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Tool   Listen
noun
Tool  n.  
1.
An instrument such as a hammer, saw, plane, file, and the like, used in the manual arts, to facilitate mechanical operations; any instrument used by a craftsman or laborer at his work; an implement; as, the tools of a joiner, smith, shoe-maker, etc.; also, a cutter, chisel, or other part of an instrument or machine that dresses work.
2.
A machine for cutting or shaping materials; also called machine tool.
3.
Hence, any instrument of use or service. "That angry fool... Whipping her horse, did with his smarting tool Oft whip her dainty self."
4.
A weapon. (Obs.) "Him that is aghast of every tool."
5.
A person used as an instrument by another person; a word of reproach; as, men of intrigue have their tools, by whose agency they accomplish their purposes. "I was not made for a minion or a tool."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tool" Quotes from Famous Books



... but a wretched tool in their hands; and they, acting according to the dictates of their accursed system, which they call 'The Church,' are determined to drive every Protestant out of the island, so that they may again be masters over the consciences of all ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston

... beside her—red-faced, angular, hard muscled, in his dingy blue carpenter's working clothes with his measuring rule and pencil sticking from his apron pocket, and with his crippled arm tipped by its steel tool-holder. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... knew, They lost their axes, not a few, And sent their prayers to Jupiter So fast, he knew not which to hear. His winged son, however, sent With gold and silver axes, went. Each would have thought himself a fool Not to have own'd the richest tool. But Mercury promptly gave, instead Of it, a blow upon ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... wife of preceding; renter of seats in Saint-Francois. Last nurse of Sylvain Pons, and a tool to the interests of Fraisier ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... a professed Christian belonging to the Roman Catholic faith. So that during the dawn of the incipient difficulties surrounding Texas, therefore, when becoming part of the United States, there figured a Negro the tool of his master, in common with Nolan and others, reputed horse thieves, the patriots whose depredations were as annoying to the Mexicans in 1804 as Villa's bandit incursions (during ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... measurements, as we cannot afford to do any guess work by measuring by means of the old staff. I have used a number of different kinds of calipers and measuring instruments for determining the various measurements for a balance staff, but have met with more success with a very simple little tool which I made myself from drawings and description published some years ago in THE AMERICAN JEWELER. This simple little tool is shown in Fig. 7, and has been of great service to me. It consists of a brass sleeve A, with a projection at one end as shown at B. This sleeve is threaded, and into ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall

... careful observer, states that when he first gave eggs to his monkey in Paraguay they smashed them, and thus lost much of their contents; afterward they gently hit one end against some hard body, and picked off the bits of shell with their fingers. After cutting themselves once with any sharp tool, they would not touch it again, or would handle it with the greatest caution. Lumps of sugar were often given them, wrapped up in paper; and Reugger sometimes put a live wasp in the paper, so that in hastily unfolding it they got stung; ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... troops along the western bank of that river, but was unable to dispute its passage at the head of about three thousand effectives, exposed, without tents, in an inclement season; he was in a level country, without a single intrenching tool, among people far from being zealous in the American cause. In other respects this situation was dangerous. The Passaic, in his rear, after running several miles nearly parallel to the Hackensack, unites with that river below the ground occupied by the Americans, who were consequently still ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... cowardly, ambitious tool of his wicked wife, is at last surrounded by Macduff and his soldiers, and informed that ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... himself over? I had almost made up my mind that he had done so, when a gentle sound rising and falling came out of the darkness beneath me. It was his breathing once more, and it showed me where he must be. He was hiding in the tool-house. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... mentally denounce her as a cold, prudent, calculating woman, who had entrapped him into a secret marriage, and having secured his hand, would now risk nothing for his love, and himself as a weak, fond fool, the tool of the beautiful, proud diplomat, whom it would be justifiable to circumvent, to defeat, and to humble ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... she exclaimed. "Nothing matters to you except to succeed. You tell me in one breath that you care for a woman for the first time in your life, and in the next you speak of using her as your tool!" ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... from her be-tumbled couch she starteth, To find some desperate instrument of death: But this no slaughter-house no tool imparteth, To make more vent for passage of her breath; Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth As smoke from Aetna, that in air consumes, Or that which ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... all to realise his visions; but I was by nature unadventurous and uninitiative; to divert me from all former paths and send me cruising through the isles of paradise, some force external to myself must be exerted; Destiny herself must use the fitting wedge; and, little as I deemed it, that tool was already in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... will have no hand in the matter, Hokosa. I have been the tool of a wizard, and won little joy therefrom. The tool of a murderer I will ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... unkind to her," he said. "She's only been a tool after all—poor old woman. No doubt there will be a deportation order, and she will ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... He was expected last night—had wired yesterday to say he'd be home. They left supper for him, as usual when he is expected, and went to bed. Didn't hear him return, but found on going down house next morning that he had come—supper eaten, motor bike in tool house in back yard, where he keeps it. They called him at ten o'clock—no answer. They went in his room. Not there and bed not slept in and his clothes not changed. He's not ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... gentleman was a dummy director and a tool of corporations that secretly robbed widows and orphans. This gentleman, who collected fine editions and was a patron of literature, paid blackmail to a heavy-jowled, black-browed boss of a municipal machine. This editor, who published ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... Juan, their tool, was working with the other peons, and at ten o'clock in the morning the launches set out, pushing into the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... utterly lost to shame, his cheek must have burned as he listened to the stinging reproof of the noble Indian Chief. Ever since the white men began their political struggles for power on the American continent, the unfortunate Indian has been their tool, and their scapegoat. Cheated, deceived by falsehoods and false friends, he was ever thrust forward as a sacrifice to the hatred of contending white men. Spanish, English and French were ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... quit blinking without the expected electrical display. Sinuous as beheaded snakes, the wires and cables supporting the traffic signal fell into the street. The unusual man pocketed his cutting tool—a long thin tube—and lowered the stop light to the truck. He looked at Whedbee. The corner street lamp reacted upon his eyes like a flashlight thrown on a tomcat in an alley. ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert

... little exquisites of provincial towns, the lean herd of notaries' clerks and prospective barristers, who stand shivering with cold while waiting for clients. Having no dowry, and despairing of ever marrying a rich merchant's son, she by far preferred a peasant whom she could use as a passive tool, to some lank graduate who would overwhelm her with his academical superiority, and drag her about all her life in search of hollow vanities. She was of opinion that the woman ought to make the man. She believed herself capable of carving a minister out of a cow-herd. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... Sensibility by the humorist gate of escape. Supposing no such attempt consciously to exist, it is, at any rate, the sign of an approaching downfall of Sensibility, of a feeling, on the part of those who have to do with it, that it is an edged tool, and an awkward one to handle. In comparing Xavier de Maistre with his master Sterne, it is very noticeable that while the one in disposition is thoroughly insincere, and the other thoroughly sincere, yet the insincere ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... the office of judge of the Sudder Dewannee Adaulut, which was affirmed to be contrary to law, repugnant to the spirit and act of the charter, and subversive of all its material purposes; and to the affairs in Oude and Benares, where it was declared the chief-justice became the agent and tool of Hastings. At the suggestion of Pitt, these charges were ordered to be printed, and then referred to a committee of the whole house; which committee was to take them into consideration on the 4th of February. When ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... any other cultural asset of man, be it the art of drilling for fire or of chipping stone, may lay claim to a greater age. I am inclined to believe that it antedated even the lowliest developments of material culture, that these developments, in fact, were not strictly possible until language, the tool of significant ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... an axe, an axe!" cried the master; "down with the main-mast!" and seizing a hatchet which lay at hand, Piero Quirini struck the first blow at the tall mast, whose weight was dragging down the vessel. Others with sword, or axe, or any tool which they could snatch at the moment, followed, and they were but just in time, for before another wave could wash over the vessel, the mast was floating free, and the ship had righted once more. The ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... Count Capo d'Istria, then President of Greece, was assassinated at Nauplia, by the brothers Mauromichalis. He was supposed to be a mere tool of Russia, in whose service much of his life had passed. He was by birth a Greek of the Ionian Islands; and after they had become a portion of Napoleon I.'s empire, he took office in Russia, rising very high. Employed to look after Russia's interests in Greece, he was ultimately chosen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... Grant's tool, and Grant is here," I answered soberly, "I am ready to make a guess at what is up." The recollection of the Captain's threat at the summer-house instantly recurred to memory. "Here, you lads, skulk down into these bushes, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish

... distance in front of the rifle as to hold the rope taut. Then both men proceeding to the rear of the tent, each pins down a corner, stretching the sides and rear of the tent taut before driving the pin in. The rear-rank man next inserts an intrenching tool or a bayonet, in its scabbard, under the rear end of the tent, the front rank man pegging down the end of the guy rope. The rest of the pins are then driven by both men, the rear-rank man working ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey

... remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest, tool of Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the confessional Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything concerning her history save only a few things regarding her supernatural revelations which her Voices had forbidden ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... his hammer is weak, if he does not know how to use it well, if its blow is uncertain and its result unskilled, then he passes from the line of kings, and is subject, instead of in authority, in his own domain. He is captive to a piece of steel or wood. So with every tool of trade. Each man who conquers his tool is a ruler—is in control of elements of human happiness and good. The roof-mender, the furnace-builder, the cloth-weaver, the yarn-spinner, the steel-worker, the miller—do ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... be too down on him," said the captain. "You'd have been sorry for him if you'd have seen how cut up and ashamed he was. After all, he was little better than a tool in somebody else's hands." ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... them had served its purpose; all got what they sought in subsidy funds. While the bill allowed the Postmaster- General to change Collins' European terminus to Southampton, that official, so it was proved subsequently, was Vanderbilt's plastic tool. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... said, in a low voice. "Not now. I meant to—I tried to—but now she has promised and I can't let her go. Good God, Maestro!"—a sudden ring of passion in his tones—"Must I give up everything? Am I to have nothing in the world? Always to be a tool and never live an individual man's life of ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... the Touranian, "with which castles and cities are built and demolished, a hammer to coin money, a remedy for every ill, a traveller's staff always ready to be tried, and worth most when in a state of readiness, a master tool, which executes wondrous works in all sorts of forges, without making ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... doubted very much whether the scissors were in that room. But Wesley Tiffles, who was the most polite and obliging of mortals when there was a lady in the case, rose respectfully upon her entrance, and insisted upon searching the apartment for the missing tool. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... Dowson's—which are now coming into use; and at Messrs. Crossley's works you will have an opportunity of seeing a large engineering factory employing several hundred mechanics, and without a chimney, in which every shaft and tool is driven by gas-engines supplied by Dowson's gas, and in which the consumption of coal is only 1.2 lb. per indicated horse power. The greatest economy ever claimed for the steam-engine was a consumption of 1.6 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... wilderness, largely bereft of trade, using waterways as the easiest means of communication and transport. The economy was built around wood cutting, charcoal burning, backward animal husbandry, hand-tool agriculture, hand-craft industry, the rudiments of commerce and finance centered in trading cities. The great houses of the aristocracy and the gentry, scattered villages, towns and walled cities were preoccupied and disrupted by endless feuding ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... steady progress in the conception of his own purpose as a writer has absolutely precluded any return to an older method. Lewisham was not quite strong enough to portray the further development of the dominant idea, not a sufficiently tempered tool for the dissection of ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford

... prospects of humanity; degrading man below the beast of the forest; sinking his intellectual faculties in the most savage barbarity; rendering him the vile instrument of lawless ambition; the wretched tool by which the fetters of his species were firmly rivetted; obliging him to moisten his harvest with the bitter tears of the most abject slavery. For the purpose of remedying so many crying evils, grown insupportable, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... had delivered their country from the oppression of foreigners, encountered a more formidable enemy in the factious spirit of their own people. Alcimus, a tool of the Syrians, assumed the title of high-priest, and in virtue of his office claimed the obedience of all who acknowledged the institutions of Moses. In this emergency Judas courted the alliance of the Romans, who willingly extended their protection ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... leads the way through the dark shed to a sort of workshop at the back, where there's a window. There's a tool bench, a little hand forge with an old coffee pot and a fryin' pan on it, and a cot bed not ten ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... nature from His creatures. Things are holy—that is, separated from common uses, and appropriated to God's service. Whatever He laid His hand on and claimed in any especial manner for His, became thereby holy, whether it were a ceremony, or a place, or a tool. Men are holy when they are set apart for God's service, whether they be officially consecrated for certain offices, or have yielded themselves by an inward devotion based on love ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... must wait a night, nor cool— For to-night the Envoy arrives from France Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool." ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... pair tinners' shears, one pair five and one-half inch diagonal wire cutters, one pair (same length) Bernard combination wire cutter and pliers, one pair small scissors, two or three assorted flat files, one hollow handle tool holder with tools and little saw, one good hand-saw, one hack-saw, one upholsterer's regulator, one pair fine tweezers (such as jewelers use), one claw hammer, an assortment of round and furriers' needles, one or two darning needles, ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... with others, and these were placed in such a manner as to look very agreeable to the eye. Some of the hewn stones were 4 feet 7 inches by 2 feet 4 inches, and 15 inches thick, and had been squared and polished with some sort of an edge tool. On the east side was, enclosed with a stone wall, a piece of ground in form of a square, 360 feet by 354, in this was growing several cypress trees and plantains. Round about this Morie were several smaller ones, all going ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... "that I shall probably tool about more or less to the end of my time. It's in my line, he says; but he rather backs me to pull myself together ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... treasure is buried outside, someone must have dug the hole. A man so timorous and so reticent as your uncle would allow no one to do this but himself. Higgins maintained the other evening that all picks and spades were safely locked up by himself each night in the tool-house. The mansion itself was barricaded with such exceeding care that it would have been difficult for your uncle to get outside even if he wished to do so. Then such a man as your uncle is described to have been ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... history that was already past. The theory said that if we could turn the social patterns and technological trends just slightly away from what they were, we could alter the entire makeup of society in our own time. And the Equation was the tool, the final check on any change. The Equation which evaluates the sum of social, psychological and energy factors in any situation, any city or nation or human society. The Equation has been proven, checked time and time again, but ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse

... than the branches. The civilized man needs a roof, a room, a hearth, and a bed. It is true that the bed, the room, and the house is a home of idleness for the non-producer. But for the worker, a room, properly heated and lighted, is as much an instrument of production as the tool or the machine. It is the place where the nerves and sinews gather strength for the work of the morrow. The rest of the workman is the daily repairing of ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... to me that I have made but a lame attempt to define definition. This, however, is as it should be. For definition, in the sense in which I am using it, like literature, has much of the indefinable. It is a tool merely, or better still, because broader, a device by which the things we enjoy and that profit us may be placed in perspective, ranged, compared, sorted, and distinguished. It is what Arnold meant by seeing steadily and seeing whole. It is the scientist's microscope that defines relationship, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... made the acquaintance of the physical proportions and aspects of the vaudeville stage and have inquired into all the departments that contribute to the successful presentation of a vaudeville entertainment. We have examined the vaudeville writer's tool-box and have learned to know the uses for which each tool of space, scenery, property, and light is specially designed. And by learning what these tools can do, we have also ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... my own look-out;" P'ing Erh answered, from outside the window, with a grin, "and who told you to arouse your affections? Do you forsooth mean to imply that my wish is to become your tool? And did she come to know about it would ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... to make a noise on her island any more than she wished smoke to be seen, so at the end of her day's work she went to her gypsy's camp hoping that she might find a tool or something that would serve her for a hammer with which to flatten the tins that were to be used for ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... for her, and had determined to turn it to account in saving her lover from disaster, by posing with a maternal, or sisterly regard for his welfare? Such things he felt had been done. He was to be a tool, a mere tool in her hands, the poor dupe ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... replica of the letters we had discovered. Even when she hinted politely, but finally, that the talk was over she left me in doubt even whether she was an adventuress. The woman was an enigma. Had revenge or jealousy brought her to New York, or was she merely a tool ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve

... The tool generally used is similar to the Dutch hoe. With this simple implement the surface is scratched to the depth of about two inches, and the seeds of the dhurra are dibbled in about three feet apart, in rows from four to five feet in width. Two seeds are dropped into each hole. A few days after ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... fully understood, the nation began to realise the measure of disgrace which they involved, and Mortimer and the queen became the objects of bitter hatred. Henry, Earl of Lancaster, the king's nominal guardian, had grown weary of his false position, and of serving only as Mortimer's tool. Determined to throw off the yoke, he refused to attend a parliament which met at Salisbury in October (1328),(441) unless certain changes in the government and in the king's household were first made. In the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... by he put up the little tool and sat looking out upon the prospect. The time of greatest probability had not come, but the voudou might choose not to wait for that; and so he kept watch. There was a great stillness. The cocks had finished a round and were silent. No dog barked. A few tiny crickets made the quiet land seem ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... end nothing so effectually contributed as did the trial of Sacheverel, who was used as an instrument and tool to wind and turn the passions of the vulgar. Having been presented to a benefice in North Wales, he went in procession to that country with all the pomp and magnificence of a sovereign prince. He was sumptuously entertained by the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... will tell thee," cried the prince, in anger. "They want no war! They fear that I might return from it a conqueror, laden with treasures, urging on slaves in front of me. They fear this because they wish every pharaoh to be a weak tool in their grasp, a utensil of no real value, a utensil to be thrown aside when the wish comes. But this will not happen in my case. Either I shall do what I plan, and which I, as the son and heir of the gods have the right to ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... his tool and spit in my bum-hole, and proceeded very gently to introduce his prick therein. I have described his cock as not very thick at the point, consequently the first part introduced itself very easily, but when the ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... complaint, which was done. Sam Griffith, that was my old enemy, was still prosecuting attorney. He refused to prosecute Bill Hall, the buss driver, one of the most disreputable infidel vulgar character in the town, if not the worst, a tool of Jim Gano the one who was republican sheriff when I was smashing in the county, and the manager of the buss line. Bill Hall's lawyer was Poly Tincher, the son-in-law of Southworth, the drug-store jointist here, who at this time had an injunction served ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... drawn through a hetchel, and out of all this ordeal came the flax. How clearly I remember Father working with it in the bright, sharp March days, breaking it, then swingling it with a long wooden sword-like tool over the end of an upright board fixed at the base in a heavy block. This was to separate the brittle fragments of the bark from the fibres of the flax. Then in large handfuls he drew it through the hetchel—an instrument ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs

... first believes that the aged prophet is merely the tool of others, who are engaged in a conspiracy to expel him from the throne; but when Jocasta, in her innocence, informs him of the death of Laius, names the mountain pass in which he fell, slain, as was supposed, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... Power switch is recessed into the front of the Expansion Interface to prevent accidental loss of power. Activate the switch with the eraser-end of a pencil or small tool ...
— Radio Shack TRS-80 Expansion Interface: Operator's Manual - Catalog Numbers: 26-1140, 26-1141, 26-1142 • Anonymous

... relishing the fear and anxiety of his tool and watched to see which way the other's cowardice would lead him. He was quite unprepared for ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... soon perceived the origin of the noise. The barking season had just commenced, and what he had heard was the tear of the ripping tool as it ploughed its way along the sticky parting between the trunk and the rind. Melbury did a large business in bark, and as he was Grace's father, and possibly might be found on the spot, Fitzpiers was attracted to the scene even more than he might have been by its intrinsic interest. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... comes up to his mother, and sits down on a stool, sets a tool-bag between his knees, and speaks in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... finely-tempered blacksmith's file, for a hunting-knife, in Louisiana. When hammered and drawn into shape it had a blade five and one-quarter inches long and one and one-half inches wide; was so nicely balanced that it was proved to be both a useful tool ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... doggedly, "you're making a tool of me in this campaign. Why should I be used and abused just to elect Erastus Hopkins, I'd like to know. You sacrificed me when I might have ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne

... the places we live in, or commanded by superiors, or made by any circumstance convenient to be done; our Christian liberty consists in this, that we have leave to do them. And, indeed, it is so far from being a sin, that it would be so to refuse so to do.' Could the state have selected a fitter tool ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... jerked off his feet. This was quite enough. The party retreated to the ship. On the way back they saw trees that had been cut not very long since, and Sebastian picked up a wooden needle such as fishermen used in making nets, yet not like any English tool of ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... sheets of the mists. The intermittent flutters of light showed me the soldier who marched in front of me. My eyes, resting in fixity on him, discovered his sheepskin coat, his waist-belt, straining at the shoulder-straps, dragged by the metal-packed cartridge pouches, by the bayonet, by the trench-tool; his round bags, pushed backwards; his swathed and hooded rifle; his knapsack, packed lengthways so as not to give a handle to the earth which goes by on either side; the blanket, the quilt, the tentcloth, folded accordion-wise on the top of each other, and the whole ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... in the air, a little breathless cry escaped him, the tool flew from his grasp, and he stood one instant staring at the speaker. The next, swift as an arrow, he sped for the woods upon the farther side; and the next again, throwing up his hands with a violent gesture of resolution, he had begun ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... man. During six months as we dined together, I took him deeply into my confidence about my projected improvements. Many people would think this intimacy one of the most painful inflictions in the course of my task; but was he not a tool of the most valuable kind? Woe to him who despises his axe, or flings it carelessly aside! Would it not have been very inconsistent, moreover, if I, who wished to improve a district, had shrunk back at the thought of ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... different effect on the public. From that instant every pious Roman Catholic, not only in France, but throughout Europe, whatever his attitude toward the Directory, was either an avowed ally of Bonaparte or at least willing to await events in a neutral spirit. As for the papacy, henceforward it was a tool in the conqueror's hand: he was determined to use it as an indispensable bulwark for public decency and political stability. One of the cardinals gave the gracious preserver of his order a bust of Alexander the Great: it was a common piece of flattery after the peace to say ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... believed that the Queen's husband was a traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in the interests of England's enemies. For many weeks these accusations filled the whole of the press; repeated ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... that Garfield was cared for by the parish priest at Penalva. There you are. Half the priesthood of the country are on Souza's side, since the Patriarch of Lisbon himself is little more than a tool of Souza's. What happens? This priest discovers that the British officer whom he has so charitably put to bed in his house is the bearer of dispatches. A loyal man would instantly have communicated with Marshal Beresford ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... Chicago. At the time of his crime he had been working in a Cleveland wire mill. It was said that at Cleveland he had heard Emma Goldman deliver an anarchist address, and that this inspired his fell purpose. It was suspected that he was the tool of an anarchist plot, and that the man preceding him in the line when he shot the President was an accomplice, but there was no evidence that either was true. There were indications that Czolgosz had made overtures to the anarchists and been ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... a by-product to his observations and investigations, he discovered the Taylor-White process of making high speed steel, which revolutionized the steel tool industry. No untrained workman could expect ever to compete with such work as this in obtaining results for most efficient planning and at the same time ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth

... that beneath his meek exterior the clergyman had a strong will and very clear ideas of the difference between right and wrong, in short, that he was not a man to be trifled with, and less still one of whom he could make a tool. Having ascertained these things he left him alone as much ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... threatening them with their rifles if they showed signs of falling from fatigue, or if they failed to maintain the expected rate of progress. To such old men, who probably had never lifted the smallest and lightest tool for many years, if ever, it was a back-breaking task. However, they clung dutifully to their work until the hour ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... men, the kapala seated himself on the stump of a tree. The hair was first cut away above the ears, a long board was placed upright behind and against his right ear, and the operator adjusted his tool—an empty rifle cartridge of small calibre, which was encased in the end of a small piece of wood. After having carefully ascertained that all was in order he struck the tool, using a loose axe-head with sure hand, two or three times. The supporting ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... bereavement. He was a man too broad in his views to make principle subservient to party. He had a party, and believed that it was necessary in the government of a country that such should exist; but he would not be a mere tool and follow his leaders, even though he could not endorse their policy. He said he would not vote for a man whom he believed was unprincipled, even if his party, through the caucus system, did make him their standard-bearer. He was strongly of the opinion ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... tool was a hoe, made of clam shells or of a moose's shoulder-blade fastened to a wooden handle. He also had a rude axe or hatchet made of a piece of stone, sharpened by being scraped on another stone, and tied to a wooden handle. His arrows and spears were tipped with bone or ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... informed, that her ladyship had acted as the primum mobile of this confederacy, than he concluded she had only made use of Clinker as a tool, subservient to the execution of some design, to the true secret of which he was an utter stranger — He observed, that her ladyship's brain was a perfect mill for projects; and that she and Tabby had certainly engaged in some secret treaty, the nature of which ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... is not so honest a man as your son," answered the general; "Mr Lerew was about to take orders, and would prove a useful tool, while it was more prudent to secure your son at once, as he, it was supposed, would inherit your property. I wish that I could offer you consolation; but I fear that you would consider me a ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... and employed myself in making splints; fortunately, my tool-chest was at hand, and I selected some pieces of dry wood that had been left on the bank by the retiring river. I made two splints, one with a crutch to fit beneath the arm; this I carried to about three ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... strong enough to hold things, one on each side of the fire-place and one near the door. These would be impracticable with scenery made of screens as any weight on the screen would pull it over. A solid wooden chest, as a carpenter's tool chest, could be substituted to hold the children's wraps and the extra shawl for the old woman. The chest could be placed against the screen on the ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden

... days of old, Whereof many a tale is told, Bathed the whiting of the shield, In wounds' house on battle-field; But the honour-missing fool, Both sides of his slaying tool, Since faint heart his hand made vain. With ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... master of Mexico, he looked around for a man who would serve him as a tool to hold the country. Such a man he found in Ferdinand Joseph Maximilian, the brother of the emperor of Austria, a dreamer rather than a man of action, and a fervent believer in the "divine right of kings." This was the kind of man that the French usurper was in want of, and he offered him the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... Garret not resigned? It was a cruel mistake, but it might have been worse, for hearts are deceitful, and what is false and baneful is apt to prove an edge-tool. Here was permanent estrangement, comfortless formality, cold, compulsory esteem; but there was no treachery in the household, no malignant hate, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... what he had done. And back of his fear lay something deeper, something which he could not name,—half exultation, half truest awe, as though he stood in a presence mightier than he and knew himself for but the tool with ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... her, I only got a wrench out of the tool-box and yanked open the hood to see what ailed the motor. I knew something of that make of car; in fact, I had owned one before I got the Yellow Peril, and I had a suspicion that there wasn't much wrong; a loosened nut will sometimes ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... eyes fell upon Dona Orosia, I cried out bitterly that I had been a fool to trust even to her hate; for now she had grown weary of her revenge, and would discard her tool without paying the ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... casters, making it easy to remove it to the center of the room where it can be approached on all sides, as will often be necessary. The double top, drawers, and shelf should be a part of the larger table also. Usually the table is kept in front of the window with tool racks and shelves for small articles each side of the same where they ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... it altered and fitted up expressly for my children's use: you see, it is a little away from the house, so that the noise of saws and hammers will not be likely to prove an annoyance to your mamma and visitors. See, this is a workroom furnished with fret and scroll saws, and every sort of tool that I know of which would be likely to prove useful to you, Max ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... indeed an old pattern, a sharpened flint hafted with an old brown bone—quite a prehistoric tool in appearance. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... his shirt and under his waistband a small battle-axe, and handed it up to Hereward. It was a tool the like of which in shape Hereward had seldom seen, and never its equal in beauty. The handle was some fifteen inches long, made of thick strips of black whalebone, curiously bound with silver, and ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi,—can hardly get a dim notion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver felt for this spot, where all his memories centred, and where life seemed like a familiar smooth-handled tool that the fingers clutch with loving ease. And just now he was living in that freshened memory of the far-off time which comes to us in the passive ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... that Jimmy had his workshop, or rather his tool-store, for he did not do much work there. The time which his occupation at the theater left him he devoted to improving himself. Electricity and its manifold uses held his interest. There was no doubt that, had ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... in the night, a horse on a plain, a mule on a stony path, a boat in the water, a rock on land[FN135]?" The reply to his own questions was of course affirmative. But despite all these fine qualities, and notwithstanding his scrupulous strictness in invocating the house-breaking tool and in devoting a due portion of his gains to the gods of plunder,[FN136] he was caught in a store-room by the proprietor, who inexorably handed him over to justice. As he belonged to the priestly caste,[FN137] ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... altitude, completely floored him. Yet I accomplished that with comparative ease. I could climb, which seemed proof that I was gaining. A man becomes used to certain labors and exercises. I thought the crosscut saw a wonderful tool to train a man, but it must require time. It harked back to pioneer days when men were men. Nielsen said he had lived among Mexican boys who sawed logs for nineteen cents apiece and earned seven dollars a day. Copple said three minutes was good time to saw a four-foot ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... politician could have told them that, but I'm glad to hear that a mathematical tool to work on the problem has been devised. Maybe one of these days we won't ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett

... preserved or rejected each little deviation of form so carefully as when the part has to serve for some one special purpose. In the same way that a knife which has to cut all sorts of things may be of almost any shape; whilst a tool for some particular purpose must be of some particular shape. Natural selection, it should never be forgotten, can act solely through and for the advantage of ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... and as he told me to do no more for her, I left my room, went to my garden in the evening, and, in my little tool house, wrestled hard with God in prayer for the ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... "Here's another tool belonging to the company. It must have been thrown away by Billings or Skip when you ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis

... engaging manners and youthful appearance, struck up an acquaintance abroad with Lady Mary Cunningham, who, it will be remembered, had jewels of considerable value, with a view to those jewels. Ralph she had used as her tool, and engaged herself to him in the expectation that on her return to England she might, by means of her intimacy with the family, have an opportunity of taking them—Lady Mary having left them, while abroad, with her banker in London. The opportunity ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... master but our tool, adaptable to the uses for which it was designed; our servant, responsive to our call. This makes revolution an absurdity. But it also makes a sense of responsibility a necessity. And while we may not have broken down in this regard we certainly have weakened. We have proceeded in the belief ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... better; it has passed under the hand of the artist again and again; it has taken form, served for the model of a lasting work, been kneaded together in a lump, been worked over and over by the boxwood tool. The workman feels that it has absorbed some of the qualities of the master's genius, and touches it with the certainty that its stiff substance will yield new forms of beauty in his fingers, rendering ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... Ridgway studied him. He was wondering how far this man would go as his tool. Sam Yesler held a unique position in the State. His influence was commanding among the sturdy old-time population represented by the non-mining interests of the smaller towns and open plains. He must be won at all hazards to lend it in the impending fight against ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... in order that the ego may develop. But while Fichte correctly understood the purpose of nature, to help intelligence into being, he failed to recognize the dignity of nature, for he deprived it of all self-dependence, all life of its own, all generative power, and treated it merely as a dead tool, as a passive, merely posited non-ego. Nature is not a board which the original ego nails up before itself in order, striking against it, to be driven back upon itself, to be compelled to reflection, and thereby to become theoretical ego; in order, further, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... The tool being procured, they hammered upon the upper end of the rod, and drilled as miners do in rock. After some time of this ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... to kidnap the President—that would appeal to him; but after that I truly believe he was a tool—certainly he was no leader. Those who led him knew his courage, his belief in Fate, his loyalty to his friends; and, because they knew these things, he drew the lot, as it was meant he should from the first. Then, half mad, ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... rifle as to hold the rope taut; both men go to the rear of the tent, each pins down a corner, stretching the sides and rear of the tent before securing; the rear rank man then inserts an intrenching tool, or a bayonet in its scabbard, under the rear end of the ridge inside the tent, the front rank man pegging down the end of the rear guy ropes; the rest of the pins are then driven by both men, the rear rank ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... effect such a purpose. By dint of application, however, and by cutting the log above as well as that below, sufficient space was obtained in the course of a few minutes. Nick then passed the saw in, through the opening, it exceeding his skill to use such a tool with readiness. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... a daredevil way with the women, as have all men whose calling is a hazardous one. Chet was a crack workman. He could shinny up a pole, strap his emergency belt, open his tool kit, wield his pliers with expert deftness, and climb down again in record time. It was his pleasure—and seemingly the pleasure and privilege of all lineman's gangs the world over—to whistle blithely and to call impudently to any passing petticoat ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... the passing of a tool-car in the subway underneath the cemetery, and the hammering of a workman at a forge in a niche of the tunnel. But, rising out of the tombs, it was gruesome and unearthly in ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp

... by hand, and the loving marks of the tool were upon it. It was made as good and strong and durable as it could be made. Floors and walls were of mosaic or polished wood, and these were partly covered by beautifully woven rugs, skins and tapestries. The ceilings were sometimes ornamented with pictures painted in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... carried an unusually long horn, I turned my attention from the bull to her, and, after a very long and severe chase, dropped her at the sixth shot. I carried one of my rifles, which gave me much trouble, that not being the tool required for this sort of work, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... warm congratulations over their escape, the manager pretending to believe James was an innocent tool, but no doubt with a shrewd suspicion that he intended to have a finger in this pie, had the pie ever been baked and divided. Had the bankers been victimized they would have striven with all their power to keep the fact a secret and forbidden their employees ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... be nothing else to do, and, after some discussion, it was decided to have the two boys walk back after the missing tool, which was a very ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood

... 11th, when it is hoped that the documents will have come back again. But even in this case, the Ambassador Extraordinary will need all the firmness of his character to overrule this cabal which brings uneasiness to the Emperor's family and uses the Archbishop as a tool. I have done everything that I could to impress upon the Minister how much the present state of affairs compromises the dignity of our court. He has shown me a list of questions presented by the Archbishop, ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... had quickly passed across the deadly tool and seemed to fix themselves for a moment on a splinter broken out of the handle. "I do not know," he added firmly. It was the axe which they had found plunged ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... preparing at Studzianka. It was only on the 25th, at five in the evening, that Eble arrived there, followed only by two field forges, two waggons of coal, six covered waggons of utensils and nails, and some companies of pontonniers. At Smolensk he had made each workman provide himself with a tool and some cramp-irons. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... I was bent on leaving the Sixth Corps, on flying from the frontier neighbourhood, and finishing my service in some district or region where it would be impossible for them to make me their spy tool. But, I do not know how—was it through Nichoune?—I expect so, because I had unluckily confided this secret to her one evening—Alfred got wind of what I was up to. He flew into a fearful rage. Suddenly he quieted ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... to be done for that now. He and Dick had not stopped for meals that day since breakfast, and they had eaten their emergency rations in the early afternoon. In the tool case on his impounded motorcycle Harry knew there were condensed food tablets—each the equivalent of certain things like eggs, and steaks and chops. And there were cakes of chocolate, too, the most nourishing of foods that are small in bulk. But the knowledge ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske

... this adopted son of hers; she was longing to go back to her tribe and die among her own people. It may be that she wished to take him with her, and so gave him the drug that destroyed his will. Or, she may have been the tool of others. All this is the merest conjecture. But the facts remain that she foretold his fate, and that she vanished on the same day on which he disappeared, and that he remained in exile, voluntarily, until he was murdered by the Indians. Still—there ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... West look to you who are closer to the center of things for leadership. ... This means only that we must be true to the principles that make us Democrats. ... The law must not be severe or lenient with any man simply because he is rich nor because he is poor. It must not become the tool of class antagonism for either the persecution of the well-to-do or for the repression of the masses ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... white, tortured face, it was to find the man whom he had used as a tool, and whom, having used, he had tried to kill, seated by the fire, staring at him with his evil eyes full of hate. The others also sat watching him, all except Helen who had withdrawn to the shadow ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... possible excuse as yet for deeds of violence, though many of the more turbulent element urged riot at once. What was the use of waiting? In the afternoon there appeared some fifty more strange men. These carried tool-bags. They were challenged. They ignored the challenge and pushed on resolutely. For the first time blows were struck. The leader ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... means, either with or without a magnifying-glass, a distinct increase in the brightness of the suspected area may be noticed, indicating a thinning, and even traces of letters, or marks which have escaped the erasing-tool, may be seen. ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... century, the residence of one Humphrey Kynaston, a notorious bandit. This, however, was not his own work, since Ness Cliff, having been worked as a quarry, the cave, either by accident or design, was wrought by the labourers, and used by them as salle a manger, dormitory, or tool-house, according to circumstances. We proceeded to it by a broad rising walk of red sand, delightfully wooded, and presenting an enchanting view of the Brathyn and Wrekin, as well as the country for some miles round. At the end ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various

... again. Still Mina had no words, and no comfort for her. This sight of the other side of the question was too sudden. It was Harry then, and Harry only, who had really been in her thoughts; and Cecily, her friend, was to be used as a tool. There might be little ground for blaming Southend who had never seen her, or Lady Evenswood who had been brought in purely in Harry's interest. But how stood Mina, who was Cecily's friend? Yet at last a thought flashed into her mind and gave ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... new mare, a high and somewhat frisky bay, with big shoulders, was in the shafts of a high, green dogcart. When asked if he could drive, Ellis ought to have answered: 'That depends—on the horse.' Many men can tool a fifteen-year-old screw down a country lane who would hesitate to get up behind a five-year-old animal (in need of exercise) for a spin down Broad Street, Hanbridge, on Knype Wakes Sunday. Ellis could drive; he could just drive. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... in the presence of a third party. It is a sort of family quarrel where foreign interference can only do harm and irritate at any time, but more especially in the present state of Europe, when attempts would be made to make a tool of America." These, he said he had good reason to know, were the sentiments of the British cabinet on the question of place of negotiation and foreign mediation. He also informed Mr. Gallatin that the mediation of Russia had been refused, and that the British government would express ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens



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