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Switch   Listen
verb
Switch  v. t.  (past & past part. switched; pres. part. switching)  
1.
To strike with a switch or small flexible rod; to whip.
2.
To swing or whisk; as, to switch a cane.
3.
To trim, as, a hedge. (Prov. Eng.)
4.
To turn from one railway track to another; to transfer by a switch; generally with off, from, etc.; as, to switch off a train; to switch a car from one track to another.
5.
(Eccl.) To shift to another circuit.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Switch" Quotes from Famous Books



... confrere, ended by frankly connecting his worthy and enormous ears which were squeezed into oblivion by the oversize casque. My eyes, jumping from those ears, lit on that helmet and noticed for the first time an emblem, a sort of flowering little explosion, or hair-switch rampant. It seemed to me very jovial and a ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... the spot, and breaking off a hazel switch, dragged the paper out from where it lay and carefully smoothed it. Then she raised a piece of turf, hid the paper underneath and rolled a stone on the top. It was a hope that lay buried there, and also a proof—of what? That she had committed a crime? She felt that she had. She had done a wrong, ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... shall be laid low, and the stiff-necked shall be humbled," he thought, as with a vicious switch of his stick he struck off a fragrant head of purple clover. "Conceited fool of a girl! Hopes to be 'my lady' does she? She ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... path makes a steep descent down a well-wooded mountain-side to the Deodar stream. After crossing this by a stone bridge, the path continues its switch-back course upwards on a wooded hillside to the Laldana Binaik pass, whence it descends gradually for 6 miles, through first rhododendron then pine forest to the Sual river. This river is crossed by a suspension bridge. From the ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar

... Bullfinch's family, and every college town they had lived in while Mr. Bullfinch was teaching. He had, it seemed, been a Latin teacher until the demand for Latin had grown so small that he had thought best to switch to teaching English. ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... he said, "I have just returned from an airing on your noble horse. He is, indeed, a fine animal, but once or so I was obliged to give him the switch." ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous

... the sixteen atomic motors grew louder, and mingled with the hum of gyroscopes. The ladder was drawn up and the port hole sealed. On the enclosed bridge Nat threw the switch of durobronze that released the non-conducting shutter which gave play to the sixteen great magnets. Swiftly the great ship shot forward into the air. The droning of the motors became a shrill whine, and then, growing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... It seemed for an instant as though something had looked down over the head of the banister, but she could not have gone back into the living room—better madness than the madness of that clamor.... Up-stairs she fumbled for the electric switch and missed it in the darkness; a roomful of lightning showed her the button plainly on the wall. But when the impenetrable black shut down, it again eluded her fumbling fingers, so she slipped off her dress and petticoat and threw herself weakly on the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... had fallen, only one window showing yellowly in the peak of its top story. A white-net screen door was unhooked from without by inserting a hand through a slit in the fabric. An uncarpeted pocket of hall lay deep in absolute blackness. Miss Hoag fumbled for the switch, finally leaving the Baron to the meager comfort of his ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... he exclaimed. He stepped back, flipped the neutralizer switch on his ray gun, and fired a short burst. Almost immediately Roger groaned, blinked his eyes, and ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell

... sleeves, which came down to the biceps and were edged with transverse lines of gold, red, and blue, showed round, firm arms, the left provided with a broad wristlet of metal intended to protect it from the switch of the cord when the Pharaoh shot an arrow from his triangular bow. His right arm was adorned with a bracelet formed of a serpent twisted several times on itself, and in his hand he held a long golden sceptre ending in a lotus-bud. The rest of the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... coat and furs she stood a moment, her fingers on the electric switch, her eyes very bright and wide. The memories of ten years, fifteen years, twenty years crowded up around her and filled the little room. Some of them were golden and some of them were black; a few had power to frighten her, even now. ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... thanks to him chiefly I made very rapid progress at Doncaster. Unfortunately an occasional injustice made it difficult to be so grateful to him as we ought to have been. Here is an example. One evening in the playground he told me to get on the back of another boy, and then thrashed me with a switch from an apple-tree. I begged to be told for what fault this punishment was inflicted, and the only answer he condescended to give me was that a master owed no explanation to a schoolboy. Down to the present time I ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... kinder late, Massa git up outer his cheer tuh win' up, de clock. Ah gits hin' his cheer ret easy, an' quick sneak his cheer f'om un'er him; an' when he finish he set smack on de flow! Den he say "Dogone yuh lil' cattin', ah gwan switch yuh!" Ah jes' fly out de room. Wont sceered though cause ah knows Massa won' gon ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... by her aunt, now dimly illuminated by one electric light. Before the door of the next apartment hung a heavy curtain which, when drawn aside, revealed a thick darkness, a peculiar odour, and the sound of rapid breathing. Sophy groped with her hand along the wall, found the switch, and the room and its contents were instantly revealed. A richly-carved bedstead, a masterpiece of Burmese work, stood in the middle of the floor; at either side were small tables, one heaped with an untidy pile of books and magazines; on the other were bottles, glasses and little ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... constrained to punish us. After a whipping she invariably took me into the little kitchen and gave me two great white slabs of bread cemented together with layers of butter and jam. As she always whipped me with the same slender switch she used for a pointer, and cried over every lick, you will have an idea how much punishment I could stand. When I was old enough to be lifted by the ears out of my seat that office was performed by a pedagogue whom I promised to 'whip sure, if he'd just wait till ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... reserve all the surface for residence purposes; although, it is possible to live down here in comparative comfort, since we have plenty of electrical energy to spare." And she operated a switch, flooding the place with a brilliant glow. Thrown from concealed sources, this light was quite as strong as the subdued daylight which they had just left. "But unless we were free to fly about as much as we do, ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... on the switch, opened the needle valve, swung the throttle over to the notch numbered with a big "2." I placed the crank on the wheel and ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... Yeomanry on his right about a mile away, he went over to them and ordered Lieut.-Colonel H. Cheape to charge the enemy. It was a case for instant action. The enemy were a mile and a half from our cavalry. The gunners had come into action and were shelling the London Territorials, but they soon had to switch off and fire at a more terrifying target. Led by their gallant Colonel, a Master of Foxhounds who was afterwards drowned in the Mediterranean, the yeomen swept over a ridge in successive lines and raced down the northern slope on to the flat, at first ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... she swallows it. Mrs. Craig says, besides, 't she asked Augustus, but he jus' said, 'Wash zhat?—Zhat a cow?—Zhi a cow?—Zhu a cow?' 'n' she see plain 'n' forever where he got the name o' bein' so bad, for she was dyin' to switch him 'n' couldn't in honor say as she had any real reason to. But all the same she says she's as sure as Fate 't him 'n' no one else 's at the bottom o' her cat—only how in all creation are you to get it out o' him? She says there was hairs in the washtub 'n' hairs in the ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner

... At first I refused him, but he is so well-made, though delicate, and such a good-looking child, and so spirited, that I decided to take him; but he turns out to be too spirited. Nothing that I can do will tame him,—oh, that won't do it," said Yoosoof, observing that Marizano raised the switch he carried in his hand with a significant action; "I have beaten him till there is scarcely a sound inch of skin on his whole body, but it's of no use. Ho! stand up," called Yoosoof, letting the lash of his whip fall lightly on the ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... atmosphere of mutual dislike will sour the sweetest temper, and Mr. Ball's temper had not been strained honey to begin with. Year by year he grew more and more severe—he whipped for poor lessons, he whipped for speaking in school, he took down his switch for not speaking loud enough in class, he whipped for coming late to school, he whipped because a scholar made a noise with his feet, and he whipped because he himself had eaten something unwholesome for his breakfast. The brutality ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... procedure, and yet it has worked for thousands. Some switch to chewing gum or candy, but the cure essentially lies in substituting one conditioned reflex for another. This is comparatively easy with hypnosis because, unlike narcotics, barbiturates or alcohol, smoking is purely a psychological ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... rewiring and connecting up the disrupted organism. Later, developed a hitch in the left arm. Strang could lift it so far, and no farther. Linday applied himself to the problem. It was a case of more wires, shrunken, twisted, disconnected. Again it was cut and switch and ease and disentangle. And all that saved Strang was his tremendous vitality and the ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... remembering. At least, I shall remember it, and when this trouble is over, no matter what the result may be, I will hold you to account for it. And to prove that I am in earnest I'll lend you the weight of this." And with that I cut at his face with a switch. His horse shied and the apple tree sprout whistled in the air. He said something about hoping to meet me again and rode off at a brisk canter. I knew that I had acted unwisely, felt it even while the impulse was rising ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... whole thing," he said. "You see, they are hinged; one sets them wider or closer according to the range and the arc one requires. These plates they are removable. I paint the compound on them, and switch the current ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... never spent one cent for repairs. The old boat hasn't been run a mile over one hundred thousand, will average fourteen gallons to the mile, and absolutely will not exceed twenty-five miles an hour. It has an extra-fine new coat of paint, and is fully equipped with a hand pump and switch-key. Because of the difficulty in shifting gears, I absolutely guarantee your wife will never be able to drive ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... out to run the gauntlet. A row of men, women, and boys, a quarter of a mile long, was formed, each with a tomahawk, switch, or club; at the end of the line was an Indian with a big drum, and beyond this was the council-house, which, if he reached, would for the time being protect him. The moment for starting arrived; the big drum was beaten; ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... on as usual; but out in the town there was a buzz of excitement which resembled that heard in a beehive when some mischievous boy has thrust in a switch and given it a good twist round before running ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn

... game in an effort to bolster up the offense, not because he has anything as an outfielder on Bodie, whose place he took in the batting order, but the switch did not work out just as planned. Fournier made no better use of his stick than the rest of the Sox, and gave way to Daly, who foiled the generous efforts of the Tiger ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... him. There was all the money I owed Murchison there, and a lot of other stuff. We stepped out of the French windows. Jocelyn moved the leg of one of those men on one side and held the window open for Katharine to pass through. I tell you he set the switch and started his car without a tremor. Katharine was nearly fainting. I was still fogged. He drove us into New York with scarcely a word. It was daylight when we reached our house in Riverside Drive. He drove up ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Strange little god, mysterious little oracle—I don't think I would have felt surprised if on entering he had knelt down before it and said a short prayer. Instead, he seated himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the telephone. There was a switch-board of his private exchange outside the private office which communicated to each of the heads of his departments. Without the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke to six or seven one after the other. Then his confidential clerk came ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... 'Go, children of my care! To practice now from theory repair. 580 All my commands are easy, short, and full: My sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull. Guard my prerogative, assert my throne: This nod confirms each privilege your own. The cap and switch be sacred to his grace; With staff and pumps the marquis lead the race; From stage to stage the licensed earl may run, Pair'd with his fellow-charioteer the sun; The learned baron butterflies design, Or ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... careworn pig-minder alone. When they are running away,—and when are they not running away?—they have an action with the hind legs very like a donkey in a state of revolt. But they have none of the donkey's too numerous grievances. And if donkeys squealed at every switch, as pigs do, their undeserved sufferings would have cried loud enough for vengeance ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... the officer. "Whoa!" and he arose in the seat to get a good view of the spot toward which Frank pointed. "I reckon he's seen me, for he's making back his trail licketty-switch." ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... only a few superb martyrs who have dared to do it, he who is satisfied to contemplate, beyond the present misery of men, the misery of their children; and the white-haired man who was extolling slavery just now, and trying to turn aside the demands of the people and switch them on to traditional massacre; and he who from the height of his bunting and trestles would have put a glamour of beauty and morality on battles; and he, the attitudinizer, who brings to life the memory of the dead only to deny ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... is the deacon's horse? Last year, and for the past twenty years preceding, you could hardly pass of a summer evening, without noticing an old gray quietly feeding by the roadside, lazily brushing off, with his long switch tail, the hungry flies that fastened on his flanks. The landscape is nothing without the old horse. The deacon reared him on the homestead. When a yearling he used to come regularly to the back door and there receive crusts of bread, crumbs ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... of those heavy wagons, drawn by bullocks, which carry the wood cut in the fine forests of the country to the ports of the Loire, came out of a byroad full of ruts and turned on that which the two horsemen were following. A man carrying a long switch with a nail at the end of it, with which he urged on his slow team, was walking with ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... gotten it in time to be of some use," Matt declared. "You don't suppose I'm going to let this old snoozer Ricks get away with the notion that he put one over on us, do you? Shall we haul Old Glory down? No! Never! I'll just switch off the laughing gas on Cappy Ricks," and the young skipper went ashore and wired his managing owner ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... evident antagonism to the man she herself had such cause to dislike was agreeable to her, but the topic was not. She had had enough of the Vivians of this world for one night. She led the way through the dark drawing-room, and at the switch beyond the door turned the light into two soft-tinted dome-lamps. The library was massive rather than "livable"; it had books, which is more than can be said for some libraries; but they were chiefly books in stately sets, yards and yards of them just alike: a depressing matter to the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... said Anne in a low voice, "I want to thank you for many things to-night—for one thing above all. I cannot tell you what it is, for I hardly know myself." She paused, and Jack, who was toying with the switch lever, looked at her curiously. "It's a new viewpoint, I fancy. Somehow—I have a feeling that there is more to this country, my country, than Fifth Avenue, Central Park, Tuxedo, Long Island, and Newport—something bigger and finer ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... height of the blizzard the foreman had ordered his crew out and upon their hand car driven at a lively rate by the power of the wind they had inspected every switch and car standing on sidings upon their section, to assure themselves that everything was properly safeguarded. While they were slowly "pumping" the hand car homeward, fighting against the force of the raging snow storm, they discovered us lying closely cuddled together, all but buried in the snow ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... canon came the sound of a puffing locomotive that presently steamed by them with its three dingy little coaches, and, after a stop for water and the throwing of a switch, pushed back to connect with the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... or a technique very similar to it, by which he could switch life currents to and from the senses. He was therefore able to say: "Verily, I protest by our rejoicing which I have in Christ, I DIE DAILY." {FN26-10} By daily withdrawing his bodily life force, he united it ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... full minute after the disappearance of Buddha not a soul moved. Then quite suddenly Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown, unable to stand the tension any longer, pressed an electric switch and the whole ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... is, of all his dukes and peers, Reverenced for much wit at's years, Nor must you think it much; For he with little switch doth play, And make fine dirty pies of clay, Oh, never ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... me with his switch yesterday," said one of the grooms, "because the tail of his worship's gelding was not trimmed altogether so as suited ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... is the setting up of the instruments. They are arranged as in the drawing, a double-point, {215} double-throw switch being used to switch from sending ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... person with the upright form of man can be allowed, without violation to all decency, to switch out from his tongue the perpetual stench of offensive personality. Sir, that is not a proper weapon of debate, at least, on this floor. The noisome, squat, and nameless animal, to which I now refer, is not a proper model for an American Senator. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... sill, followed by Jimmy. The latter struck a match, and found the electric light switch. They were in a parlor, furnished and decorated with surprising taste. Jimmy had expected the usual hideousness, but here everything from the wall-paper to the smallest ornaments ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... lighted hallway, walking on a soft green carpet, and turned, obeying the guiding pressure of his arm, into a big square room which sprang into brilliant illumination as he found the switch. ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... fresh send-off. It wa'n't more'n half an hour afterwards that I was out on an errand, and as I cut through 22d-st. back of the Flatiron I sees a crowd. Course, I pushes in to find out what was holdin' up all the carriages and bubbles that has to switch through there goin' north. Somehow I had a feelin' that it might be ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... old arm-chair, planted upon four carved frogs, as the Hindoos fabled the world to be supported upon four tortoises; give me his cane, with the gold-loaded top—a cane that, like the musket of General Washington's father and the broadsword of William Wallace, would break down the back of the switch-carrying dandies of these spindle-shank days; give me his broad-breasted vest, coming bravely down over the hips, and furnished with two strong-boxes of pockets to keep guineas in; toss this toppling cylinder of ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... never seen before. I think it will just suit me; and after looking at it awhile, I take out the money and pay for it. 'I shall go to my house,' says the gipsy; and off he runs. 'I shall go to my village,' say I, and I mount the donkey, 'Vamonos,' say I, but the donkey won't move. I give him a switch, but I don't get on the better for that. What happens then, brother? The wizard no sooner feels the prick than he bucks down, and flings me over his head into the mire. I get up and look about me; there ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... I considered the height of insolence, and cried for help, when my father and mother both came running to my rescue. My father stripped and tied him, and took him into the orchard, where switches were plenty, and directed me to whip him; when one switch wore out he supplied me with others. After I had whipped him a while, he fell on his knees to implore forgiveness, and I kicked him in the face; my father said, "don't kick him, but whip him;" this I did until his back was literally covered with welts. I know I have ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the four heroes to see Dangle there. What did he want! And why did the captain look so stern? And, oh, horrors, what was that switch ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... a scene of wild confusion. Men jumped from their seats with shouts and execrations. One man leaped for the electric switch to turn out the light, but Frank reached him at a bound and felled him to the floor. Pistols were drawn, but the doughboys knocked them out of the conspirators' hands, and in a twinkling had the men ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... to the sound of a brass pan. He 'followed in the chace, like a dog who hunts, not like one that made up the cry.' He had on a brown cloth coat, boots, and corduroy breeches, was low in stature, bow-legged, had a drag in his walk like a drover, which he assisted by a hazel switch, and kept on a sort of trot by the side of Coleridge, like a running footman by a state coach, that he might not lose a syllable or sound, that fell from Coleridge's lips. He told me his private opinion, that Coleridge ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... making many fancy steps, with much high kicking, while the skirt of his cassock waved in the air. In the midst of his final pirouette, he caught the chaplain's stern glance fixed on him. Instantly Ignatius appeared to turn to stone, and the vision of a switch, wielded by Mrs. McGillicuddy's robust arm, passed before his eyes. He was immensely relieved when the ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... contained a battery of four dynamos, a small seepage-pump, and a crumbling marble switch-board with part of the wiring ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... Law Clerks, for the best Account of how Fifteen Shillings a week may be managed, to enable the Possessor to "draw it rather brisk" after office-hours in Regent-street, including board and lodging for his switch and spurs, and Warren's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... the last switch of tobaccy I had in the world into that pipe, just arter throwing myself outside of ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... the extra food. It is true on each of them I saw a pastor, but each time he came to the family I was with, they didn't go to him, to his church. Now there's suddenly this immense recollection of God, turned on by Authority just as one turns on an electric light switch and says "Let there be light," and there is light. So I picture the Kaiser, running his finger down his list of available assets and coming to God. Then he rings for an official, and says, "Let there be God"; and there ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... other obvious objections. To switch any force worth bothering about from northern France to the Friuli flats was bound to be a protracted process, because only two railways led over the Alps from Dauphine and Provence into the basin of the Po; and those lines were distinguished for their severe gradients. It ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... some switches, and make them behave," he replied. At the first tree he cut himself a long, slender switch from one of the branches, and ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... he was ordered on a Sunday morning to get ready for church. Disobeying the order, he ran off and concealed himself, but was pursued, captured, and returned to his mother, who at once sent for a switch. The switch was a limb from a Lombardy poplar, and the precocious little truant, seeing this, quoted a verse from St. Matthew which was from a lesson he had but recently read to his mother. The ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright

... negligence. Doctors, trained nurses, nursery maids, young mothers, etc., who became guilty of "negligence'' of invalids and children have, in many instances, merely "misunderstood'' because of great fatigue. It is for this reason that the numerous sad cases occur in which machine-tenders, switch-tenders, etc., are punished for negligence. If a man of this class, year after year, serves twenty-three hours, then rests seven hours, then serves twenty-three hours again, etc., he is inevitably overtaken by fatigue and nervous relaxation in which signals, warnings, calls, etc., ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... until the master, or overseer, saw fit to let him up. The most common method of punishment was to have the servants form a ring, called the "bull ring," into which the one to be punished was led naked. The slaves were then each given a switch, rawhide, strap or whip, and each one was compelled to cut at the poor victim as he ran around the ring. The ring was composed of men, women and children; and, as they numbered from forty to fifty, each circuit of the ring would result in that number of lashes, and by the time ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... one of which advertised itself by the stopping of her milk, When she had none, she never once gave down the milk without grudging it. With three of us to hold her legs and tail lest she step in the pail or switch our ears, she would reach back and eat the vest off my back where I sat milking her. But she does not belong in this story, thank goodness! If she had never belonged to me or mine, I should be a better man ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... companies take the greatest precautions for the safety of their trains in the mountain sections. Besides the usual working gangs, there are special track-walkers, and 'safety switch-openers,' who lead solitary lives in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... as M. le Vicomte Felix de Vandeness, Master of Requests, and His Majesty's private secretary. "And do I not play my man's part well?" she added, running her fingers through her wig a la Titus, and twirling her riding switch. ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac

... did not mean to let him escape. In a twinkling I was after him and had him by the collar. He uttered a savage snarl and dropped the lamp on the mat to free his hands; and, as the spring switch was released, the light went out, leaving us in total darkness. Now that he was at bay, he struggled furiously, and I could hear him snorting and cursing as he wriggled in my grasp. I had to drop the concussor ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... scared nearly out of his wits, and stole a side glance at her to see if she had a switch in her hand. ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May

... know your writing from having read Burnett all those "Burn this at once" epistles. And I know it still better from having to catalogue them for his ready reference. You know how impatient he is. (But I have run into an open switch and must digress backwards.) ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... yelled to the brakesman standing by the open switch. "Think I'm going to waste steam stopping for you?" The brakesman swung aboard. "All the specials are cancelled to-noight for the foight. We got three miles o' ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... struck dumb, and watched Belle's pink gingham skirt switch as she walked through the door of the school-room. They had all the lunch spread on the flat rock, and I thought were waiting for me while I put my desk in order just after the bell rang. And even while I watched Belle I was conscious of Mamie Sue's ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the demented mind consciousness still remains, the awareness of the young child or baby stage of life. The connection between the upper or conscious brain centers and the body has been tampered with; it no longer is direct, but breaks off into switch-lines. But the contact still holds between the lower or unconscious mind and the body; so the automatic body functions go on, directed as they were in babyhood before the independent mind assumed control. Hence, when all acute consciousness is ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... stone sarcophagus turned into a water-trough, into which falls the fountain, and where the tired horses thrust their dusty muzzles, drawing up water with a rattling noise, while the south wind plays through the trees, and they switch the flies from their flanks with their tails; the old priest, accosted by the three small boys—'they are asking his blessing,' said Miss Hicks—'they are asking him for a pinch of snuff,' said Caper—and when she saw him produce his snuff-box, she acquiesced; the wine-carts instead ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... of the two Tuareg tents, and Isobel poured water from a girba into the coffee pot which she placed on a heat unit, flicking its switch. She said sarcastically, from the side of her mouth, "A message, O El Hassan, from the Department of Logistics, subdepartment Commissary of Headquarters of the Commander in Chief. Unless you get around ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... indiscretion, "I do wonder I'm here at all. And the young man was very decent about the dime in his fish—though I'm sure he burned his fingers digging for the smelling salts—for they'd already begun to sizzle—but dear me! Diane, you can't imagine how I jarred my spine and my switch—I did think for a minute it would tumble off—and he was so quick and pleasant to collect the nickels and hairpins. Such a pleasant, comfortable sort of chap. I remember now he was at the Sherrill's and very good-looking, too, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... for they went to and fro on the horse without stirrups. Moreover, the instruction seemed contrived only for cheating and degrading the scholars. If one forgot to hook or loosen the curb-chain, or let his switch fall down, or even his hat,—every delay, every misfortune, had to be atoned for by money; and one was laughed at into the bargain. This put me in the worst of humors, particularly as I found the place of exercise itself quite intolerable. The wide, nasty space, either wet or dusty, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... word!" retorted the petted cripple. "When I'm a man I'll be my own master, and switch Duty ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... hands in his pockets and pulled his cap over his eyes. This was no way for a cove to be feeling when he had a job to do! With watchful eyes for passers-by, he slipped through an opening in the fence, and entered the switch-yard. When he emerged he staggered under the weight of a crowbar which he vainly tried to ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice

... now—over thar' on Barren Ledge! That onery brother of mine, Richelieu, hez taken some of his specimens over to Jim Bradley to be tested. And Bradley, just to please that child, takes 'em; and not an hour ago Bradley comes running, likety switch, over to Pop to tell him to put up his notices, for the hull of that ledge where the forge stands is a mine o' silver and copper. Afore ye knew it, Lordy! half the folks outer the Summit and the mill was scattered down thar all over it. Richardson—that ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... loose in a moment. A minute later and I had wheedled it round the baluster I could clutch. Buckled, it made a loop three feet in length that would have supported a bullock. I was about to soar, when I remembered the car. I jumped down once more, turned the key of the switch, and slipped it into my pocket. No one could steal her now. The next second I had my foot in ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... Shandor slipped off his hat and shook it, then stopped at a coffee machine and extracted a cup of steaming stuff from the bottom after trying the coin three times. Finally he walked across the room to an empty video booth, and sank down into the chair with an exhausted sigh. Flipping a switch, he waited several minutes for an operator to appear. He gave her a number, and then said, "Let's ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse

... run, for then I should have been lost. The serpent returned to the charge, bounding towards me; I again avoided him, and was trying, but in vain, to reach him with my dagger, when an Indian, who perceived me from a distance, ran up, armed with a stout switch, and rid ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... it set back a hundred years. But I refuse to believe that I shall be betrayed or that I shall fail. That I believe to be my destiny. For a long time the idea has been fumbling in the back of my mind, but it lacked the current which would switch it into my consciousness. You two ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... "I am still too young," it said, "even a light tailor such as thou art would break my back in two let me go till I have grown strong. A time may perhaps come when I may reward thee for it." "Run off," said the tailor, "I see thou art still a giddy thing." He gave it a touch with a switch over its back, whereupon it kicked up its hind legs for joy, leapt over hedges and ditches, and galloped away ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... magnetism on light. Between the poles of a large electromagnet, powerful for those days (1845), he placed a block of very dense glass. The plane of polarization of a beam of light, which passed unaffected through the glass before the switch was closed, was seen to rotate when the magnetic field was produced by the flow of the current. A similar rotation is now familiar in the well-known tests of sugars—laevulose and dextrose—which rotate plane-polarized light to left ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... wave of the attack. He made directly for the German signallers' dugout and went down with his followers, and, finding about forty men there, told them they were his prisoners. They were astonished at his appearance, but he took possession of the switch-board and told them that the Canadians had captured the Ridge. One of the Germans was sent up to find out, and returned with the report that the Canadians held the ground. Our men at once took possession of all the telegraph ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... been ordered and Bunch was just about to switch the conversation around to the subject of rebates when suddenly his eyes took on the appearance of saucers, and tapping me on the arm he ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... felt by the victims of his caprice, or malice. The "cowhide" was constantly carried by himself, and his overseer. He had a son, too, who could wield it wickedly as either. None of the three ever went abroad without that pliant, painted, switch—a very emblem of devilish cruelty—in their hands; never returned home, without having used it in the castigation of some unfortunate "darkey," whose evil star had caused him to stray across their track, while riding the rounds of ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... replacement of all analog circuits with digital and enlarging the network; a backup will be included in the plan for the main trunk international: country code - 385; digital international service is provided through the main switch in Zagreb; Croatia participates in the Trans-Asia-Europe (TEL) fiber-optic project, which consists of two fiber-optic trunk connections with Slovenia and a fiber-optic trunk line from Rijeka to Split and Dubrovnik; Croatia is also investing in ADRIA 1, a joint fiber-optic project ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... of the politician. Always ready to listen, and to give men free chance to relieve their minds in talk, he never directly antagonized their opinions, but, deftly embodying an argument in an apt joke or story, would manage to switch them off from their track to his own without their exactly perceiving the process. His innate courtesy often made him seem uncertain of his ground, but he probably had his own way quite as frequently as Andrew Jackson, and without that irascible old ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... agreed to go somewhere, where she expects to amuse herself and then, at the last moment, no longer feels in the mood for it, she calls it off. Or if in the meantime, something else turns up that she would prefer to do, she does not hesitate to switch to the ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... something numbing in the very note of prolonged interrogation. The folds of Mrs. Guinness's glossy alpaca lay calmly over her plump breast; her colorless hair (both her own and the switch) rolled and rose high above her head; her round cheeks were unchanging pink, her light eyes steady; the surprised lift of those flaxen eyelashes had made many a man ashamed of his emotions and his slipshod ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... he muttered, as to himself. "Now I will throw in the electro-magnets and spread it; then switch in my intensifying condenser, and finally set the turbine fans to work, to throw air through the field. Then we shall ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... midnight when Forrester got back home; he let himself into the dark house mechanically. He felt drunk with shock and the horror of all that had happened. He groped blindly along the wall and found the switch, flooding the hall with light, and as he did so he heard a little sound close to him on the ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres

... anything stronger than the purest soap. Then the cylinder cover was clapped on and fastened (Cleo understood the importance of this), and while all the girls stood at a safe distance she threw in the switch, and touched ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... River Iss Under the Mountains The Temple of the Sun The Secret Tower On the Kaolian Road A Hero in Kaol New Allies Through the Carrion Caves With the Yellow Men In Durance The Pity of Plenty "Follow the Rope!" The Magnet Switch The Tide of Battle ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... time after Rolf went to resume his place at the peephole. But encouraged by a few minutes of silence, he again reached out, and hastily gulped down a mouthful of the mixture before Rolf shouted and rushed in armed with a switch to punish the thief. Poor Bright, by his efforts to reach the tempting mash, was unwittingly playing the game, for this was proof positive ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... wet night. Pools of water lay on the glistening pavements, but the rain had ceased. We ran steadily until we came in sight of Piccadilly Circus, and there our fear left us suddenly. It was like the cutting off of a switch. We stopped in the street, ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... spiritual force of the white man's will. One unarmed brave man can manage a thousand by the moral force of his will alone, much better than an hundred cowards with guns in their hands. They also require as a right when punished, to be punished with a switch or a whip, and not with a stick or the fist. In this particular the ethnical law of their nature is different from all other races of men. It is exactly the reverse of that of the American Indian. The Indian will murder any man who strikes ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... he scrambled to the bank of communicator-buttons. What had been the floor was now a side wall. He climbed it and thumbed the navigation-room switch. ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster

... of the game and a small army of society reporters and sport writers. This being the height of the season, social doings at the resort were featured in all the large Eastern papers, for famous names were on the register and the hotel switch ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... to repeat at intervals, sometimes brushing instead my arm and shoulder. I have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen times, and never with the least result. But at the first tap—on a quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, and from nothing more virtuous than a switch of palm wielded by a man I could not even see—sleep rushed upon me like an armed man. My sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain hummed, with drowsiness. I resisted, at first instinctively, then with a certain flurry of despair, in the end successfully; ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... he caught a glimpse of Colonel Pennington passing alongside the log- train and entering the caboose; he heard the engineer shout to the brakeman—who had ridden down from the head of the train to unlock the siding switch and couple the caboose—to hurry up, lock the switch, and ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... couple of mungrils (if you were worth hanging,) and have you serv'd me thus? nay then ile serve you with the like sauce, you shall to the next bush, there will I tie you, and use you like a couple of curs as you are, and though not lash you, yet lash you whilest my switch will hold, nay since you have left your speed, ile see if I can put spirit into you, and put you in remembrance what ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... One was a nice looking girl, about fourteen, but an incorrigible thief. Peerat was going to hit her a tremendous blow upon the head, which must have laid it open. She stood with her back to her husband, trembling and crying bitterly. The governor caught Peerat's arm, picked up a little switch from the ground, and told him to beat her on the shoulders with that, instead of with his meero. Two slight blows, or rather taps, were given her, in order to know where it was that the governor meant her to be struck, but the poor girl cried so bitterly ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... assistance they have rendered lovers, it only seems just that they should be taxed. We worship at Christian Science Church, because it's darker, every night except Wednesday; but they have some sort of a shin-dig then, so we switch to the Episcopal and take communion with each other. Nice clean, comfy, red granite steps that so many pious, divorce-hating feet have passed over. My sympathies go out to all women, even if they are fallen and so did Christ's; but the good Sioux ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr

... coiled some half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised his hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebrae of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from a willow; ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... ladies' dressing-room. "The Two Bonbons" had not finished their duet, and he was alone with her for a moment. She was pinning a switch into her back hair, in front of the scrap of looking- ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... a sort of a switch to it that bodes a night o' temper. 'Tis veerin' t' the east. 'Twill be a gale from the open if ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... serving and being served—women. On every floor, in every aisle, at every counter, women. In the vast restaurant, which covers several acres, women. Waiting their turn at the long line of telephone booths, women. Capably busy at the switch boards, women. Down in the basement buying and selling bargains in marked-down summer frocks, women. Up under the roof, posting ledgers, auditing accounts, attending to all the complex bookkeeping of a great metropolitan department store, women. Behind most of the counters on all the ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... himself as he pressed the switch of his electric torch and looked. Again he saw the twin braids of heavy golden hair ere his thumb relaxed from the switch, leaving ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... passed by like some apparition from among the damned. Others were laughing; Sophie Couteau, the little girl who had been miraculously healed the previous year, was quite forgetting herself, playing with her taper as though it were a switch. Heads followed heads without a pause, heads of women especially, more often with sordid, common features, but at times wearing an exalted expression, which you saw for a second ere it vanished amidst the fantastic ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... ensued. The returning prodigal was received with as much affection as could be expected in a family with such uncultivated hearts and such unrefined habits as were found in the cabin of John Crockett. Even the stern old man forgot his hickory switch, and David, much to his relief, found that he should escape the long-dreaded whipping. Many years after this, when David Crockett, to his own surprise, and that of the whole nation, found himself elevated to the position of one of our national ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... the switch, sir," he explained, "when I came out to get the shutters. The switch is in a little iron box on the wall just back of the stairs, sir. It's one of my duties to turn it on every night before ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... out of his window one halfer, and discontentedly wondering how he could exist till he should switch on the electric for the evening grind, when a not unfamiliar knock sounded on the door. Gus faced round wonderingly, and opened the door. The house-master dropped into the chair which Todd hastily drew out ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... world so comforting to a woman as good feeling with her sisters, one and all," Mother Mayberry said as she watched the last switch of the widow's skirt. "Mother, wife and daughter love is a institution, but real sistering is a downright covenant. Me and Bettie have held one betwixt us these many a year. But you and me have both put a slight on the kitchen since Cindy got ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... were realized, for striking into a path that ran through a corn field, the boys made straight for the brook, where Frank proceeded to cut a long switch from a willow-tree, while Tom took out three pins from his coat, and deliberately impaled the two paper ladies to the stern, and General Popgun to the bow ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... way the rascals were gentlemanly enough in their manner, and I could not help admiring their mixture of courtesy and cruelty, either of which they could switch on at a moment's notice without regard ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... beside her, Grace hurriedly crossed the room. With a prayer in her heart she pushed open the bedroom door. Her companion at the same moment felt along the door-jamb for the electric switch. In an instant the bedroom lights ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks

... and flicked a switch on the little box. It hummed gently. Tim Casey suddenly shrieked and sat down on the stubble and grass of the field. "Begorra," he yelped, "I've been murthered!" He tore ...
— Off Course • Mack Reynolds (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... bed has its back to the door, and faces the window. Very right. You have electric light, I see, near the fireplace, and above your bed. Then it is possible to switch on a bright light at any time.... ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... power switch from stand-by to on, then waited as the indicators came up. Delicately, he turned a couple of microdrive dials till the needles settled on their red lines. Then he opened the control head, poked the tape in, and punched the ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole

... her berth, felt a cold thrill rush down her back. No sound came from the berth on the other side any more than before the raid on it, and Anna-Rose returned quicker than she had gone. She just stopped on the way to switch off the light, and then felt along the edge of Anna-Felicitas's berth till she got to her head, and pulling it near her by its left pigtail whispered with her mouth close to its left ear, "Wide awake. Watching me all the ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... couch, as though seeing something there; shudders; covers her eyes; goes back to the couch and down again just as before, to stare at the embers. Again she is startled by noise of the outer door being opened. She springs up, runs and turns the light by a switch close to the door. By the glimmer of the fire she can just be seen standing by the dark window-curtains, listening. There comes the sound of subdued knocking on her door. She stands in breathless ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Mrs. Fillmore, prodding the carpet energetically with her parasol, "I don't know what you've gone into, but, unless they've given you a share in the Mint or something, you'll be losing by not making the switch. You're sure you can't ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... place four nights out of the seven. He had a quick, light step at variance with his sturdy build, and very different from the heavy, slouching gait of the work-weary farmer. He had a habit of carrying in his hand a little twig or switch cut from a tree. This he would twirl blithely as he walked along. The switch and the twirl represented just so much energy and animal spirits. He never so much as flicked a ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... and Contact! you reply. You snap on the switch, he spins the propeller, and the motor takes. Drawing forward out of line, you put on full power, race across the grass and take the air. The ground drops as the hood slants up before you and you seem ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell

... Ned Newton's cry, Tom's finger pressed the switch-trigger of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... not seem to wish to go for Beth, but the latter settled the question with a switch cut by January. She headed Dollie in the direction ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... as she was dressing. Prudence went to the door, preternaturally ceremonious, and ushered Mr. Babler into the front room. She turned on the electric switch as she opened the door. She was too much impressed with the solemnity of the occasion to take much note of her surroundings, and she did not observe that the young man sniffed in a peculiar manner as he entered ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... whose fault it was wouldn't repair the damage. There'd been a human error. Bors had approached Garen on the low-power overdrive that Logan had computed for him. There was a special switch to cut it in, instead of the standard overdrive. It should have been cut out when the standard overdrive was used. But somebody in the engine-room had simply thrown the main-drive switch when preparations for overdrive travel began. When the ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... champagne and a box of Vencedoras, prepared for a quiet evening of absolute luxury. I read in the waning light of the dying midsummer day for a little while, and then, as darkness came on, I turned to the switch-board to ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs



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