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Turf   Listen
noun
Turf  n.  (pl. turfs, obs. turves)  
1.
That upper stratum of earth and vegetable mold which is filled with the roots of grass and other small plants, so as to adhere and form a kind of mat; sward; sod. "At his head a grass-green turf." "The Greek historian sets her in the field on a high heap of turves."
2.
Peat, especially when prepared for fuel. See Peat.
3.
Race course; horse racing; preceded by the. "We... claim the honors of the turf." Note: Turf is often used adjectively, or to form compounds which are generally self-explaining; as, turf ashes, turf cutter or turf-cutter, turf pit or turf-pit, turf-built, turf-clad, turf-covered, etc.
Turf ant (Zool.), a small European ant (Formica flava) which makes small ant-hills on heaths and commons.
Turf drain, a drain made with turf or peat.
Turf hedge, a hedge or fence formed with turf and plants of different kinds.
Turf house, a house or shed formed of turf, common in the northern parts of Europe.
Turf moss a tract of turfy, mossy, or boggy land.
Turf spade, a spade for cutting and digging turf, longer and narrower than the common spade.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books



... walks of the garden, after being laid out and graded, should never be plowed nor disturbed, except by the hoe and rake, to keep down the weeds and grass; yet, if a close, and well-shorn grass turf be kept upon them, it is perhaps the cheapest and most cleanly way of keeping the walks. They need only cutting off close with the ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... he sits with his legs in a dry ditch; and whenever he goes to sleep (which is very often indeed), he goes to sleep on his back. Yonder, by the high road, glaring white in the bright sunshine, lies, on the dusty bit of turf under the bramble-bush that fences the coppice from the highway, the tramp of the order savage, fast asleep. He lies on the broad of his back, with his face turned up to the sky, and one of his ragged arms loosely thrown across his face. His bundle ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... his wishes in a very few words, which were spoken in the Delaware tongue. So soon as Uncas was in possession of the reason why he was summoned, he threw himself flat on the turf; where, to the eyes of Duncan, he appeared to lie quiet and motionless. Surprised at the immovable attitude of the young warrior, and curious to observe the manner in which he employed his faculties to obtain the desired information, Heyward advanced a few steps, and ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... will, and with pleasure, for the dust has well-nigh choked me. It is a different thing drilling on this sandy ground from drilling on a stretch of good turf. Of course, you will come back and lunch with us, and bring ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... dead. Nothing more could be done that night, but next day, when the tide was out, men were lowered down the precipitous sides of the fatal bay, and the bodies of the unfortunate seamen were sent up to the top of the cliffs by means of ropes. These ropes cut deep grooves in the turf, as the bodies were hauled up one by one and laid upon the grass, after which they were conveyed to the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... like a great conflagration, like a prairie fire before a wild tornado. A little more than twenty years had passed since Owen Lovejoy, brother of Elijah Lovejoy, on the bank of the Mississippi, kneeling on the turf not then green over the grave of the brother who had been killed for his fidelity to freedom, had sworn eternal war against slavery. From that time on, he and his associate Abolitionists had gone forth preaching their crusade ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... chalk and limestone were overstocked would the overflow be constrained to look elsewhere for shelter. Then some daring innovators, driven from the favoured land, would construct habitations by grubbing into the soil, and covering them with a roof of turf. The ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, lived in underground cabins, heaped over with dung to keep them warm during the long winter. With the invention of the earthenware stove, the German Bauer has been enabled to rise above the surface; but he cherishes the manure round his ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... sensitiveness of Strokr is due to its peculiar form. An observer states that, "The bore is eight feet in diameter at the top, and forty-four feet deep. Below twenty-seven feet it contracts to nineteen inches, so that the turf thrown in completely chokes it. Steam collects below; a foaming scum covers the surface of the water, and in a quarter of an hour it surges up the pipe. The fountain then begins playing, sending its bundles of jets rather higher than those of the Great Geyser, flinging up ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... is the hour of rest! Pleasant the wind's low sigh, And the gleaming of the west, And the turf ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... meadow, and corn-fields, ripening for harvest, stretched far away, unbroken by hedge or fence. Slight ditches or banks of turf, covered with nests of violets, ferns, and wild flowers of every hue, separated contiguous fields. No other division seemed necessary in the mutual good neighborhood that prevailed among the colonists, whose fashion of agriculture had been brought, with many hardy virtues, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... set out, immediately before the house front, with scarlet and crimson geraniums in alternating square and lozenge-shaped beds. Away on the right a couple of grey-stemmed ilex trees—the largest in height and girth Tom had ever seen—cast finely vandyked and platted shadow upon the smooth turf. Beneath them, garden chairs were stationed and a tea-table spread, at which four ladies sat—one, the elder, dressed in crude purple, the other three, though of widely differing ages and aspect, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... a short interval they noticed that the ground of the forest began to slope here. Among the trees, instead of bushes, ferns and dry mosses, there was a green, damp turf, then one aspen tree, then another, and after them whole rows. They entered into this dark, humid retreat, where the rays of the sun, passing through the leaves, took on their color and reflected on the human face a pale green light. John and Kasya descended lower and lower into ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... grave of him who blazed The Comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I asked The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory tasked, Through the thick deaths of half a century; 10 And thus he answered—"Well, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... not run the risk of seeing that insolently joyous cavalcade come galloping past again. Beyond a narrow stretch of tree-shaded grass lay the placid sunlit water of the Serpentine, and Yeovil made a short cut across the turf ...
— When William Came • Saki

... where the gardener's shears had scarcely been, unless now and then, when he cut a bough of blossom for his beloved. A few tall trees shaded it, and round bushes with wax-like flowers mobbed their heads together in a row. A garden smoothly laid with turf, divided by thick hedges, with raised beds of bright flowers, such as we keep within walls in England, would have been out of place upon the side of this bare hill. There was no ugliness to shut out, and the villa looked ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... sit here and look abroad. I wonder whether I should have been with the party if I had not been lame. I dare say something would have taken off from the pleasure if I had. But how well I can remember what the pleasure is! the jumping stiles—the feel of the turf underfoot,—the running after every flower,—the going wherever one has a fancy to go,— how well I remember it all! And yet it gives me a sort of surprise to see the activity of these children, and how little they are aware of what their privilege ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... Space on the Wrykyn field being a consideration, with three house matches to be played off at the same time, Clephane's men fought their first battle on rugged ground in an obscure corner. As the captain of cricket ordered these matters, Henfrey had naturally selected the best bit of turf for Day's v. Dexter's. That section of the ground which was sacred to the school second-eleven matches was allotted to Spence's v. the School House. The idle public divided its attention between the two big games, ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... along beside, Fletcher cleared the line through a wide gap outside of St. Eustace's right tackle and sped down the field while the Hillton supporters leaped to their feet and shrieked wildly. The full-back met the St. Eustace right half, and the two were left behind on the turf. Beside Fletcher, a little in advance, ran the Hillton captain and right half-back, Paul Gale. Between them and the goal, now forty yards away, only the St. Eustace quarter remained, but behind them came pounding footsteps ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... nook and corner without seeing a trace of my poor lost friend. The direction in which he had been running terminated in a rugged line of jagged cliffs overhanging the sea. At one place here the edge was somewhat crumbled, and there appeared marks upon the turf which might have been left by human feet. We lay upon our faces at this spot, and peered with our lanterns over the edge, looking down on the boiling surge two hundred feet below. As we lay there, suddenly, above the beating of the waves and the howling of the wind, there rose a strange wild screech ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... some for you." He began plucking the flowers, which flourished in such profusion and variety that a nosegay grew in every foot of turf. "When do you think of ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith

... ram's charge had been so great that he was unable to stop when he discovered the water at his feet. In endeavoring to do so, his strong little feet ploughed into the soft turf. The Merino did a pretty half somersault and he too landed in the mud pool ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin

... her pyramid of precious stones? Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones Of merchant-dukes? the momentary dews Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, Are gently prest with far more reverent tread Than ever paced the slab ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... jolly-good-fellow class, whom he met at an old-established tavern in the west-central district, and in whose society, and the society of the subscription-ground in the Farringdon Road, he found the summum bonum in the way of social intercourse. He did a little speculation upon the turf, and discounted the bills of needy bookmakers, or bought up their bad debts, and thereby gained introductions to the noble patrons of the humble "scums," and pushed his business into new grooves. He had no idea that such an existence was in any way ignoble; nay, indeed, when he ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... lovely green hollow, surrounded by splendid old trees and velvet turf, stands Ightham Mote, a gem among old English moated manor-houses. It is the home of Mr. J.C. Colyer-Fergusson, who allows the public to see the house and grounds on Fridays, between 11 and 1, and 2 and 6. A charge of ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... afterwards became, and was laid out in vineyards and fields. I saw there the Patriarch Japhet, a majestic dark-complexioned old man, surrounded by immense flocks and herds and a numerous posterity: his children as well as himself had dwellings excavated in the ground, and covered with turf roofs, on which herbs and flowers were growing. There were vines all around, and a new method of making wine was being tried on Calvary, in the presence of Japhet. I saw also the ancient method of preparing wine, but I can give only ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... long time the officer looked at the sodden turf and at the swollen Andelle beyond it, which was overflowing its banks; he was drumming a waltz with his fingers on the window-panes, when a noise made him turn round. It was his second in command, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... 'We-ell, Doctor, his eyes has been kind o' bad along back, the last week. I did cal'late to send for you before; but one o' the neighbors was in, and she said to put molasses and tobacco-juice in them.' 'Thunder and turf!' says I. 'What sa-ay?' says Phoebe. ''N' then old Mis' Barker come in last night. You know she's had consid'able experi'nce with eyes, her own having been weakly, and all her children's after her. And she ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... a racing turf, signifies that you will have pleasure and wealth at your command, but your morals will be questioned by ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... GEORGE THE THIRD, While, in pleasure loud barking, their plaudits were heard. EIGHT CURS, thus encouraged, stepp'd out with delight, And suddenly rear'd on their hind legs upright, They bow'd, and they curtsey'd with infinite skill, And danced on the turf a graceful quadrille. More MONGRELS rush forward, all eager to tell, How their masters they serve, and in what they excel; Each follow'd or Pedlar, or Tinker, or Gipsy, And watch'd o'er the goods, while their masters got tipsy. The POACHER'S-DOG trembling, and all in a fright, Then whisper'd, he ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe

... lookin' at the gloomy guy on the turf and then at us. "What does this mean, sir? Are you trying to annihilate all my employees? Do you know you cost me a small fortune yesterday by ruining that Richard ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer

... long white beard, rather like the evil magician in the fairy tales, but most harmless. "Old Sir Thomas Erpingham," I call him, for I am sure a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than the churlish turf of India. He is very kind, and calls us Sunshine and Brightness, and pays us the most involved Early Victorian compliments, which we, talking and laughing all the time, seldom ever hear, and it is left to ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... beneath the turf, or on it, all men are equal, so no one could object to the presence of Billy Bale, the man, by Gad! who could give you the straight tip on any race, and looked like it. We all know Bale's livery stable, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... they used to visit on summer afternoons, and which had been approached by a little lane, making it seem isolated and distant, the beautiful turf had been removed to prepare a bald and barren tennis court, and they reached it by an electric car. Even the little candy-shop had become ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... out a score of men, some standing in groups, some resting on the ground, and the dark shapes of the pack-horses showing larger in the dimness. There were a few words of greeting muttered in deep voices, and then all was still, so that one heard the browsing horses trying to crop something off the turf. It was not the first cargo I had helped to run, and I knew most of the men, but did not speak with them, being tired, and wishing to rest till I was wanted. So cast myself down on the turf, but had not lain ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... tidings of their leaders lost Will soon dissolve the mountain host, Nor would we that the vulgar feel, For their Chief's crimes, avenging steel. Bear Mar our message, Braco, fly!' He turned his steed,—'My liege, I hie, Yet ere I cross this lily lawn I fear the broadswords will be drawn.' The turf the flying courser spurned, And to ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... about his neck, completed the general outline; and the tout ensemble indicated one of those dashing blades, so frequently to be encountered in the southern country, who, despising the humdrum monotony of regular life, are ready for adventure—lads of the turf, the muster-ground, the general affray—the men who can whip their weight in wild-cats—whose general rule it is to ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... well started in their improvements, &c., as soon as possible. But, when they reached that country, instead of being a paradise, they found it rather a land of desolation, disease and death, and a large proportion of them are now lying beneath the turf. The survivors are discouraged and broken-hearted, in addition to the sufferings from the disease which has swept off their companions, and they are anxious to return. Application has been made to the Government in their behalf, without obtaining relief, and, from a ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... used for human food, or could give innocent gratification to a refined taste. They taught agriculture and they taught gardening. They were the first people to surround their homesteads with flower beds, with groves, with trim parterres, with the finest turf, to improve fruit trees, to seek out and perfect edible roots and herbs at once for man and cattle. We owe to the Dutch that scurvy and leprosy have been banished from England, that continuous crops have taken the place of barren fallows, that the true rotation ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... attendants and an occasional visitor, and like all the monuments around Delhi are most carefully conserved under the Act for that purpose, which was not the least of Lord Curzon's Viceregal achievements. Among the buildings which still stand, rising from the turf, is Humayun's library. It was here that he met his end—one tradition relating that he fell in the dark on his way to fetch a book, and another that his purpose had been ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... Melissa has the Fort Warren rebel prisoners languishing in Fort Independence. But they made sure of the air of soft repose that hung about each, of that exquisite military neatness which distinguishes them, and which went to Aunt Melissa's housekeeping heart, of the green, thick turf covering the escarpments, of the great guns loafing on the crests of the ramparts and looking out over the water sleepily, of the sentries pacing slowly up and down with their ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... house, lies bare for a long time. The practical man has long since discovered these facts. A gardener is most particular to keep the top soil on the top, and not to bury it, when he is trenching. In levelling a piece of ground for a cricket pitch or tennis court, it is not enough to lift the turf and make a level surface; the work has to be done so that at every point there is sufficient depth of top soil in which the ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell

... were high and steep, but luckily for me some tree-roots protruded in places, and by their aid I climbed up at last, and stretched myself upon the turf at the top, where I lay, more dead than alive, till the sun was high in the heavens. By that time I was very hungry, but after some searching I came upon some eatable herbs, and a spring of clear water, and much refreshed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... thickets of cow-parsley, flax, kale, and brambles, matted curtains of ground-ivy, tussocks of thrift and bladder-campion, a rivulet tumbles to the brine. Above this runs a narrow terrace or plat of short turf, where a man may walk with his hands in his pockets; and here, with many ups and downs, runs the track used by the coastguard, who blaze the stones beside it at intervals with splashes of whitewash, for guidance on dark nights. Above this plateau, which here expands to a width ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... and reflection, stuffing themselves with type, as it were? Nearly every observant librarian knows of such cases. Are there not days when the shining of the sun, the briskness of the air, the greenness of the turf and of the trees, should have their invitation seconded by the librarian, and the child be persuaded AWAY from the library instead of TO it? We are supposed to contribute with our books toward the ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... solid citizens. Twenty years before, the hill on which Floral Heights was spread, with its bright roofs and immaculate turf and amazing comfort, had been a wilderness of rank second-growth elms and oaks and maples. Along the precise streets were still a few wooded vacant lots, and the fragment of an old orchard. It was brilliant ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... platform in front of this home of evil spirits had been piled a great mound of turf, sloping very gradually and smoothly, like the terrace of a well-kept lawn, to the summit, which itself was, perhaps, a hundred feet in circumference. On this was erected a kind of breastwork of ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... a great sportsman as well. He had a typically British love of outdoor pastimes as an active participator and not a mere looker-on. At various times he was associated with nearly every form of British sport. Yachting and shooting were two of his favorites, but it was his close connection with the turf which most appealed to the general public. Probably no other breeder of thoroughbreds ever had such a trio of equine giants as Florizel II, Persimmon and Diamond Jubilee. And in one year, 1909, he won over ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... at the top of the turf—at the foot of the curtain. "Ladders! Ladders!" He caught hold of the first as it was pushed up and helped—now the centre of a small crowd—to plant it against the wall. Then he fell back, mopping his forehead, and feeling his torn cheek. What the devil were they groaning ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... plane-tree, deciduous cypress, bombax, mimosa, caesalpina, hymenaea, and dracaena, appear to me to be the plants which, in different climates, present specimens of the most extraordinary growth. An oak, discovered together with some Gallic helmets in 1809, in the turf pits of the department of the Somme, near the village of Yseux, seven leagues from Abbeville, was about the same size as the dragon-tree of Orotava. According to a memoir by M. Traullee, the trunk of this oak was 14 feet in diameter.) That in M. Franqui's garden still bears every ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... a burn "and no' think lang." Such was Fiona's way with nature. She needed nothing to interest her but the green earth itself, and its winds and its waters. It was surely the Fiona side of Sharp that made him kiss the grassy turf and then scatter it to the east and west and north and south; or lie down at night upon the ground that he might see the intricate patterns of the moonlight, filtering through the branches of ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... left, their wheels cutting deeply enough into the prairie sod to show them heavily laden. With the experience of the border he was able to determine that these wagons were drawn by mules, two span to each, their small hoofs clearly defined on the turf, and that they were being driven rapidly, on a sharp trot as they turned, and then, a hundred feet further, at a slashing gallop. Just outside their trail appeared the marks of a galloping horse. A few rods farther along Keith came to a confused blur of pony tracks ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... croquet?" asked Quimbleton, showing a neat pattern of white hoops fixed in the shaven turf. "If so, we must have a game after supper. It's very ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... wad of cool moist turf, and clapped it in a pad over the wound, my handkerchief under. For his body, he was shaken and bruised, but otherwise ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes

... fantastic roots bared by the winter torrents, tangled trailers and wild plants, and infinite variety of tints and shades (i., 23-29). He denounces the improvements of Capability Brown (see "Romanticism," vol. i., p. 124): especially the clump, the belt and regular serpentine walks with smooth turf edges, the made water with uniformly sloping banks—all as insipidly formal, in their way, as the old Italian ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... it was! What air over my head; what grass under my feet! The sweetness of the inner land, and the crisp saltness of the distant sea, were mixed in that delicious breeze. The short turf, fragrant with odorous herbs, rose and fell elastic, underfoot. The mountain-piles of white cloud moved in sublime procession along the blue field of heaven, overhead. The wild growth of prickly bushes, spread in great patches over the grass, was in a glory of yellow ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... the parsimony of nature. She caused the tree and the shrub to spring forth in the richest abundance; the sturdiness of whose trunks, or the deepness of their verdure, cheated the eye with the semblance of the ripening hand of time. She sprinkled the turf, short, fine, and vivid, with flowers both native and exotic. She called forth a thousand fountains to enrich the scene. Sometimes they crept beneath the turf in almost imperceptible threads; sometimes they ran beside the alleys, or crossed them in sportive wantonness; and sometimes ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... as a cat, for all his bulk. There was turf about the cistern, he had made no sound arriving, but he tiptoed off, his kindly mouth rounded into an O of silence, his ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... Their hearts were yearning for the land They ne'er might see again— For Scotland's high and heathered hills, For mountain, loch, and glen— For those who haply lay at rest Beyond the distant sea, Beneath the green and daisied turf ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat—scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down and walked ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... these cheerless primitive pit dwellings with their ancient inhabitants, and understand something of their manners of life and customs. Their rude abodes had probably cone-shaped roofs made of rafters lashed together at the centre, protected by an outside coat of peat, sods of turf, or rushes. The spindle-whorl is evidence that they could spin thread; the mealing stones show that they knew how to cultivate corn; and the bones of the animals found in their dwellings testify to the fact that they were not in the wild state of primitive ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... expressive. "Why, Davy could eat them all! There is an energy, an elasticity in his mind, which enables him to seize on, and analyze, all questions, pushing them to their legitimate consequences. Every subject in Davy's mind has the principle of vitality. Living thoughts spring up like the turf under his feet." With equal justice, Mr. Davy entertained the same ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... stretched a short broad avenue of turf, leading to the chateau gates. These stood open, a gravelled driveway climbing thence by easy stages between kempt shrubberies to the crest of the hill, where the gray roof and red chimney-pots of the chateau were ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... to the campus, where the shadows were beginning to grow long on the freshly mown turf, and took her favorite path back to the edge of the hill, where she sat down on her favorite seat to consider this new problem. On the slope below her a bed of rhododendrons that had been quite hidden under the snow in winter, and inconspicuous through the spring, had ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... and the Satyr girls, the Fauns and Nymphs, dragged out a wretched, wandering life. No more altars of meadow turf for them, no more wreaths of flowers, no more offerings of milk and wheat and honey. Only now and then at long intervals some goat-herd would furtively lay a tiny cheese on the threshold of the sacred grot, whose ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young! Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence, Our pride it is to know no spur of pride, And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us And we die, and none can tell Them where we died. We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa—aa—aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... in France, where I see nothing but chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory that is neither town or country. The face of England is so beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf of our lawns. It is unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste, when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures; at twenty I loved nothing ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... lyin', any'ow,' retorted the critic. 'I'd git orf the turf if I cud spit 'em out that style; mek m' fortin', ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... sword in one's hand, and a good horse between one's knees; and have a chance of giving him what he brings, instead of being kicked off by the cowardly Rockite, no one knows how; and not even from behind a turf dyke, but ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... three great drops of rain, the first of the storm, fell down the wide chimney, exploding in the clear turf-fire. ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... and artistic. Exquisite beds of lilies, roses, gillyflowers, lighted with jets of gas so artfully as to make every flower translucent as a gem; fountains where the gaslight streams out from behind misty wreaths of falling water and calla-blossoms; sofas of velvet turf, canopied with fragrant honeysuckle; dim bowers overarched with lilacs and roses; a dancing-ground under trees whose branches bend with a fruitage of many-colored lamps; enchanting music and graceful motion; in all these there is not only ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... admitted to the freedom of the township, and bye-laws framed and headman and tithing-man chosen for its governance. Here plough-land and meadow-land were shared in due lot among the villagers, and field and homestead passed from man to man by the delivery of a turf cut from its soil. Here strife of farmer with farmer was settled according to the "customs" of the township as its elder men stated them, and four men were chosen to follow headman or ealdorman to hundred-court or war. It is with a reverence such as is stirred by the sight of the head-waters ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... to a train; broach; open up, open the door to. [intransitive] get underway, set about, get to work, set to work, set to; make a beginning, make a start. handsel; take the first step, lay the first stone, cut the first turf; break ground, break the ice, break cover; pass the Rubicon, cross the Rubicon; open fire, open the ball; ventilate, air; undertake &c. 676. come into existence, come into the world; make one's debut, take birth; burst forth, break out; spring ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:— "Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word," he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... cannot adequately describe this terrific disturbance. As I expected, the depraved Whig Journalist, with characteristic mental tortuosity, has asserted that the sounds proceeded from a rookery in the adjoining wood, aided by the braying of the turf-man's donkey. But an enlightened public will see through this paltry subterfuge. Rooks and donkeys! Pooh! There cannot be a doubt but that the noises were the preparatory war-whoops of this ferocious and sanguinary people. We believe the Whig editor to be the only donkey ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... rid of any necessity for tedious descriptions, and showing us, by the colour and character of Claudian's dress, and the dress of his attendants, the whole nature and life of the man, from what school of philosophy he affected, down to what horses he backed on the turf. ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... kayah and walked to the little village. It was not very large. There were half a dozen seal-skin tents, a few houses of stone and turf, and one or two wooden buildings, besides the government-house that proudly supported the flag ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.

... loop enclosed a lawny promontory, fringed by thorn and willow. It was easy to reach it from the castle side, for the river ran in this part very quietly among innumerable boulders and over dam-like walls of rock. The place was all enclosed, the wind a stranger, the turf smooth and solid; so it was chosen by ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... beautified With bounty's riches, and fair hidden pride; For where the golden ore doth buried lie, The ground, undecked with nature's tapestry, Seems barren, sere, unfertile, fruitless, dry; And where the upper turf of earth doth boast His pride, perfumes, {239} and particoloured cost, Delve there, and find this issue and their pride To spring from ordure and corruption's side. But, to make up my all too long ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... fantastic outlines, which probably originated the idea of spiritual presences hovering round the scene. Grey heather and clumps of cypress-grass dot the wild Sahara with their dry and colourless monotony, but give place on the southern side to patches of fern and turf, the scanty pasture of the mountain ponies, herding together until sickness or accident breaks the ranks, when the hapless sufferer, deserted by his kind, falls an easy prey to the wild dogs of the Tengger ranges. A heap of bleaching bones points ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... this little Grove stood a rustic Grotto, formed in imitation of an Hermitage. The walls were constructed of roots of trees, and the interstices filled up with Moss and Ivy. Seats of Turf were placed on either side, and a natural Cascade fell from the Rock above. Buried in himself the Monk approached the spot. The universal calm had communicated itself to his bosom, and a voluptuous tranquillity spread ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... hour I know as little where we went. Perhaps it was near Guildford. Perhaps some Arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and shut it up for ever when we came away. It was a green spot, on a hill, carpeted with soft turf. There were shady trees, and heather, and, as far as the eye could see, a ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... blue sky over my head," says he, "and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner - and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... short, for a horse's hoofs sounded on the turf beside the house, and presently Varley, the great London surgeon, rounded the corner and stopped his horse in ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... rotten in the State of Denmark,'" I quoted in startled comment to myself; and not knowing what else to do, stared down at the turf at my feet. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green

... was it in the good old times. Then rich men lavished marble on the temples of the gods, roofed their own cottages with chance-cut turf (II, xv, 13). And to what end all this splendour? Behind your palace walls lurks the grim architect of a narrower home; the path of glory leads but to the grave (II, xviii, 17). And as on the men, so on the women of Rome his solemn warnings are let fall. Theirs is the task to maintain the sacred ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... content to let well enough alone after enlarging the house, laying turf, and planting shrubs and flowers. He found The Hollies a ramshackle place, and left it even more so, but with a new note of artistry and several unexpectedly charming vistas. Thus, the big double window opened straight ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... aside and return to Egypt with her, to reign there as an independent king. To her Rome was almost a barbarian city. In it she could not hold sway as she could in her beautiful Alexandria, with its blue skies and velvet turf and tropical flowers. At Rome Antony would be distracted by the cares of state, and she would lose her lover. At Alexandria she would have him for ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... way home to her native place. She had her only child with her, a boy five years of age; and from some reason or other, perhaps because she could not bear to go home in shame and disgrace, she sought out a very lonely hiding-place among the hills, and with her own hands reared rough walls of turf and stones, until she had formed such a rude hut as would just give shelter to her and her boy. There they lived, uncared for and solitary, until the husband came back, after suffering his twenty-one years' punishment, and entered into a little spot of land entirely his own. Then, with the ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... which is worn or pre-occupied. A virgin mind is like a virgin soil. It contains all the elements of fertility, and is adapted to the production of any crop. It has been exhausted in no department of its constitution. It is not occupied by roots, and shaded by foliage. It is not turf-bound and dry; but it is soft and open, and clean and moist, and ready for the reception of any seed that may fall upon it. Until age brings individuality, the mind seems to have little choice as to what it will receive. Then, indeed, it does reject much seed that falls upon it, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... Royal Calcutta Turf Club premises were in the occupation for a considerable period of Sir Richard Garth, Chief Justice of Bengal, father of the present Sir William Garth, and he and Lady Garth were great favourites and very popular in Calcutta society. They used ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey

... of faggots and turf, and there were two broken pails, one on top of another, by way of ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... grass four or five feet high. The Llanos and Pampas of South America are true steppes: they present a rich covering of verdure during the rainy season; but in the months of drought, the earth assumes the appearance of a desert. The turf is then reduced to powder, the earth gapes in huge cracks; the crocodiles and great serpents lie in a dormant state in the dried mud, till the return of rains, and the rise of the waters in the great rivers, which flood the vast expanse of level surface, awaken them from their long slumber. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... the approach of the time when each person will be measured by what is represented in his ability to exert a potent influence in shaping the destiny of things and helping to mold public sentiment. The mind can no more be allowed to remain dormant or inactive than the turf of the field, or the muscles of the body. It must be stirred up; it must be awakened from its stupor and quickened ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... passengers, most of them Quakers from his own neighborhood. A third part died of smallpox on the way. On the 24th of October, he sighted land; on the 27th, he arrived before Newcastle, in Delaware; on the 28th, he landed. Here he formally received turf and twig, water and soil, in token of his ownership. On the 29th, he entered Pennsylvania. Adding ten days to this date, to bring it into accord with our present calendar, we have November 8 as the day of his arrival in the province. ...
— William Penn • George Hodges

... log structure, roofed with turf, and it had not been occupied for three years. Bushes and briers had sprung up about it; but the door was open, and the cattle were inside, lying down. We could see our Jersey's head as she lay near the door, facing out, as if doing sentinel duty. But ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... the town dismounted to pick up the trail of the fugitive, if it could be found. Thanks to a recent shower, the ground was still soft, and the cattleman soon picked up the trail of a shod horse, leading away from the road and out upon the turf. By the growing light, he was able to follow this at a fairly rapid pace, and as he pressed on the reflection came to him that if the agent continued as he was now headed, he could hope to come out ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... roaring fire from the decayed and fallen branches of trees, and while his supper of venison broiled upon its embers, he flung himself upon the turf, wearied with his march. The Indian was a noble specimen of his race. His shapely limbs indicated the presence of extraordinary strength and activity. He was clad in a buckskin hunting-frock, handsomely ornamented with quills and feathers. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the best-known cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my grandfather, A. J. Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs

... St. Mark's Place, "partly covered by turf, and planted with a few trees; and on account of its pleasant aspect called Brollo or Broglio, that is to say, Garden." The canal passed through it, over which is built the bridge of the Malpassi. Galliciolli, lib. I, cap. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... speedy locomotion, the fruits of the earth, in the winter months, when the roads were broken up or flooded, were consumed by damp and worms in one place, while a few miles further on they might have been disposed of at high prices. Turf was burned in the stoves of London, long after coals were in daily use in the northern counties; and petitions were presented to the Houses of Parliament in the reign of Henry VIII., deprecating the destruction of growing timber for the supply of hearth-fuel. Nor were these miry and uneven ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... juniper, the present rugged and broken ascent from the land side being first converted into a beautiful slope, which might be easily effected by blowing up a part of the rock with gunpowder, laying on a quantity of fine mould, and covering the whole with an elegant stratum of turf. ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... a word or two about the Ladies' Race at Epsom on Friday next. There is absolutely no knowing what will start for the Oaks nowadays until the numbers go up—and no Turf Prophet will venture a selection until the morning of the race—and this is where the perspicuity of an Editor like yourself, Mr. Punch, scores a distinct hit—for such a paltry consideration as "knowing nothing about it" is not likely to daunt a woman ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various

... architecture and the Indian's lies in the fact that the white man, with brick, stone, or frame house in his mind, is possessed of a desire to build perpendicular walls—walls which are hard to thatch and difficult to cover with turf, especially in the far North, where there is no true sod such as we understand in the middle country, where our grass grows thickly with interlacing roots. Boys will do well to remember this and imitate the Indian in making slanting walls for their ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... to the creatures she despised; and yet more than she applauded a woman who took up her idiot husband's challenge to defend her good name, and cleared it, right or wrong, and beat him down on his knees, and then started for her spell of the merry canter over turf: an example to the English of the punishment they get for their stupid Puritanic tyranny—sure to be followed by a national helter-skelter down-hill headlong. And Mrs. Lawrence was not one of the corrupt, he argued; she concealed what it was decent to conceal, without pouting hypocritical ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... It lay a couple of miles above the town, long and narrow, formed with a division of the river into its main current and a sluggish backwater. It was covered with dense brushwood, except where here and there a patch of green turf was left bare, and the island was indented with little bays where the river rippled on clean sand and gravel. It was only a little island, but yet you could lose yourself in it, so thick was the wood and so mazy, and then you had to find your comrades by signal; and it had little tracks through ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... himself down upon the grass under the overhanging branches of an appletree to rest. After his long walk repose seemed delicious, and with a feeling of exquisite enjoyment he stretched himself out at full length upon the soft turf, and closed ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... window Rob saw that it would be easy for him and Merritt to drop down on the turf below. Tubby must be taken care of first, and so Rob snatched a sheet off a bed, and twisted it into the ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... and a bevy of bridesmaids and friends in hoop, patch, velvet, silk, powder, swords, and buckles walked down the aisle; but just as the bride had come within the door, out of the sunlight that streamed so brilliantly on the mounded turf and tombstones in the churchyard, the bell in the steeple gave a ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... that are on the course are coming in at a walk; no more running. Who is ahead? Ahead? What! and the winning-post a slab of white or gray stone standing out from that turf where there is no more jockeying or straining for victory! Well, the world marks their places in its betting-book; but be sure that these matter very little, if they have run as well as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... religious spring; With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet; That done, then wind me in that very sheet Which wrapt thy smooth limbs when thou didst implore The gods' protection but the night before. Follow me weeping to my turf, and there Let fall a primrose, and with it a tear: Then, lastly, let some weekly-strewings be Devoted to the memory of me: Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep Still in the cool and silent shades ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... by class a gentleman, and could walk like one, but preferred, for some reason, to walk like a groom carrying two pails. He looked like a sort of Super-jockey; as if some archangel had gone on the Turf. And I shall never forget the half-hour in which he and I argued about real things for the first and ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... melancholy, and she grew a great lover of solitude. When she entered the grotto, she made a sign that nobody should follow her, so that her young damsels dispersed themselves into the neighboring walks. The princess threw herself upon a bank of green turf, sighed, wept, and even talked, but so softly that Leander could not hear what she said. He had put his red cap on, that she might not see him at first; but having taken it off, she beheld him standing on the pedestal. ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... successful attempt to escape by this secret passage from the prison above. Gazing through the aperture, they perceived not many feet below what had once been the castle ditch, now dry, and forming a portion of the archduke's gardens. With a joyous heart and an elastic bound, Ibrahim reached the soft turf beneath. The more timid and helpless Hassan lowered himself by clinging to a remaining iron bar, and with the aid of his companion was soon on his feet, enjoying, with many thanks to Allah, the fresh air of heaven and the consciousness of escape from captivity. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... order to leave a hole in the centre free to receive the tar. By the time the mass is ready it looks like a small hillock, and is made even more so in appearance by being thickly covered over with turf, that it may be quite air-tight, and that a sort of dry distillation may go on. Fires are then lighted at different points round the edge, to the end that the interior may catch fire, the process being aided by a train of old tar which runs from the burning point to the centre, as dynamite ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... end of it rose a stone tower, built for the purposes of defence, and all around ran a deep moat. Within the circle of this moat, and surrounded by poplars and ancient yews, on the south side of the Hall lay a walled pleasaunce, or garden, of turf pierced by paths and planted with flowering hawthorns and other shrubs, and at the end of it, almost hidden in drooping willows, a stone basin of water. Looking at it, Inez saw at once that so far as the circumstances of climate and situation would allow, Peter, in the laying out of this place, had ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard

... is to be cultivated in mud, a piece of ground is enclosed in a series of squares or terraces, by ridges raised with mud and turf; a quantity of water is directed into the field from an adjacent stream or tank, and is allowed to remain on it for fifteen days; at the expiration of this time the field is ploughed with a yoke of buffaloes, which operation is repeated at the end of fifteen days more, when, by the rotting ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... be seen. But there were a few which appeared to be the alder, that were but small, and had not yet shot forth their leaves. Upon the edges of the cliffs, and on some sloping ground, the surface was covered with a kind of turf, about half a foot thick, which seemed composed of the common moss; and the top, or upper part of the island, had almost the same appearance as to colour; but whatever covered it seemed to be thicker. I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... turf fare the daisies grue They planted Tom and 'is sister Sue And their little souls to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... I know the name of every man who has been out on an affair of honour within the last five-and-twenty years; I know the private particulars of every cross and squabble that has taken place upon the turf, at the gaming-table, or elsewhere, during the whole of that time. I have been called the gentlemanly chronicle. You may consider yourself a lucky dog; upon my soul, you may congratulate yourself, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... wight, for he was found guilty of killing the flowers, and of covering the earth with hoar-frost; and he was doomed to a long banishment from music and the sunlight. The laughing party then set up a wooden likeness of the worsted winter-king, and pelted it with stones and turf; and when they were tired they threw it down, and put out its eyes, and cast it into the river. And then a pole, decked with wild-flowers and fresh green leaves, was planted in the midst of the sward, and all joined in merry dance around it. And ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... diversification of structure is seen under many natural circumstances. In an extremely small area, especially if freely open to immigration, and where the contest between individual and individual must be severe, we always find great diversity in its inhabitants. For instance, I found that a piece of turf, three feet by four in size, which had been exposed for many years to exactly the same conditions, supported twenty species of plants, and these belonged to eighteen genera, and to eight orders, which showed how much these ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... an ancient monastery. Above all, I delighted in my friend E——'s favorite flower-garden, where her fine eye for color reveled in grouping the softest, gayest, and richest masses of bloom, and where in a bay of mossy turf, screened round with evergreens, the ancient vision of love and immortality, the antique Cupid and Psyche, watched ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... archway of solid masonry. Through this we passed on to the flat summit of the Kymore hills, covered with grass and forest, intersected by paths in all directions. The ascent is about 1200 feet—a long pull in the blazing sun of February. The turf consists chiefly of spear-grass and Andropogon muricatus, the kus-kus, which yields a favourite fragrant oil, used as a medicine in India. The trees are of the kinds mentioned before. A pretty octagonal ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... greatest charm of this particular park lies in its evident old age—trees, turf, and the disused mansion all bear witness that it is no newly planted recreation ground, but a noble relic of the days of old, with a stately dignity ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... rare place. Not by the work of art or the craft of the gardener at all; for a cunning workman had never touched its turf or its plantations. Indeed it had no plantations, other than such as were intended for pure use and profit; great fields of Indian corn, and acres of wheat and rye, and a plot of garden cabbages. Mrs. Reverdy's power of reform ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... of a mile farther down the spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up with it, crawling, often on all-fours, among the scrub. Night had almost come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right below it there was an exceedingly small hollow of green turf, hidden by banks and a thick underwood about knee-deep, that grew there very plentifully; and in the center of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goat-skins, like what the gypsies carry about with ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... desert island before Friday made his appearance. One day in June—"it was the poet's leafy month of June"—I took my way, as was my Wont, through the park to the Wilderness. The shadows of the broad thick-foliaged oaks lay in gigantic masses on the smooth turf, (of which the gardeners were a few relics of the former herds of deer, in the shape of wide-antlered stags and dappled roes;) all the sights and sounds of summer beauty were united in that solitary greensward; and for the first time in my life I felt a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... never know. Mysterious, incomprehensible, unattainable, like the dim times through which we live and think upon as if we only dreamed them in perturbed fever, the assassin of a nation's head rests somewhere in the elements, and that is all; but if the indignant seas or the profaned turf shall ever vomit his corpse from their recesses, and it receive humane or Christian burial from some who do not recognize it, let the last words those decaying lips ever uttered be carved above them with a dagger, to tell the history of a young and ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... cascade in the distance; the rapid stream rushing and foaming below us; the lofty mountains rising in front, and the rich vegetation which clothed the cliffs behind; the huts nestling under the trees; the blazing fire, surrounded by our party; the animals grazing on the green turf which carpeted the ground. There was sufficient danger to create some excitement, and yet not enough to prevent us from enjoying our supper and entering into an animated conversation. The padre and the doctor chiefly engaged ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... convulsively, so that John Bulmer saw the man's spurs glitter and twitch in the moonlight, and John Bulmer heard a snapping and crackling and swishing among the poplars, and heard the heavy, unvibrant thud of Cazaio's body upon the turf. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... chestnut colt whose name had gone down in turf history. She had known that colt from a weanling and to her he had not been ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... ground with the toe of one foot to concentrate his attention. The whin-chat could hear him murmuring to himself at intervals, "Surely that is the sense—it must be taken this way." Sometimes, on the contrary, he shook his head at Luther's Commentary, which lay on the short, warm turf before him, as if in reproof. Ralph was of opinion that Luther, but for his great protective reputation, and the fact that he had been dead some time, might have been served with a libel for heresy—at least if he had ministered to ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... Rhine flows bright; but its waves ere long Must hear a voice of war, And a clash of spears our hills among, And a trumpet from afar; And the brave on a bloody turf must lie, For the Huntsman hath ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... indent this mountainous coast, in beauty comparable, if less sublime yet more enticing, to the Norwegian fjords; within them are set the islands large and small whereon the sheep, sheltered by cedar coverts, crop the short thick turf that is nourished by mists from the Atlantic. Above bight and bay and island tower the mountains. Their broad green flanks catch the earliest eastern and the latest western lights. Their bare summits are lifted boldly into ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... foundry, too, there was a point of land whereon were certain elevations and depressions of turf-covered earth that were by many, and most certainly by me, supposed to be the ruins of a Revolutionary fort. I have heard long and warm discussions of the nature and history of these mounds and trenches, and I believe the weight of authority ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... playing a "diamond." At the best it was a "diamond in the rough." Half a mile away, on the other side of the village of Oldtown, there was a real baseball field, well laid out and kept in good condition. There was a fine turf infield, a spacious and closely cut outfield and the base lines were clearly marked. The townspeople took considerable pride in the grounds, that were much above the average for villages of that size, ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... plan which I have made in the night?' he said, as they stood on a spot of smooth turf, netted with sunlight. 'You leave us in two days. Before we start for London, I shall speak with my father, and tell him what has come about. You remember what I was saying about him the day before yesterday; perhaps it was with a half-thought of ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... happy are they in their cold English graves! Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day,— Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves Be stamped in the turf o'er their fetterless clay. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... was soon found, stretched out on the turf In spite of its fury it was unable to move as one or two of its legs had been ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to the girl and ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... wishes peace, but lightly speaks the word; frequently wishing it when there is least warrant for it; wishing it without doing anything to produce it; wishing it whilst glorying over a wrong, healing slightly a wound, covering with the turf the crater of a volcano. Christ, on the other hand, lays the foundations of peace in suitable conditions of a holy and ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... impossible they should grow to be of use, beauty, or shelter. Neither can it be said, that the soil of Ireland is improved to its full height, while so much lies all winter under water, and the bogs made almost desperate by the ill cutting of the turf. There hath, indeed, been some little improvement in the manufactures of linen and woollen, although very short of perfection: But our trade was never in so low a condition: And as to agriculture, of which all wise nations ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift



Words linked to "Turf" :   ground, turf out, jurisdiction, sod, city district, colloquialism, land, soil, cover, sward, lily turf, greensward, turf war



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