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Tack   Listen
noun
Tack  n.  
1.
A small, short, sharp-pointed nail, usually having a broad, flat head.
2.
That which is attached; a supplement; an appendix. See Tack, v. t., 3. "Some tacks had been made to money bills in King Charles's time."
3.
(Naut.)
(a)
A rope used to hold in place the foremost lower corners of the courses when the vessel is closehauled; also, a rope employed to pull the lower corner of a studding sail to the boom.
(b)
The part of a sail to which the tack is usually fastened; the foremost lower corner of fore-and-aft sails, as of schooners.
(c)
The direction of a vessel in regard to the trim of her sails; as, the starboard tack, or port tack; the former when she is closehauled with the wind on her starboard side; hence, the run of a vessel on one tack; also, a change of direction; as, to take a different tack; often used metaphorically.
4.
(Scots Law) A contract by which the use of a thing is set, or let, for hire; a lease.
5.
Confidence; reliance. (Prov. Eng.)
Tack of a flag (Naut.), a line spliced into the eye at the foot of the hoist for securing the flag to the halyards.
Tack pins (Naut.), belaying pins; also called jack pins.
To haul the tacks aboard (Naut.), to set the courses.
To hold tack, to last or hold out.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books



... when not in use is rolled up and laid along the platform—when hoisted it stretches obliquely upwards across the mast, confined by the stays, with the lower and foremost corner resting on the stage and the tack secured to the foot of the mast. Both ends being alike, the mast central, and the sail large and manageable, a canoe of this description is well adapted for working to windward. Tacking is simply and expeditiously performed ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... the boys had gotten into their clothes, which had been carefully dried and pressed, they found that breakfast had been spread in the cabin. It was as tempting as a meal at home. The hard tack of the night before had been replaced by an omelet, hot biscuits, fried potatoes, and a steaming pot of coffee, which from previous experience the boys knew to be good. The savory odor of the food appealed strongly ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich

... vast majority of anti-federalists have got into the Assembly of Virginia, so that Mr. Henry is omnipotent there. Mr. Madison was left out as a senator by eight or nine votes; and Henry has so modeled the districts for representatives, as to tack Orange to counties where himself has great influence, that Madison may not be elected into the lower federal House, which was the place he had wished to serve in, and not the Senate. Henry pronounced a philippic against Madison in open Assembly, Madison being then at Philadelphia. Mifflin ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Hendricks. "Merely friendly call. And for heaven's sake don't swallow a tack, son. I'm going ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... time that I got a line on her. Say, she was a converser. No matter what was opened up, she heard her cue. And knock! Why, she had a tack hammer in each hand. They was cute, spiteful little taps, that made you snicker first, and then you got ashamed ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... life on a wrong tack, in regard to which the best that you can say is that you do not mean to continue it. If you do not, then the wise thing is to get at once on to the road on which you do mean to continue, and to save the weary work of retracing steps and the painful consciousness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... letters, and invest some of Eugene's parting donations in candy. Half the mail bag and more was for the Squire, the post-mistress said, and it made a large bundle, so that she had to tie it up in a huge circus poster, which, being a very religious woman, she had declined to tack up on the post-office wall. "Marjorie," whispered Mr. Terry, so that the post-mistress could not hear, "I wudn't buoy any swates now, for I belave there's a howll box iv thim in the mail for yeez." Accordingly, they left without ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... cruisers started off in pursuit of one of the strangers. Our concern is with the Vincejo, a brig of eighteen guns, commanded by Captain Long, which happened, from her position, to be the most advanced in the chase. She was standing off-shore on the larboard tack, with her head to the south-west, when the chase was discovered somewhat to leeward, standing nearly due west, with the wind on her starboard-quarter. The latter was a smart-looking ship of 600 or 700 tons, displaying no colours; though from the course she was steering, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs to last. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss

... with the spring fleet she went out The English Channel to cruise about, When four French sail, in show so stout Bore down on the Arethusa. The famed Belle Poule straight ahead did lie, The Arethusa seemed to fly, Not a sheet, or a tack, Or a brace, did she slack; Though the Frenchman laughed and thought it stuff, But they knew not the handful of men, how tough, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... withstand, Than from lack of the resolute will to retain Those strongholds of life which the world strives to gain. Let this character go in the old-fashion'd way, With the moral thereof tightly tack'd to it. Say— "Let any man once show the world that he feels Afraid of its bark, and 'twill fly at his heels: Let him fearlessly face it, 'twill leave him alone: But 'twill fawn at his feet if he ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... side by side with a card of gingerbread. The carpet was woven of every color, in every form, but without any definite figure, and promised to be another puzzle for my curious eyes to unravel; it seemed to have been just thrown down with here and there a tack in it, only serving to make it look more awry. While amusing myself with this carpet, it recalled an incident that a roguish cousin of mine once related to me after he had been to see Aunt Polly, connected with this parlor, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... have made a donkey of myself; you are the best friend I ever had in this world," returned the captain with emphasis. "But let me say that you have taken me on the wrong tack. I had not the remotest intention of casting the shadow of a reflection upon your demeanor towards me. You ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... its axis, France round on its; and bringing them to embrace in political wedlock! Feat accomplished by his Excellency Kaunitz (Paris, 1752-1753);—accomplished, not consummated; left ready for consummating when he, Kaunitz, now home as Prime Minister, or helmsman on the new tack, should give signal. Thought to be one of the cleverest feats ever done ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... J. Jervis, by carrying a press of sail, came up with them, passed through their fleet, then tacked, and thus cut off nine of their ships from the main body. These ships attempted to form on the larboard tack, either with a design of passing through the British line, or to leeward of it, and thus rejoining their friends. Only one of them succeeded in this attempt; and that only because she was so covered with smoke that her ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... Trafalgar, on board of which Nelson was killed. The wind was not strong enough to permit the passage of the Needles, so at midnight we succeeded in wearing back again into the channel, around the Isle of Wight. A head wind forced us to tack away towards the shore of France. We were twice in sight of the rocky coast of Brittany, near Cherbourg, but the misty promontory of Land's End was our last glimpse of ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... natural thing in the world that he should be tracked to his friends' residence and made to explain his comings and goings during the day. Swayed by a subconscious desire to nettle his victim into protest, Winter tried a new tack. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... off upon another tack. "And wherein, pray, have I harmed Lichfield by imagining a dream city situated half way between Atlantis and Avalon and peopled with superhuman persons—and by having called this city Lichfield? The ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... Mr. Walters did, get a cup of coffee and a hard-tack; that'll go way ahead of nothin' ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... successfully, that before supper was half over they thought themselves in luck to have fallen in with such a chance acquaintance. Murphy fired away jokes, repartees, anecdotes, and country gossip, to their delight; and when the eatables were disposed of, he started them on the punch-drinking tack afterwards so cleverly, that he hoped to see three parts of them tipsy ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... device by which a camp, baseball grounds, running track, tennis court or any distance may be quickly and accurately measured. The first thing to do is to get an inch board and cut a round disc (a) about 12 inches in diameter. Cut two of them and tack them together. The diagram "b" is easier to cut out and will serve the purpose just as well. When the two are temporarily tacked together, bore a hole through the centre for the axle. The eight spokes ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... dangerous pace. He was requested to slacken speed; but suspecting his passengers to be afraid, he only flogged the brutes into a still more furious gallop. Observing this, Mr. Stephenson coolly said, "Let us try him on the other tack; tell him to show us the fastest pace at which Spanish mules can go." The rogue of a driver, when he found his tricks of no avail, pulled up and proceeded at a more moderate speed for the rest of ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... have clothes for day and night, and must have provisions to keep his clothes properly filled out. These two articles we took in compact form, regretting even the necessity of guarding against a ducking by a change of clothes. Our provision, that unrefined pork and hard tack, presently to be converted into artist and friend, was packed with a few delicacies in a firkin,—a commodious case, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... in the state Than the couple of which I'm about to relate;— Jinin' each other—belongin' to Brown, And jest at the edge of a flourishin' town. Brown was a man, as I understand, That allus had handled a good 'eal o' land, And was sharp as a tack in drivin' a trade— For that's the way most of his money was made. And all the grounds and the orchards about His two pet farms was all tricked out With poppies and posies And sweet-smellin' rosies; And hundreds o' kinds Of all sorts o' vines, To tickle the most horticultural minds And ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... passing it within forty-eight hours. The Lords, indeed, were not likely to regard it very favourably. But it should seem that some desperate men were prepared to withhold the supplies till it should pass, nay, even to tack it to the bill of supply, and thus to place the Upper House under the necessity of either consenting to a vast proscription of the Tories or refusing to the government the means of carrying on the war, [552] There were Whigs, however, honest enough to wish that fair play should be given to the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... she does every year, and yet we couldn't very well do without her, so I suppose it's all right. Mind your head-sheets, Jerry, or she'll not come about in this bobble," he observed, as we were about to tack round the buoy. ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the sackful from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea in wintry weather. In those days a fisherman never grew old. It was mostly womenfolk and children, and the lame and halt, ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... down his wrath, and tried a new tack. 'What will you take to hold your tongue? I'll make you a rich man if you'll come in with me.' And then he started with offers which showed that he had been making a good ...
— Prester John • John Buchan

... motto of Col. Wm. C. Hunter, with his signature, makes a fine pocket piece. It has a hole in the center so you may tack it up on your desk, dresser or on the wall. It is engraved in heavy brass, background with black, baked enamel. This beautiful souvenir sent postpaid to any address for ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... which he had now been habituated for months, came as grateful as water to a thirsty land—or, to use a parallel which those who had been accustomed to living on board ship will readily appreciate, as pleasant to the taste as fresh bread, or "soft tack," when one has been eating nothing but hard sea biscuits for some ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... as an oak knot, and you are, too; no, we can't make them think we are in need of a month in Wyoming. We shall have to try another tack. Now, there is no doubt that if we spend the month of September putting in extra work on our studies, we can stand the following month in laying off. We shall come back with new vigor and appetite, and soon catch up with ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... "He's the tack in the tire. I can see what happened as well as if I had been there. Ersten knew he ought to move. Lofty tried to buy him and Schnitt tried to force him. Then he got his Dutch up. Schnitt left on account of it. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... I worked him a traverse in middle latitude, sailing on that tack. I got him and the rest on 'em into the steerage, and Mr. Morton and the girl had a good half hour's discourse ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... man that you've seen all the politicians catering to the last day or so, and small enough to bandy insults with a snippet of a girl! Well, bub, there's a lot of childishness in human nature. It breaks out once in a while. Cuss a tack, and grin and bear an amputation! We'll let the girl alone. I don't seem to get in right when she is mentioned. But I wanted to have you tell me that you don't intend to marry Dennis Kavanagh's daughter. You can't ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... "Tack up your shelf paper while I'm gone, Lilly—your cupboards look so bare—and then come over to lunch with me and we'll go to the euchre together. It's your first afternoon at the Junior Matrons and I want you to look your best. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... being abreast of Littlehampton, and about eight miles off the shore, the Aurora went about once more, and stood over towards France, close-hauled on the starboard tack. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... seizure of Danton had once before been discussed in the Committee, Robespierre resisted the proposal violently. We have already seen how he defended Danton at the Jacobin Club, when the Club underwent the process of purification in the winter. What produced this sudden tack? How came Robespierre to assent in March to a violence which he had angrily discountenanced in February? There had been no change in the policy or attitude of Danton himself. The military operations against the domestic and foreign enemies were no sooner fairly in the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley

... of the House of Lords in 'Whitaker,' but a mere printed string of names conveys awfully little to one, you know. If you were an army officer and had lost your identity you might pore over the Army List for months without finding out who your were. I'm going on another tack; I'm trying to find out by various little tests who I am not—that will narrow the range of uncertainty down a bit. You may have noticed, for instance, that I'm lunching ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... at last, but was not very satisfactory when it did. The old saying of "salt-horse and hard-tack" exactly described the food; and Frank, eating with one hand while clinging desperately to the long narrow table with the other, had quite enough to do in keeping his knife from running into his eye, and himself from going head over heels on the floor. At every plunge ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... but we were told by officers who saw the dead at Antietam that, though not so well shod as our men, they were shod, and they had provisions in their haversacks. The rebels have flour dealt out to them as rations on the march, and they have to cook it. Our troops have hard biscuit, called 'tack;' it is made in squares, and some which was fresh was very good; but it often comes to the regiments with maggots. This is not so much objected to; but when, in addition, it is mouldy, the men grumble. By the side ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... for a beautiful bride was almost sweeping him into generous thought, he had listened for upward of an hour to the eloquence of a life insurance agent. Then the agent, misled by Gower's effusively generous and unselfish expressions, had taken a false tack. He had descanted upon the supreme satisfaction that would be felt by a dying man as he reflected how his young widow would be left in affluence. He made a vivid picture; Gower saw—saw his bride happier after his ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... is understood that we push Coralie, eh? Put a few lines about her new engagement in your papers, and say something about her talent. Credit the management of the Gymnase with tack and discernment; will ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... to tack toward Muanza for a quarter of a mile with fear in our arms to make them clumsy before I dared believe we were clear of the reefs; but when I put the helm down at last there was neither launch in sight nor any other boat that might contain an enemy. The ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... be lovely and it would look fine with the handsome silver mountings, but in the meantime wouldn't you like me to give you some tow linen slips that belong to one of the cars. You could tack them on over your cushions and it would freshen ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don't believe in morality. I'm a disciple of ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw

... it. I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet—they were lumps of prickly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pass frequently, but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I heard six bells go in the first watch ('Eleven p.m.,' whispered Cary) on Friday evening, though there was ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... shaded by white cotton curtains. On the floor was a home-made carpet; no hand was employed in its manufacture save its owner's, from the time she commenced tearing the rags in strips, to the final blow given to the last tack that confined it to the floor. A very high post bedstead, over which were suspended white cotton curtains, gave an air of grandeur to one side of the room. No one had slept in it for ten years, though it was made with faultless precision. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... you'll hatter gi' 'im credit fer, an' dat wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... skipper exclaimed, badgered into self-assertion, "I was wonderin'; but since you two lads come in I been thinkin'. Since them two twins o' mine come in, Davy," he repeated, turning to me, his eyes sparkling with fatherly affection, "I been thinkin' 'twould be a fine plan t' tack this letter t' the wall for a warnin' t' the household agin the ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... of themselves, even in the strong tower of a cold unimpressible nature: they are capable of many friendships and of a true dignity in danger, giving each other a sympathetic, if transitory, regret—one sorry that another "should be foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack." Words which seem to exhaust man's deepest sentiment concerning death and life are put on the lips of a gilded, witless youth; and the saintly Isabella feels fire creep along her, kindling her tongue to eloquence at the suggestion of shame. In places the shadow ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... tell us where we'll be able to find a lunch counter?" asked Ned. "We have nothing in our kits except some hard tack." ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... the Republican party came into power in 1801, it was pledged to make reforms "to put the ship of state," as Jefferson said, "on the Republican tack." About a third of the important Federalist office-holders were accordingly removed from office, the annual speech at the opening of Congress was abolished, and the written message introduced—a custom followed ever since by our Presidents. Internal taxes were ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... dejectedly, "that many people appear to like a drab-colored world, hung around with dusky shreds of philosophy"; but it is more obvious still that, whether they like it or not, the drapings grow a trifle dingier every year, and that no one seems to have the courage to tack up something gay. What is much worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations of weary eyes are being rapidly obscured by somber and intricate scroll-work, warranted to oppress and fatigue. The great masterpieces of humor, which have kept men young by laughter, are ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... Bolshevism. Some governments had publicly stigmatized the Bolshevists as cutthroats; one had pledged itself never to have relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a resolve to cancel these judgments and declarations and change their tack as an improvement on doing nothing at all. The scheme was also an error in substance, because the sole motive that could warrant it was the hope of reconciling the warring parties. And that hope was doomed to disappointment from ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... they showed themselves of pretty good metal, in that not even Happy Tack, confirmed pessimist that he was, ever put the least suspicion of Luck's honesty into words. They were not the kind to decry a comrade when his back was turned. And they had worked with Luck Lindsay and had worked for him. They had slept ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... Frankland went on, in a meditative tone, looking out of the window and steering now upon a home tack—"I hope that I can serve in some way the cause of the poor you have so much at heart. Missions like yours languish for funds. If I could be the means of bringing people of great fortune to consecrate their wealth, it might fill many a thirsty channel of benevolence with refreshing ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... the point, gave one majestic wave of his hat in farewell, and put the Rosan over on the starboard tack, for the course was southeast, and followed practically ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... be patronesses, when lo and behold! Lady Conyngham, not having been sent to by the Duchess of Richmond, took offence, and set up a new list, placing the King at the head, whom she commanded to go, and all these ladies turned tack directly, abandoned the Duchess, and are now of the new Government—a pretty semblance of what might occur in the male ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... seem to be doing fairly well," said Russ, as he and his companion settled down in the shelter, to nibble at a bit of hard tack and drink some of the water Jack had ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... following example is useful, as illustrating to the eye how a decrease of extension is accompanied by an increase of intension. At each step of the descent here we visibly tack on a fresh attribute. [Footnote: This example is ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock

... a heap as the Gull swung away. The faint breeze out of the west filled the cutter's sails. She stood away on a long tack south by west, with a frightened girl cowering down in her cabin, sobbing in grief and fear, and three men in the Gull's cockpit casting dubious glances at one another and back to the fishing sloop sailing with no ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... several minutes, but finally gave place to a smile, for a consideration of the present position had led him to a comfortable conclusion. The Runkle would be on a wrong tack this time! If he scented any attraction among the members of Mrs Hilliard's house-party, it would of a certainty be attributed to the pretty American heiress, Honor Ward. No one would suspect for a moment that the fastidious Stanor Vaughan ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... masts with leg-of-mutton sails stepped in thwarts. A single leeboard was fitted and secured to the hull with a short piece of line made fast to the centerline of the boat. With this arrangement the leeboard could be raised and lowered and also shifted to the lee side on each tack. This took the strain off the sides of the canoe that would have been created by the usual leeboard fitting.[3] Construction of such canoes ceased in the 1870's, but some remained in ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle

... two miles, we saw the smoke rise from our old camp. The Mormons, after taking what goods they wanted and could carry off, had set fire to the wagons, many of which were loaded with bacon, lard, hard-tack, and other provisions, which made a very hot, fierce fire, and the smoke to roll up in dense clouds. Some of the wagons were loaded with ammunition, and it was not long before loud reports followed in rapid succession. We waited and witnessed the burning of the train, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... were fired gave new life to everyone; and soon after we discovered two square-rigged vessels and a cutter at anchor to the eastward. We endeavoured to work to windward but were obliged to take to our oars again, having lost ground on each tack. We kept close to the shore and continued rowing till four o'clock when I brought to a grapnel and gave another allowance of bread and wine to all hands. As soon as we had rested a little we weighed again, ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... are those of mothers, wives, and sweethearts, around which are entwined the tenderest of memories. But at daybreak, when reveille is sounded, these wanderers must come trooping back again in time for "hard-tack" ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... enough, for he presently said, in a tone more to my liking, 'Take my advice, Mr. Fawdor; make it right with my uncle. It isn't such fast rising in the Company that you can afford to quarrel with its governor. I'd go on the other tack: don't be too honest.' I thanked him, and no more was said; but I liked him better, for I saw that he was one of those who take pleasure in dropping nettles more to see the weakness of human nature than ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... through both parts of the cord and into the wall. Another thought it would be better to put a loop of string around the cord and fasten the loop to the wall. A third suggested the use of a double-pointed carpet tack that would go across the wires, but not through them, and if driven tightly into the wall would hold the wire more firmly ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... into another. Some of the shoals were just awash, others bare. Ahead was a reef on which there appeared but very little water. I could see no opening into the channel beyond. To attempt to haul by the wind on either tack would bring us in a few minutes under fire of the schooner now coming up hand over hand. I ordered the ballast to be thrown overboard, and determined, as our only chance, to attempt to force her over the reef. She was headed for what looked like a ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... They only hurt theirselves by it, they do," and Sam spoke with unusual emphasis, at the same time polishing up the glass of his "jack-light" with an energy that threatened to break the panes. "But now I'll tell you what tack I think you'd better take, an' thet right off, fer the tide's 'most out a'ready. Jist you row across nigh to the other side o' the river, drop yer anchor on the flat right opposite thet little sort o' bay yonder, and then put down ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... on men to labor. Few, comparatively, get to the place where they prefer hard labor; to endure desolation of heart; to seek self in nothing; to see all loved but himself; to see others exalted but only abasement for self; to "endure hardness as a good soldier; to lay on the ground; to eat hard tack; to make long, weary marches; footsore and still fight on; to suffer traveling over rocks and thorns; to endure the loss of all things." I will take this last for mine. 'Tis the best, Oh my God, give me this! "He that goeth forth and WEEPETH bearing precious seeds shall ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... wild-cherry tree under which myself and staff were seated, drinking a cup of coffee and chewing "hard tack" when word of the surrender came, was torn down for mementoes. Meade and Wright did not escape, being almost dragged from their horses in ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... then walked with me to his home, and took me along its narrow ways to his room. A small room of about fifteen feet square, with a single window looking out on the barren solitudes of the island; a small cot; a wash-stand with a little looking-glass hung over it from a tack in the wall; a pine table with pen, ink, and paper on it; an old line-engraving representing Bacchus, hung on the wall, and opposite a similar one of Silenus: these constituted the visible environments of Walt Whitman. ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... over, examining something at her feet. Five ragged strips of pink calico lay along the floor, each held fast at one end by a rusty tack driven into the puncheons. Ivy had grown tired of her bondage, and had tugged and twisted until she got away. The faithful tacks had held fast, but the pink calico, grown thin with long wear and many washings, tore in ragged strips. Mammy glanced from the floor to Ivy's tattered ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston

... said Tommy Bowles; 'if you're going on that tack, you must come and sit on this side. When I saw MacNeill open his mouth to speak, I confess I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. You sit here; ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... my good fellow, they'll thrive upon tobacco until they grow as large as conger eels. Heat is what the worms are fond of; but cold—cold will kill them. Now I'll cure you. Quarter-master, come here. Walk this boy up and down the weather-gangway, and every time you get forward abreast of the main-tack block, put his mouth to windward, squeeze him sharp by the nape of the neck until he opens his mouth wide, and there keep him and let the cold air blow down his throat, while you count ten; then walk him aft, and when you are forward again, proceed as ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... o' th' way, my Lady Plyant's coming, and I shall never succeed while thou art in sight. Though she begins to tack about; but I made love a great ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve

... plop of liquid in a pitcher. So if I spill my milk, I have not the excuse of ignorance. I am also familiar with the pop of a cork, the sputter of a flame, the tick-tack of the clock, the metallic swing of the windmill, the laboured rise and fall of the pump, the voluminous spurt of the hose, the deceptive tap of the breeze at door and window, and many other ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... Hay, first officer. The other white man is cabin steward, but he'll stand watch and do his trick. My orders shall be obeyed smartly. You savvy, 'smartly'? There shall be no growling about the kaikai, which will be above allowance. You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on 'sir' to every order I give you. If you're smart and quick, I'll make this ship comfortable for all hands." He took the cigar out of his mouth. "If you're not," he added, in a roaring voice, "I'll make it a floating hell.—Now, Mr. Hay, we'll ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a fine little paragraph, wasn't it? What a pity you didn't hear it in time to tack it on at the ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... o'clock this morning I mounted the poop and made as keen a scrutiny as I could of everything on board. Everything appeared as usual. The Chancellor was run- ning on the larboard tack, and carried low-sails, top-sails, and gallant-sails. Well braced she was; and under a fresh, but not uneasy breeze, was making no less ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... the radiance turned to gold the white sails of a beautiful bark outward bound. As she heeled over on the starboard tack, it was evident that she would pass close to the steamer. From the wireless room Jack Ready and Billy Raynor watched the pretty sight with more interest, perhaps—certainly it was so in Jack's case—than anyone else ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... a slightly different tack. Its editorial writer was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was deplored by many prominent business men, he pointed ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... the other tack," said Jack. Noddy followed his orders with the result that the Curlew heeled over on the side opposite to that which had been injured, and thus raised her wound above the water line. Billy began bailing, frantically, with a bucket, ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... cried in a menacing voice, "you think you shall follow in my tack. Yes? I blow your damn head off if you stir before the hour. ... After that — well, follow ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... plain view somewhere. If you had dumped it out of the box into a sack, the box must be somewhere. You hadn't had time to burn it before the stage got back. I drifted back to your kindling pile, where all the old boxes from the store are lying. I happened to notice a brass tack in one near the end; then the marks of the tack heads where they had pressed against the wood. I figured you might have substituted one box for another, and inside of ten minutes I stumbled against your wash-stand and didn't budge it. Then I didn't ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... me now," the rebel cried, his mouth stuffed with the cold meat and hard-tack, almost as fresh and crisp as soda-crackers, for the contractors had not yet learned the trick of making them out of sawdust, white sand, and other inexpensive ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... bold Benbow lay, Crying out, crying out; And there bold Benbow lay, crying out, Let us tack about once more, We'll drive them to their own shore; I don't value half-a-score, Nor their ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... to tack, to enter the channel of the river; and, at that fatal moment, the wind struck the mainmast with a force which instantly threw it over-board; and the ship, cast on her beam-ends by the violence of the shock, ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... while I was helping Timmy Finbrink out of his difficulties, and afterwards tried to fool you with the fake window-breaking, some of the Central fellows had been down at Ritchie's playing tick-tack on one of his front windows. Tick-tack is a stupid game, and it got me into a mess ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... is northeasterly," one of them said. "We can only just lay our course now, and it will be dead against us in some of the reaches. Still, I think we shall manage to make down to sea with only a tack or two, but when we are once fairly out of the river it will be a long leg and a short one, and going up round the Texel it will be dead against us. Except that it would be a bit worse if it had a little more east in it, it is about as foul a wind as we could have, and I don't see ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... sure it was no go, put an end to his own existence. I said that would be wrong, and besides, he couldn't do it. He said, oh yes, he could—he could inject air into a vein, and lots of things. He went on a physiological tack, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... lady of France, Who taught little ducklings to dance; When she said, "Tick-a-tack!" they only said, "Quack!" Which grieved that old ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear

... Duke," said he, taking another tack. "This property belongs to another John Merrick. It is a common name, and that is doubtless why you mistook me ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... baskets very cheap, partly because the baskets cost very little for labor. The man who tacks them together uses a magnetized tack hammer. This magnetic tack hammer picks up the tacks of its own accord, and the man drives them in the basket as fast as he can touch the magnet to the heads of the tacks and strike ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... seven-up going on in the cabin, and the sun striking down the companionway was bothering Andie Howe. He began to complain. "Hi, up there to the wheel! Hi, Eddie—can't you put her on the other tack?—the sun's in my eyes. How can a man see the cards with the sun ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... however, is, that the largest of the Spanish vessels would scarcely pass for third-rates in the present navy of England; yet were they so ill framed, or so ill governed, that they were quite unwieldy, and could not sail upon a wind, nor tack on occasion, nor be managed in stormy weather by the seamen. Neither the mechanics of ship-building, nor the experience of mariners, had attained so great perfection as could serve for the security and government of such bulky vessels; and the English, who had already had experience ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... on another tack. "My name is Lawrence Reston-Farrell. If I am not mistaken, you are ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... might have failed in. If certain rare and precious virtues can thus be inaugurated, under the influence of a zeal exaggerating its own justification, there will be time later to insist on the complementary truths and to tack in the other direction after having been carried forward a certain distance by ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... original, and so are the whole of our Vestry's proceedings. In all their debates, they are laudably imitative of the windy and wordy slang of the real original, and of nothing that is better in it. They have head-strong party animosities, without any reference to the merits of questions; they tack a surprising amount of debate to a very little business; they set more store by forms than they do by substances: - all very like the real original! It has been doubted in our borough, whether our Vestry is of any utility; but ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... friend, may not I smile at some jest between myself and my pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't is marvel to me how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits the children of wealthy houses, and then, when hardly more than a boy, placed in authority ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... the Rev. S. Hall Young, of Fort Wrangell, visited it in 1879. They were the first white men to explore this region, and they went thither by canoe. Muir, with blankets strapped to his back and his pockets stuffed with hard-tack, spent days in rapturous speculation. Of all glacial theorists he is doubtless the most self-sacrificing and enthusiastic. I believe, as yet, no one has timed this glacier. It is dissolving away more rapidly than it travels; ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... unfavourable, we were obliged, during the night, to tack in the neighbourhood of Dover. The great darkness which covered both land and sea rendered this maneuvre a very dangerous one; firstly, on account of the proximity of the coast; and, secondly, on account of ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... was reported moving toward our left. For this reason, or in carrying out the original programme, we marched in the same direction, starting just after dark. As we fell back in the afternoon, I found a haversack containing some hard-tack. This our mess divided. We did not fail to commiserate the unlucky chap whose loss was our gain. This was a very unsatisfactory fight. It always seemed to me like a scrub race. The rebels plunged in as if they thought ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... a mon Ay'st talk wy ye a bit, yeow mun tack a care o your sells, the plecs haunted with Buggarts, and Witches, one of 'em took my Condle and Lanthorn out of my hont, and flew along wy it; and another Set me o top o'th tree, where I feel dawn now, Ay ha well ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... the opposite tack, and denies that his conduct differs from that of other men. Thus Richard Watson Gilder insists that the poet has "manners like other men" and that on thisaccount the world that is eagerly awaiting the future poet will miss him. He repeats ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... called us to de wagons an' tole us we wus free. Dey give each of us a cap full of hard-tack. Dey took clothes an' provisions an' give us nothin'. One crowd of Yankees would come on an' give us something an' another would come along an' take it away from us. Dey tole us to call marster an' missus Johnny ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... cheeky little things of flies got into my eyes: could see no more, no ways. Mud water one shilling a bucket! Got the dysentery; very bad. Thought, one night, to reef the yards and drop the anchor. Got on a better tack though. Promenaded up to the famous Bendigo. Had no particular objection to Celestials there, but had no particular taste for their tartaric water. Made up my mind to remember my days of innocence, and turned shepherd. Fine landscape this run on the Loddon: almost a ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello

... guarantee my own conduct for a moment,' he would answer; or, taking the other tack, would reply: 'Just for that reason I cannot believe the man would ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... and excite no remark; but to the woodsman each article possessed a separate and particular value. The tent, an iron kettle, a side of bacon, oatmeal, tea, matches, sugar, some canned goods, a box of hard-tack,—these, in the woods, represented wealth. Wallace's rifle chambered the .38 Winchester cartridge, which was unfortunate, for Thorpe's .44 had ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... Their names I've forgotten. The most I remember of that trip is that it was the stormiest passage I've ever made. It was a six weeks' voyage, and the worst of it was we could not have a fire, and, consequently, could not cook anything, and had to live on hard tack and raw pork, or beef. I tell you, those young fellows were unanimous in declaring that they had their fill of ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... when I went on deck, the Indian Queen was out of sight of land and standing to the southward under all plain sail, with nothing in sight but the heads of the topsails of a brig which, hull-down in the south-western quarter, was stretching in toward the coast, close-hauled on the port tack. We took very little notice of this craft at the time, for she was then too far distant to show much of herself, even when viewed through the ship's telescope, while her yards were so braced that only the edges of her sails presented themselves to our view; but, remembering ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed up as a fireman or a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... very astute reader of faces and could tell by the brightening of an eye or the movement of a feature whether she was on the right tack. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... distribution of wood, however, the wagons having gone astray, and it had therefore been impossible for them to make fires and warm their soup. They had consequently been obliged to content themselves as best they might, washing down their dry hard-tack with copious draughts of brandy, a proceeding that was not calculated greatly to help their tired legs after their long march. Near the canteen, however, behind the stacks of muskets, there were two soldiers ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... We go tack to look a little at the fortunes of the Meeker family. Twenty-three years have passed since we introduced it to the reader, on the occasion of Hiram's birth. Time has produced his usual tokens. Mr. Meeker is already an ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... places Much skill in grimaces, And feels your pulse running tic-tack—O! Would you know his chief skill? It is only to fill And smoke a good ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... enlisted men are smoking dried horse droppings, grass, roots and tea. Some of them can't sleep they are so nervous for the want of it, but to-day a lot came up and all will be well for them. I've had a steady ration of coffee, bacon and hard tack for a week and one mango, to night we had beans. Of course, what they ought to serve is rice and beans as fried bacon is impossible in this heat. Still, every one is well. This is the best crowd to be with—they are so well educated and so interesting. The ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... doubt me. Here is their letter—the last one. Will you look at it?" and Claudius took an envelope from his pocket-book. He was glad to have come over to the argumentative tack, for his heart was very sore, and he knew ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... you cannot compete with the Morning Post, which gives the real thing in its succulent savagery whilst you can give only a "wouldn't hurt a fly" affectation of it. In religion too you are up against the fact that an editor, like an emperor, must not belong to a sect. Wells is on the right tack: my tack. See my prefaces to Androcles and Methuselah. We want the real Catholic Church above the manufactured one. The manufactured one is useful as the Salvation Army is useful, or the formulas of the Church of Christ Scientist; but they ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... kanakas sleep through that long hot day that they did not see the cutter run out through the passage and head south, close-hauled on the southeast trade. Nor was the cutter ever sighted on that long tack to the shores of Ysabel, and during the tedious head-beat from there to Malaita. He landed at Port Adams with a wealth of rifles and tobacco such as no one man had ever possessed before. But he did not stop there. He had taken a white man's head, and only the bush could shelter him. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Don Quixote; "squeeze, tack, and string your proverbs together; here are none to oppose you. My mother whips me, and I whip the top. Here am I exhorting thee to suppress thy proverbs, and in an instant thou hast spewed forth a whole litany of them, which ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... her shrillest laugh. "Behind the coffin as Chief Mourner, I suppose. And you'll tack on the orthodox black sleeve-band, and look out for Number Two. And choose the ordinary kind, who funks raw-head and all the rest of it, for the next venture. But I prophesy you'll be bored. It's settled about Sheila and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... bee-keeper to see when they have consumed all their food. The feeder is now complete, with one important exception; it has, as yet no way of admitting the bees. On the outside corners of one of the ends, glue or tack two strips, inch and a half wide, extending down to the bottom of the box, and half an inch from the top; fasten over them a piece of thin board, (paste-board will answer.) You have now a shallow passage without ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... tack the Miss on," I implored. "Call me Cornelia ... or better still, Nic, as Dad does. I do resent your coming so soon. I resent your coming at all. And, oh, it is such a satisfaction ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... sailing down the Shilka, which runs into the Amur at the Pokrovskaya Stanitsa. The river is not broader than the Psyol, it is even narrower. The shores are stony: there are crags and forests. It is absolutely wild.... We tack about to avoid foundering on a sandbank, or running our helm into the banks: steamers and barges often do so in the rapids. It's stifling. We have just stopped at Ust-Kara, where we have landed five or six convicts. There are mines here and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... southern slope began to look minute, like the myriad heads assembled in the infinitesimal photograph which you view through one of those little half-inch lorgnettes; and you had the satisfaction of knowing that to any lovely infinitesimality yonder you showed no bigger than a carpet-tack. The whole performance now seemed to be worked by those tireless figures pumping at the organ, in obedience to signals from a very alert figure on the platform below. The choral and orchestral thousands sang and piped and played; and at a given point in the scena from Verdi, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... Preuss sells bread, Valentin Ulrich manufactures saddles, and P. Loesch keeps a meat-market, with a sign representing one gentleman holding a mad bull by a bit of packthread tied to his horns, while an assistant leisurely strolls up to annihilate the creature with a tack-hammer. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a 'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The barque ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... to him, thus continues: "He describes a ship at sea, bound for the port of Heaven, when the man at the head sung out, 'Rocks ahead!' 'Port the helm,' cried the mate. 'Ay, ay, sir,' was the answer; the ship obeyed, and stood upon a tack. But in two minutes more, the lead indicated a shoal. The man on the out-look sung out, 'Sandbreaks and breakers ahead!' The captain was now called, and the mate gave his opinion; but sail where they could, the lead and the eye showed nothing but dangers all around,—sand banks, ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... obvious a posture, and thus effectually postponing any sense of weariness even in sailing for a whole day and night. Still it is only for light airs, gentle waves, or in deep rivers, or with long runs on the same tack, that the captain may do his duty while he lies on a sofa. In fresh breezes and rolling seas, or in beating to windward with frequent boards, such indulgence is soon cut short; and indeed the muscles and energies of the ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... my lad. He knows just where his orf forefoot ought to be at one o'clock, and his near hind-foot at two. Why, he goes like clockwork. I just winds him up once with a bit o' corn and a drink o' water, starts him, and there's his old legs go tick-tack, tick-tack, and his head swinging like a pendulow. Use 'is secon' natur', and all I've got to do is to tie up the reins to the fore ladder and go to sleep if I like, for he knows his way as well as a Christian. 'Leven o'clock I starts; four o'clock he ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... circumstance makes conduct; life's a ship, The sport of every wind. And yet men tack Against the adverse blast. How shall I steer, Who am the pilot of Necessity? But whether it be fair or foul, I know not; Sunny or terrible. Why let her wed him? What care I if the pageant's weight may fall On Hungary's ermined shoulders, if the spring Of all her life be mine? The tiar'd ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli

... as a new article of manufacture, a tack hammer, constructed in the manner and With the characteristics herein specified, for ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... you are on the wrong tack. You see economic science in your day was a science of things; in our day it is a science of human beings. We have nothing at all answering to your rent, interest, profits, or other financial devices, and the terms expressing them have no ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... of dropping into our wake, with a design of closing under our stern, and avoiding our broad-side. As this would never do, and the wind freshened so as to give us four or five knot way, a most fortunate circumstance for us, the captain determined to tack while he had room. The John behaved beautifully, and came round like a top. The proas saw there was no time to lose, and attempted to close before we could fill again; and this they would have done with ninety-nine ships in a hundred. The captain knew his vessel, however, and ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... were a plucky and a able young feller, by the name of Graham, and he kep' her a-dancin' as well as the old man would have done. Constant she had everythin' put to her that she'd bear, and always were she kep' on the tack where she'd make the most westin', and so she struggled along till we was as far as thirty degrees west, we bein' thirty days out and not yet half way. Every day we asked the steward how old Wiggins were a-gittin' on, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various



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