gather all the money that should have enriched the true artists, those who really devote themselves to their profession and ply no manual craft. Vain efforts; decline was imminent; minstrels were not to recover their former standing. The Renaissance and the Reformation came; and, owing to the printing-press, gay scavoir found other means of spreading through the country. In the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... was weary from all the lecturing. Indeed, I think too his mind had rather a practical cast; for he began to ply me with questions about the ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... the society of people who do want to know, and who ply one with questions as to one's tastes and habits, are almost more trying than the purely narrative people, and induce a subtle sense of moral hypochondria. The perfect mixture, which is not a common one, is that ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the fight, Captain Geddes was unable to choose his position, for which reason they literally battled hand-to-hand, hulls grinding against each other, the gunners scorched by the flashes of the cannon in the ports of the opposing ship, with scarcely room to ply the rammers, and the sailors throwing missiles from the decks, hand grenades, cold shot, scraps ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... we made the women with their children go, The oars ply back again, and yet again; Whilst, inch by inch, the drowning ship sank low, Still, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... dared, was able to seize his outstretched hand and hold it until he could grasp the gunwale himself with a grip that no current could loosen. A glad shout of relief went up from the men at sight of this, and Frank, having made sure that the foreman was now out of danger, seized the oars and began to ply them vigorously with the purpose of beaching the bonne at the first opportunity. They had to go some distance before this could be done, but Johnston held on firmly, and presently a projecting point was reached, against which Frank steered the boat; and the moment she was aground, ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... States Canal Navigation), with a number of gold stripes on his sleeves, corresponding to the length of the title. They preferred coming to an international understanding. Besides, a number of shipowners, whose sailing-vessels ply between Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Russia, have also joined these syndicates, in order to regulate traffic in the Baltic, and to bring about a certain harmony in the chasse-croise of vessels. These associations have sprung up freely, ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... not a clever woman, I imagine; and as the first result of her cogitation she appears to have made the mistake of being, that evening, too kind to her husband. She could not ply him with wine, according to the traditional expedient, for though he drank heavily at times he had a strong head; and when he drank beyond its strength it was because he chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... The English girl began to pour out a volley of questions about the river and the steamers we saw, and I answered them as well as I could; but Colonel Hungerford was better acquainted with the scene, and he took the task upon himself of informing her, leaving Miss Blanche to ply ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic

... from the railways, and the roads where diligencias ply their lumbering and dusty course, the saddle is the only, and indeed the most characteristic, mode of travel; and the arriero and his string of pack-mules is the common carrier, and the mountain road or dusty desert trail the means ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... tide." The maid with smile suppressed and sly, The toil unwonted saw him try; For seldom sure, if e'er before, His noble hand had grasped an oar. 485 Yet with main strength his strokes he drew, And o'er the lake the shallop flew; With heads erect, and whimpering cry, The hounds behind their passage ply. Nor frequent does the bright oar break 490 The dark'ning mirror of the lake, Until the rocky isle they reach, And moor ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... generally connected; yet, suggestive fancy could readily supply their place with kindred ideas culled from our more prosaic surroundings. We had, it is true, no crimson-sashed, ragged, ballet-costumed gondolier to "ply the measured oar;" because, in the first instance, we did not row up at all. We were a trifle too wise in our generation to pull up the river in a lumbering barge under a broiling sun, and fancy we were amusing ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... paid her compliments that made her wince as much as the crude grip of his hand; but he was tact itself compared with his friend Mr. Thrush, who sought an interview in order to ply the poor girl there and then with far more searching questions than she had been required to answer upon oath. She could only look at Mr. Upton in a way that secured his peppery intervention in a moment. The two men had scarcely seen each other since the morning, and the ironmaster ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung

... their remote predecessors had rendered to the Cross. The other Orders had vanished, not less ignominiously, at earlier dates. The Templars, who had evacuated Syria to live on their European estates and ply the trade of bankers, were proscribed on charges of heresy, by Pope Clement V (1312), to gratify the brutal greed of a French king. The Teutonic Knights, better counselled by their Grand Master, Hermann of Salza (1210-1239), ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... River half a foot within the Water, the lower part so plumb'd as to sink no further; the upper slantwise shoaling against, but not touching by two foot, the Water, and the Strings which bear up this upper side fastned to small yeilding sticks prickt in the Bank, that as the Fowle strike may ply to the Nets to entangle them. And thus lay your Nets (as many as you please) about twelve score one from another, as the River or Brook will afford. And doubt not your success. To expedite it however, a Gun ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett

... despatched him. On likewise did they with the rest of the Wazirs and Olema and Notables, slaying them, one after other, till they made a clean finish.[FN165] Then the King called the headsmen and bade them ply sword upon all who remained of the folk of velour and stowre; so they fell on them and left none whom they knew for a man of mettle but they slew him, sparing only the proletaires and the refuse of the people. These they drove ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... of grouping the oars, and putting only one man to an oar, continued down to the 16th century, during the first half of which came in the more modern system of using great oars, equally spaced, and requiring from four to seven men each to ply them, in the manner which endured till late in the last century, when galleys became altogether obsolete. Captain Pantero Pantera, the author of a work on Naval Tactics (1616), says he had heard, from veterans who had commanded galleys equipped in the antiquated fashion, that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... varieties of venereal disease, which she was freely disseminating. I then read to her that part of the Act which deals with those who "knowingly and wilfully disseminate venereal infection." That same afternoon she left for ——, where she continued to ply her calling unhindered. Who can estimate the sum of the damage done by one such person? Not one of those men infected was properly treated, although I did all I possibly could to convince them of their own danger and of the risk of spreading infection ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health

... with them from the country from which they originally came; it is compounded of two words, signifying, as has been already observed, horseshoe fellows, or people whose trade is to manufacture horseshoes, a trade which the Gypsies ply in various parts of the world, - for example, in Russia and Hungary, and more particularly about Granada in Spain, as will subsequently be shown. True it is, that at present there are none amongst the English Gypsies who manufacture horseshoes; all the men, however, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... not intended by Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge that Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson should be able to keep their new prize and property running for their own pleasure. On the contrary the givers of this splendid present believed that the two boys would ply under charter for wealthy pleasure seekers, thus making a splendid living. In summer there were the northern waters; in winter the southern waters. Thus it was believed that Captain Tom Halstead and Engineer Joe Dawson would be in a position ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock

... up) What can he do, that young chap, if I ply my secret arts freely? Be he god or devil, I will grasp him and grind him. I will offer his body as sacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back, and holding his long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door and stared at the young lad. Ushiwaka ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound

... rendered difficult both by sudden storms and by the absence of good bays and ports. [v.03 p.0216] The principal port on the western shore, Listvinichnoe, near the outflow of the Angara, is an open roadstead at the foot of steep mountains. Steamers ply from it weekly to Misovaya (Posolskoe) on the opposite shore, a few times a year to Verkhne-Angarsk, at the northern extremity of the lake, and frequently to the mouth of the Selenga. Steamers ascend this river ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... water up to his neck. Had it not been for him we should have had to lie out all night; he sees in the dark like an owl. We've had a hard tramp." He stood steaming before the fire as he spoke—drenched to the skin, the others crowding round him, too happy for the moment to ply him with questions. He himself was quivering with an inward joy. Alice's kisses were still on ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith

... not used to that; I cannot stoop to try it— To take the spade in hand, and ply it. The narrow being suits ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... hurled it where he had heard the voice. Right in front of the ship's bow it fell, and a great wave rose as it sank, and washed the ship back to the shore. But Ulysses seized a long pole with both hands and pushed the ship from the land, and bade his comrades ply their oars, nodding with his head, for he was too wise to speak, lest the Cyclops should know where they were. Then they rowed with ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... hurried away. Assisted by Surendra Nath, who, being his companion on the rowing bench, had perforce dropped his oar, he soon had the prisoners in position. Urging them with terrible threats and fierce imprecations, he forced them to ply their oars with long steady strokes. The way on the gallivat increased. There was not a great distance now to be covered, it was unnecessary to husband their strength, and with still more furious menaces Fuzl Khan got out of the sturdy Marathas all the energy of which they were capable. ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... the last day of August. On the 1st of September, the steamer was to come, and sail again after two hours. I therefore hastened to the commandant of the town to have my passport signed, and to request admittance to the ship. Government steamers ply twice every month, on the 1st and 15th, from Redutkale to Odessa, by way of Kertsch. Sailing vessels rarely offer an opportunity of passage. These steamers always keep close into the coast; they touch ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... score. As soon therefore as she caught this question, she gnashed her teeth with rage, and shouted: "You good-for-nothing spiteful fellow! It's all you who are at the bottom of this trouble; and do you still have the face to come and ply ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... formulating certain laws Which economic matters would control. The midnight lamp, companion of my toil, Has burned in vain. Alas, I see it now. When the great "Commoner," of wisdom full, A plank within our platform did insert That our good ships which coastwise trade would ply Should float as free as sea-gull on the wing Through that deep channel, by our cunning wrought, Which links Pacific's waters to the Gulf, I, fool-like, did him earnestly applaud! Again my soul in bitterness doth surge Because from distant Isles the lightning brings Dire words of ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... preternatural possession. I could get no satisfactory explanation of the manner of this possession. It is said to be effected by a mysterious corporal transformation of the divinity such as even the demons are capable of when they desire to ply their malice ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... book, either their own property, or belonging to others, exceeding half a mark in value. If disobedient they were liable to suffer pain of imprisonment for the first offence, a fine of half a mark for the second—a curious example of graduated punishment—and a prohibition to ply their trade within the precincts of the University ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... gradual aptitude acquired to a given exertion of muscular power, from constant repetition, and in the next place, an exact knowledge how much is still wanting and necessary to be supplied. The obvious test is to increase the effort or nicety of the operation, and still to find it come true. The muscles ply instinctively to the dictates of habit. Certain movements and impressions of the hand and eye, having been repeated together an infinite number of times, are unconsciously but unavoidable cemented into closer and closer union; the limbs require little more than to ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... and the keel. Each stitch or tie was six inches apart, and was formed thus: Three holes were bored in the upper plank and three in the lower—the holes being above each other, that is, in a vertical line. Through these holes the cord was passed, and, when tied, formed a powerful stitch of three-ply. Besides this, we placed between the edges of the planks layers of cocoa-nut fibre, which, as it swelled when wetted, would, we hoped, make our little vessel water-tight. But in order further to secure this end, we collected a large quantity of pitch from the bread-fruit tree, with which, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... roadway of solid land. So, bidding his weeping wife farewell, the lover-husband sorrowfully crossed the River of Heaven, and all the magpies instantly flew away. But the two were separated, the one to lead his ox, the other to ply her shuttle during the long hours of the day with diligent toil, and the Sun-king again rejoiced in his ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... the ocean think of its vastness; of the many shores in many climes visited by its waves to ply "their priest-like task of clean ablution;" of cities and empires that rose beside its waters, flourished, decayed, and became a memory; of others that shall rise and also pass away, while the moving element remains,—so we to-day beholding ancient ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding

... ply Christopher with questions and extracted the information that the Patrimondi Company was much disliked by ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... these are the true treasures. There is no harm in a Latin ode after the manner of Messer Ovidius, but for the most part poets or those that call themselves such are foolish fellows enough, and keep very bad company. Ply your book, my ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that I found myself confronted by that unyielding flap, I found that pressure, irresistible pressure, was being put upon me to gain, by any and every means, access to its interior. I had no option but to yield. I looked about me in search of some convenient tool with which to ply the felon's trade. I found it close beside me. Leaning against the wall, within a yard of where I stood, were examples of various kinds of weapons,—among them, spear-heads. Taking one of these spear-heads, with much difficulty I forced ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... down the stream, with unmann'd prow, Floats many an empty long-ship now, Ship after ship, shout after shout, Tell that Kign Hakon can't hold out. The bowmen ply their bows of elm, The red swords flash o'er broken helm: King Hakon's men rush to the strand, Out of their ships, up through ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... Tom, "to repay your kindness. I am willing to ply myself to work, though it degrades one in the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... carelessly, remained sober and watchful. And the police soon drove out of the city all mimes and dancers and singers of the Anartta country. And all the bridges over rivers were destroyed, and boats forbidden to ply, and the trenches (around the city) were spiked with poles at the bottom. And the land around the city for full two miles was rendered uneven, and holes and pits were dug thereon, and combustibles were secreted below the surface. Our fort, O sinless one, is naturally ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... Accounted of, no longer pray'd, But thus an artifice essay'd: "Since 'tis impossible to nod, While harping like the Delphian god, You charm our ears, stead of a nap, A batch of nectar will I tap, Which lately from Minerva came; Now if you do not scorn the same, Together let us bumpers ply." The Grasshopper, extremely dry, And, finding she had hit the key That gain'd applause, approach'd with glee; At which the Owl upon her flew, And quick the trembling vixen slew. Thus by her death she was adjudged To give what in her ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... among the quarries that it seems almost a part of the ore mountain itself; beyond that the great forest, with its eagles and big game; and the everlasting snow peaks overtopping all, as they lose themselves in the fairest of summer skies. Small boats ply to and fro between Douglas Island and Juneau, a mile or more up the inlet on the opposite shore. These ferries are paddled leisurely, and only the explosive element at Douglas Island gives token of the activity that prevails at ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... his influence with some third person have devised these means of giving him employment. He found this idea so insupportable after what had taken place between that good man and himself, that he confided it to John Westlock on the very same day; informing John that he would rather ply for hire as a porter, than fall so low in his own esteem as to accept the smallest obligation from the hands of Mr Pecksniff. But John assured him that he (Tom Pinch) was far from doing justice to the character of Mr Pecksniff yet, if he supposed that ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... four feet bunched together, to pause for a breathless moment, gathering every ounce of strength to wrench, leaping sideways, he must surely be thrown. But in spite of all he did not pull leather, he did not cease to ply spur and quirt, and he was not thrown. It was a perfectly quiet horse he rode away across the ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... Renard replied, abstractedly. He had already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... asleep; The heavy humours that their eyes did steep Made them fear mischiefs. The hard streets were beds For covetous churls and for ambitious heads, That, spite of Nature, would their business ply: All thought they had the falling epilepsy, Men grovell'd so upon the smother'd ground; And pity did the heart of Heaven confound. The Gods, the Graces, and the Muses came Down to the Destinies, to stay the frame Of the true lovers' deaths, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... sees a considerable traffic. Bayonne furnishes carts, Biarritz carriages. Omnibuses ply to and fro; market-barrows are drawn frequently past; burden-bearers and peasants are met or overtaken trudging contentedly on. The latter cheat both the omnibus and themselves, for the fare is but a trifle, and the road hot and sandy. It is ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... three glasses of punch is well worth cultivating, I should say. Scarcely have I arrived in town when my room turns into a regular business office, where editors and authors ply their trade. I fear that ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... of them read, and perhaps write a little, but they prefer to make their mark and get you to attest it with the formula, "the mark of J——N." Their schooling was soon over. When they were nine years of age they were ploughboys, and had a rough time with a cantankerous ploughman who often used to ply his whip on his lad or on his horses quite indiscriminately. They have seen many changes, and do not always "hold with" modern notions; and one of the greatest changes they have seen is in the fairs. They are not what ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... claims have ever been advanced; and the "snake charmers" or jugglers in whom this superior knowledge is supposed to center are so well aware of the futility of specifics, and the risk to which they are subjected, that few venture to ply their calling without a broad-bladed, keen-edged knife concealed about the person as a means of instant amputation in case of accident. Medical and scientific associations of various classes, in Europe, Australia, America, even Africa, and the East and West Indies, have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... of people about this park. My word! it doesn't do to ply with them!" he observed, in that rycy Austrylian English, which (as it has received the imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all make ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... helped forward our work and design upon Mansoul; for notwithstanding the spite and quarrelsome temper of the old gentleman last mentioned, the other two ply their business well, and are likely to ripen the ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... altered our course when the stars disappeared, a tremendous noise struck upon our ears from seaward, and the storm was upon us. In the impenetrable obscurity of the night, not a trace of land could be discovered; but we continued to ply our oars, while each ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... Josiah Whitman's hearse goin' past?" she asked, rising from her chair, and craning forward to bring her eyes on a level with the window, while she suspended the agitation of the palm-leaf fan which she had not ceased to ply during her talk; she remained a moment with the quiescent fan pressed against her bosom, and then she stepped out of the door, and down the walk to the gate. "Josiah!" she called, while the old man looked and listened at the window. "Who you ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... Up to the fiery concave towering high. As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood, Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed Far off the flying Fiend. At last appear Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock, Impenetrable, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... gift of gifts," said he to Brok. "Ply the bellows as before, and do not, for your life, stop or falter until ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... green Is known to make the stomach keen." "Is that the case?" the squire replied; "That air shall be directly tried." He gave command—a house he hired, And down he goes with hope inspired, And takes his cooks—a favorite train; But still they ply their art in vain. Perhaps 'twas riding did the feat: He rides,—but still he cannot eat. At last a friend, to physic bred, Perceived his case, and thus he said: "Be ruled by me, you soon shall eat, With hearty gust, ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park

... stroke the young heroes from Hellas ply their oars, and the blue waters of the Euxine are flecked with foam. Here is an ideal picture. A band of enterprising young men, alert, active, ambitions—a scene typical of the highest conception of life. It has ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... my servant. I had been informed that the tide would serve for the regular passage-boats, or felouks, as they are called, at about four o'clock, but on reaching the side of the Tagus opposite to Aldea Gallega, between which place and Lisbon the boats ply, I found that the tide would not permit them to start before eight o'clock. Had I waited for them I should have probably landed at Aldea Gallega about midnight, and I felt little inclination to make my entree in the Alemtejo ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... be thinking, which was the castigation of his brains with every sting wherewith a native touchiness could ply immediate recollection, led him to conclude that he must bring Van Diemen to his senses, and Annette ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... watchmaker, you must learn; or a lawyer, a cook, or even a housemaid. Before you can clean a horse you must go into the stable, and begin at the beginning. Even the cab-driving tiro must sit for awhile on the box, and learn something of the streets, before he can ply for a fare. But the literary beginner rushes at once at the top rung of his ladder;—as though a youth, having made up his mind to be a clergyman, should demand, without preliminary steps, to be appointed Bishop of London. That he should be able to read and write is presumed, ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window, and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah,—dust that has been churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare,— humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban, murmuring a pious Namaskarum; for the respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen Brahmin,—only a little more so. Caste is God, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... the shafts as snow. Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... left of winter Is moisture in the ground. When I came down the valley last, the sun Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf, But still the frost was bony underneath. Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply Their shovelling hands in earth As nimbly as the strokes Of a swimmer in a long dive under water. The meadows in the sun are twice as green For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth, The mischief of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... who arch a dome, And tunnel a hill. They chisel in marble and fashion in chrome, And measure the sky. They find the good and destroy the ill, And they bend and ply The laws of nature out of a ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... began to rise, and their crests were cut into white foam by the increasing gale. Thunder roared in continued, successive peals, as if the heavens were breaking up, while rain descended in sheets. For a time the crews continued to ply their oars; but as the wind increased, these were rendered superfluous. They were taken in, therefore, and the men sought partial shelter under the tarpaulin; while Mr. Park and the two boys were covered, excepting their heads, by an oilcloth, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... Romance!" the Skipper said; "He vanished with the coal we burn; Our dial marks full steam ahead, Our speed is timed to half a turn. Sure as the tidal trains we ply 'Twixt port and port. ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling

... regulate their hive; Nor stray like others unconfined abroad, But know set stations, and a fixed abode: 190 Each provident of cold in summer flies Through fields and woods, to seek for new supplies, And in the common stock unlades his thighs. Some watch the food, some in the meadows ply, Taste every bud, and suck each blossom dry; Whilst others, labouring in their cells at home, Temper Narcissus' clammy tears with gum, For the first groundwork of the golden comb; On this they found their waxen works, and raise The ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... walk, if he wished to go out he had to borrow a carriage. Why this economy? In order to have a storehouse full of garments, shoes and blankets, which he distributed gratuitously, with paternal kindness and prudence. This was a business which he never ceased to ply, in which he trusted only to himself, and with which he concerned himself up ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... a critical situation. The idlers began to ply the occupants of the cab with a hundred questions which must be answered in some shape unless suspicion was to be aroused—and suspicion, under such circumstances, would mean the holding back of the train, and the failure ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... not, did not he? (he answered). Bless me! Go back to him again, then, and ply him with questions; if he really has the science, and is not lost to all sense of shame, he will blush to have taken your money and then to have sent ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... were called upon to give Swartboy a help with the leading oxen when these became obstinate or restive, and would turn out of the track. At such times either Hans or Hendrik would gallop up, set the heads of the animals right again, and ply the "jamboks" ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... desire to excuse you on the supposition that you had not grasped the importance of your occupation; they adjure you that, from this hour, you make yourselves acquainted with this importance, and that you no longer ply your occupation as a mere trade. Learn to respect yourselves, and by your actions show that you do so, and the world will respect you. You will give the first proof of this through the amount of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... organ, my brain, is working." Rapidly he began to write upon the back of a menu. "We must inform the world through the medium of the Press. An attractive paragraph must appear in The Times. What could be more appropriate than an epitaph? Ply me with wine, child. The sage is in labour with a song." Jill filled his glass and he drank. "Another instant, and you shall hear the deathless words. I always felt I should be buried in the Abbey. Anybody give me a rhyme ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... our boatmen quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient, push from shore. "Have a care! that case holds liquor— Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!" "Sick, Ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker, Ere you've been an hour on ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... his bonzes kneel and worship him, many a home-god grows heartily sick of the reverence with which his family-devotees pursue him, and sighs for freedom and for his old life, and to be off the pedestal on which his dependants would have him sit for ever, whilst they adore him, and ply him with flowers, and hymns, and incense, and flattery;—so, after a few years of his marriage my honest Lord Castlewood began to tire; all the high-flown raptures and devotional ceremonies with which his wife, his chief priestess, treated him, first sent him to sleep, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... "Ply me and also my mate be plied * With pure wine prest in the olden tide.[FN303] Daughter of nobles[FN304] they lead her forth[FN305] * In raiment of goblets beautified. They belt her round with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... Dr. Grenfell. I would like for you to Have time to come Down to my House Before you leaves to go to St. Anthony. My little Girl is very Bad. it seems all in Her neck. Cant Ply her Neck forward if do she nearly goes in the fits. i dont know what it is the matter with Her myself. But if you would see Her you would know what the matter with Her. Please send a word by the Bearer what gives you this ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace

... purchase food from them, if it be decided that all provisions for which money is given are wanted not for food but for sorcery? But if there is nothing in all this that can give rise to suspicion, neither the payment of the fishermen to ply their usual trade, to wit, the capture of fish—I may point out that the prosecution never produced any of these fishermen, who are, as a matter of fact, wholly creatures of their imagination—nor the purchase of a common article of sale—the prosecution ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... to our more extensive labours for the good of the whole world, and is the very life and soul of home and foreign missions. We can enter the abodes of ignorance and crime at home, and ply with offers of mercy the inhabitants of the foulest den, and plead with every prodigal to return to his Father, because we believe that in all this we are in Christ's stead, and are warranted to beseech in God's name, and with ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... with neighbor Smith's—close by; Full half the time it would not ply: Save only when the wind was west, Still as a post it stood at rest. By every tempest it was battered, By every thundergust 'twas shattered; Through many a rent the rain did filter; And, fair or foul, 'twas out of kilter; And thus the saying came at last— "Smith's ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... water had fallen about a foot during the night, so that Tay ought soon to be in ply, for another frost occurred in the night, and the snow did not appear to be serious. The order of the head boatman was for harling. You have two boatmen on this river, and they had to exert themselves to the utmost to handle her with so heavy a current. It was my first experience ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... her head or ceasing to ply her needle, would sometimes say timidly: "Still, father, cousin Pascal was very kind to us, last ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... transcripts of what I heard in my conversations with my heroes and heroines, but my purpose throughout has been to hold a mirror up to Nature, to give a faithful interpretation of thought and character, and to show my readers some of the ply of mind and habits of life that still prevail among Yorkshiremen whose individuality has not been blunted by convention and who have the courage to express their reasoned or instinctive views of ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... the King of Spain will but sail away again when he hath made terms against the privateers, whether they be those that ply on the high seas against men's bodies, or here in England against their souls. There will be no subjection of ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... of coated 8-ply bristol; packed in attractive, well-built box, six 18 x 12 inches, with handsome cover ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... boys head. 'Twould be too long to recount every thing: We went into the hot-house, and having sweated a little, into the cold bath; and while Trimalchio was anointed from head to foot with a liquid perfume, and rubb'd clean again, not with linnen but with finest flannen, his three chyrurgeons ply'd the muscadine, but brawling over their cups; Trimalchio said it was his turn to drink; then wrapt in a scarlet mantle, he was laid on a litter born by six servants, with four lacqueys in rich liveries running before him, and by his side a sedan, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... churches of the Lord One who denied Him, one by them hailed Christ. Enough! This cloud, no bigger than one's hand, Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; They breed and grow; like ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... fold, plicature[obs3], plait, pleat,ply, crease; tuck, gather; flexion, flexure, joint, elbow, double, doubling, duplicature[obs3], gather, wrinkle, rimple[obs3], crinkle, crankle[obs3], crumple, rumple, rivel[obs3], ruck[obs3], ruffle, dog's ear, corrugation, frounce[obs3], flounce, lapel; pucker, crow's feet; plication[obs3]. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... eyes he mutely held out his arms. Louis flew into the proffered embrace, and kissed him twice with the ardor of a boy. The affectionate touch of his lips quite unmanned Arthur, who was silent while the young fellow sat on the side of the bed with one arm about him, and began to ply ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... he find to say to raillery which was quite new to him, and so for the sake of both of them as they stood at the gate Miss Nan had to ply an odd one-sided conversation till he found himself at his ease. By-and-by ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... be rapid and direct. A novelist of that modern school that fills its volumes, often fascinatingly enough, by refining upon the shadowy refinements of civilised thought and feeling, would find it hard to ply his trade in South Sea Island society. His models would always be cutting short in five minutes the hesitations and subtleties that ought to have lasted them through a quarter of a life-time. But I think ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... sat themselves down in one of the aquatic cabs which ply the water streets of the city in the sea. The gondolier stood to his oar and put his best foot foremost, and as the boat sped forward on its way along the capital S of the Grand Canal, Larry told the tale of the twin brothers and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... yon fort with a rush and a cheer. The ladders will be placed on the walls, and under cover of a heavy fire from our musketry we'll go over them. Use only the cutlass when you gain the parapet and ply like men. Remember what's ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... empty, Mrs. Vaughn took her knitting to the fire, and before she began to ply the needles, looked thoughtfully at her hands. They had been soft and shapely before the days of toil. A frail but comely woman she was, with pale face, and dark eyes, and ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... been built. They are occupied by three companies of infantry, and together with the Pampango soldiers and the other men of service they number more than four hundred, counting the rations which are given them. During the year two pataches ply back and forth in August and April with the reenforcements, and carry what is necessary for the said presidio. The climate is mild, as the island lies in twenty-five degrees of latitude. The soil is fertile, but the natives so intractable that they do not allow us to avail ourselves ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... Fate willed it so. 'Tis well; Prometheus rules below. Their gusty games let wild winds play, And clouds on clouds in thick array Muster dark armies in the sky: Be mine a harsher trade to ply— This solid Earth, this rocky frame To mould, to conquer, and to tame— And to achieve the toilsome plan My workman ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... her story, but she made awkward work of it, and they had to ply her with questions to get at the smallest fact. But finally she managed to repeat what we already knew, how she went with the policeman into the house, and how they stumbled upon the dead woman in ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... they made ready the Brigantine, and came out to sea, where meeting their correspondent returning, and finding nothing done, they all agreed to ply their old trade. So they sailed with the ship and Brigantine to the Southward, where they ran the Morning Star upon the Grand Carmanes, and wrecked her; the next Day Anstis went ashore to fetch the men off, who were all safe. Anstis had ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... from the crowded harbor of the Golden Horn. They crept up out of the mystery of the evening; voices from the caiques, and from the boats of the fishermen, and from the big sailing vessels which ply to the harbors of the East, and from the steamers at rest near the Galata Bridge, and from the many craft of all descriptions strung out towards the cypress-crowned hill of Eyub. And Mrs. Clarke, standing beside him, began ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... we saw nothing like it; nor is there the least possibility that any such thing ever existed." But Cook was too far out to descry the narrow opening—but thirteen miles wide—of Juan de Fuca, where the steamers of three continents ply to-day; though the strait by no means led ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... was never so free from knots before. After she had said her prayers in the morning, and read a chapter with her mother, the little girl ate her frugal breakfast, and seated herself at her work, and so nimbly did she ply the cards, that her task was accomplished full half an hour before the usual time. She was just beginning her own pile when Charlotte came in; they sat down together, and worked away diligently. Charlotte said that her mother laughed at her, but ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... some gallant rescues, the most conspicuous of which was that of the battalion of marines, embarked on board the Governor; a steamer, as I recollect, not strictly of the river order, but like those which ply outside on the Boston and Maine coast. She went down, but not before her living freight had been removed by the sailing-frigate Sabine. The first lieutenant of the latter, now the senior rear-admiral on the retired list of the navy, soon afterwards relieved Drayton in command of ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone. With the hamper appeared also a nice old lady, who bustled about on tiptoe, began to make chicken-broth, and peel oranges for the sick man, and to ply the small servant with glasses of wine, and choice bits of everything. The whole of which was so bewildering that Mr. Swiveller, when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... close upon the English with his lance; striving hard to reach the standard with the great troop he led; and seeking earnestly for Harold, on whose account the whole war was. The Normans follow their lord, and press around him; they ply their blows upon the English; and these defend themselves stoutly, striving hard with their enemies, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... Pollyooly seemed to feel herself responsible for the prince. She seemed also to feel it more important that he should learn to dig properly than that she should dig herself. For, giving him her spade, she stood over him and urged him to ply it with the exacting persistence of a biblical Egyptian superintending the making of bricks. The baron walked moodily up and down outside the castle wall, considering bitterly the while the ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson



Words linked to "Ply" :   gutter, use, dish up, dish, plier, handle, gratify, cater, perform, bring together, fulfill, travel, wield, procure, give, drench, provide, apply, do, manage, cross-ply, three-ply, pimp, board, plyer, run, accommodate, feed, power, two-ply, satisfy, trip, shower, layer, bed, fix up, serve



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